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Abstract
As courts strive to simultaneously remain self-consistent and adapt to new legal challenges, a complex network of of citations between decided cases is established. Using network science methods to analyze the underlying patterns of citations between cases can help us understand the large-scale mechanisms which shape the judicial system. Here, we use the case-to-case citation structure of the Court of Justice of the European Union to examine this question. Using a link-prediction model, we show that over time the complex network of citations evolves in a way which improves our ability to predict new citations. Investigating the factors which enable prediction over time, we find that the content of the case documents plays a decreasing role, whereas both the predictive power and significance of the citation network structure itself show a consistent increase over time. Finally, our analysis enables us to validate existing citations and recommend potential citations for future cases within the court.
Highlights
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Investigating the factors which enable prediction over time, we find that the content of the case documents plays a decreasing role, whereas both the predictive power and significance of the citation network structure itself show a consistent increase over time
In this work we use the fact that the citation graph is a complex network and draw on network science methods[6,7] to investigate the development of case law through the citation patterns of The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in order to illuminate underlying factors which shape the Court’s case law 8,9
Summary
Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. We focus on the network of citations between court cases[5] These networks are interesting because case law is where abstractly formulated statutory law meets the world of facts, events, and social practices. In this sense, case law is the frontier of law, where it is decided how statutory law should be interpreted. In this work we use the fact that the citation graph is a complex network and draw on network science methods[6,7] to investigate the development of case law through the citation patterns of The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in order to illuminate underlying factors which shape the Court’s case law 8,9
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