Judicial Discretion as Normative Reasoning: Deontic Characterization of Judicial Decision Making with Answer Set Programming

Abstract

This paper presents a formal analysis of discretionary judicial decision making through its normative characterization, focusing on the concept’s central deontic feature, the inherent freedom, and its boundaries. We use answer set programming to grasp the deontic concepts and their interplay in a judge making a discretionary decision: the nuanced permissions showing the judge’s initial freedom but finally leading up to the decision itself, and the obligations, violation of which results in the decision being wrong. The here-presented formal framework hence captures judicial discretion in a comprehensive way with symbolic AI, which initiative can pave the way for broadening the application scope of computational law.