Double-Click Justice: Legalism in the Computer Age
Zenon Bańkowski, Burkhard Schäfer · Legisprudence · 2007
Legalism seen as a sort of blind rule following (often embodied in the metaphor of the “computer judge”) is often confused with legality, an altogether more reflexive and rational concept. But legality to work properly needs to be related to and articulate with the narrower concept of legalism. Only in the complex interaction of these concepts can we begin to see legality as a mode of organisation appropriate to a free and democratic society. This is here discussed in the context of the computational implementation of legal concepts which is now ubiquitous and makes the “computer judge” something more than a metaphor and instead a serious socio-legal issue, the regulation of cyberspace and other technology enhanced forms of human interaction.