A deductive object-oriented database system for situated inference in law

Deductive object-oriented databases and situation theory are two important areas of research in the fields of databases and of linguistics. “AI and law” is a new field attracting both AI researchers and legal practitioners. Our research brings together the former two fields with the aim of designing knowledge applications in the latter. This is achieved through a formal model for legal reasoning, 𝒮ℳ (“Situation-theoretic Model”), and a deductive object-oriented database system, 𝒬𝒰ℐ𝒳𝒪𝒯ℰ. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the key features of this formal model, based on situation theory, and to describe how this database system can implement this abstract model for complex legal reasoning applications. Concrete examples from legal precedents are used to illustrate these advanced features