×
Search
Metamorphoses of Law in the Visegrad countries

Electronic legal dictionary

Electronic legal dictionary of the Visegrad countries - the project proposal 

In 2011, a team of workers of the Institute of State and Law finished the first version of an electronic legal dictionary (PES) within the framework of grant supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Government. For the time being, the dictionary is in the WEB trial run (the scope of 10,000 entries) and the ad hoc access will be made possible for the persons interested in cooperation.

The dictionary, which describes the manner of use of legal terms in the texts of laws, legal textbooks and common speech, is prepared in collaboration among the Czech linguists and lawyers. Unlike regular legal dictionaries, it is not merely a dictionary of the Entry – Definition type and prospective references between entries, but the dictionary is built on the following ideas:

  1. Entries and definitions are not meant to be created, but are to be selected from representative texts (textbooks, laws). The purpose is to describe their use in a given legal order and in a common basis of the language.
  2. The dictionary has several levels: a) selection of entries and definitions from laws (legal definitions, headings), b) selection of entries and definitions from representative textbooks of the main legal branches (Criminal Substantive Law and Criminal Procedure, Civil Substantive Law and Civil Procedure, Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Roman Law, etc.) and c) processed entries are completed with a list of the most frequent contexts in the common basis of the language (national corpuses of the common language).
  3. English equivalents, synonyms, antonyms and associations are added to each entry, if they exist.
  4. A structure, in which the entry appears in a given place is added to each entry. For example, The entry: body of the crime” is defined in the textbook of the Penal Substantive Law by enumeration of elements, as follows: Definition: “the body of the crime is characterized by the type elements: a) an individual object of the crime, b) its objective aspect, c) perpetrator (subject), d) subjective aspect and e) illegality” The entry belongs consecutively comes under the following parts in the textbook of the Criminal Substantive Law (from the bottom): 1. formal elements of a crime, 2. elements of a crime, 3. basis of a criminal liability, 4. concept of a crime, 5. crime, 6. general part of the Criminal Substantive Law, 7. Criminal Substantive Law. Therefore each document has its own structure and the importance of an entry is not given merely by definition, but most of all by the place in the given structure.
  5. Each entry, provided that it consists of more parts, as well as definitions are broken down to atomic elements.
  6. Special software enables full-text searching within entries, definitions and atomic structures. A user can also move along individual branches of the hierarchic structure.
  7. From the methodical perspective, the selection of entries and recognition, or as the case may be, creation of the structure is performed by specialists in the given area. With regard to necessity of high expertise, participation of students is excluded.

The purpose of the project is to create Slovak, Polish and Hungarian equivalents for selected entries of individual legal branches including location in the structure of the given document. A proposal of the list of entries will be prepared by a team of workers of the Institute of State and Law. In the first stage, there will be roughly 500 entries for each branch.

The proposed project is costly and it expects obtaining of extensive grant funds. With regard to the prepared methodology, already processed data and software, the project is realistic, if we identify relevant experts in the aforementioned countries, ideally with experience in creating traditional legal dictionaries and knowledge of the Czech, or Slovak language.

Grant funds will be secured by the Czech party.

Persons interested in participating in the project should contact: the project director and coordinator dr. F. Cvrček: e_mail: f.cvrcek@worldonline.cz