From Tradition to Technology: Citation Analysis and Changes in How We Use Case Law
Vol.31,No.2(2023)
Using traditional legal methods, it is increasingly difficult to understand the complex and expanding body of case law. This crisis of the traditional legal approach has led to a demand for new methods, one of which is citation or network analysis, an information technology-based method for examining the frequencies and patterns of citations used in judicial decisions. This article explores the potential of citation analysis and other digital methods for scrutinising case law. The paper presents two main arguments. First, since the legal meaning of a citation can vary significantly depending on the purpose for which a cited decision is used, analyzing citations without context may yield inaccurate or uninteresting insights into the content and function of the case law. The only way how citation analysis can provide insights that are accurate as well legally meaningful is by considering context of the analysed citations, at least to an extent. Second, while citation analysis and digital methods offer powerful – and today even indispensable – tools for navigating the vast landscape of case law, using these methods may transform the fundamental principles of how the legal system and case law operate.
case law; digitization; courts; citation analysis; Supreme Court; Constitutional Court; Supreme Administrative Court; normative force of case law; legal methodology; Transformation of Law
433–446
Ondřej Kadlec
Judicial Studies Institute, Faculty of Law, Masaryk University, Brno
Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, Great Britain
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