Machine-Readable Law: Limits to Applicability

In light of the development of information technology in recent years, there has been a significant increase in interest in the topic of automation of legal processes, including through the conversion of existing law into machine-readable form. Such conversion should result in machine-readable law suitable for automatic interpretation and application. The development of such law could increase legal certainty, speed up the law enforcement process, and reduce the likelihood of errors. For the successful and balanced development of this area, it is necessary to provide a theoretical and legal understanding of many features of the creation and use of machine-readable law. This article studies the issue of the limits of applicability of machine-readable law arising from the essence of such law. Using formal legal and formal logical methods, the author defines a list of the most significant limitations of the applicability of machine-readable and machine-executable law. These limitations are associated with the elimination of positive and negative legal ambiguity or the correct processing of such uncertainty; with the elimination of links to texts in natural language or with a special way of processing such links; with the specifics of using dispositive norms, etc. For machine-executable law, the requirements for the possibility of converting information on the factual composition into a machine-readable form and the ability to automatically implement the delivered judgment are considered. The issue of the joint use of artificial intelligence and machine-readable law is addressed. It is concluded that the complexity of converting legal norms varies depending on the area of legal regulation. The results obtained can be useful in determining legal norms suitable for conversion into a machine-readable form.