← Back to catalogue
Published

Judgment / Legal Decision

vr.wm-pol-021 · wm-pol-021-judgment-legal-decision

Describe one adjudicative decision with its authoritative text, disposition, reasoning and evidence-qualified status, separate from case management and enforcement.

World Models Society, people and institutions SOC.POL.JDG
Bundle → Layer → Finding → QuestionsClassifiersWhat it isWhy it existsDistinguishing featuresWhat robots and AI may and may not doMoral aspectsOwnersLinks to other meta-modelsIdentity and identifiersDirect propertiesRecognitionCapabilities and actionsHazards and failure modesStandards and interfacesContext of useSources

Bundle → Layer → Finding → Questions Filled

3 bundles · 4 layers · 6 findings · 12 questions

Decision identity Which decision this is and who issued it.

Issuing body and case

The deciding body, case and date.

Issuer and citation

The court or tribunal, case number, date and citation of the decision.

  1. Which court or tribunal issued the decision, in which case and on what date?
  2. Which identifier or citation, such as an ECLI, refers to the decision?

Decision type

Whether it is a final judgment, interim order, ruling or award.

  1. Is the decision final, interim, a ruling on a point of law or an arbitral award?
  2. Which judges or arbitrators took part in the decision?
Content What the decision says.

Operative part

What the decision orders.

Disposition and remedies

The outcome for each claim and the remedies or sanctions ordered.

  1. What does the operative part decide for each claim or charge?
  2. Which remedies, costs or sanctions are ordered, and against whom?

Reasoning

Why the decision was reached.

Grounds

The facts found, the legal provisions applied and any dissent.

  1. Which legal provisions and precedents does the reasoning rely on?
  2. Are there separate or dissenting opinions?
Status Where the decision stands now.

Finality and effect

Appeal status and legal effect.

Appeal and finality

Whether the decision is final, under appeal, reversed or set aside.

  1. Has the decision become final, or is an appeal pending?
  2. Has a higher court affirmed, reversed or set aside the decision?

Publication

Whether and how the decision is published.

  1. Is the decision published, and in which anonymized form?
  2. Which parts are withheld or redacted, and on what ground?

Classifiers Filled

Family
World Models
Category
Society, people and institutions
Entry kind
entity
Navigation path
NAV.SOC.POL.JDG
Domain
SOC.POL.JDG
Industry
Cross-industry
Tags
judgmentlegaldecisionsoc.pol.jdg

What it is Filled

A judgment or legal decision is the authoritative outcome of a case by a court, tribunal or arbitral body, with its operative part, its reasoning and the remedies or sanctions it orders. It covers the decision as issued and its later status, not the case file, the pleadings or the enforcement that follows.

In scope

  • Decision identity, issuer, proceeding references, type and jurisdiction profile.
  • Authoritative text and representation provenance; issue-level outcomes, reasons and separate opinions when present.
  • Evidence-qualified issuance, entry, notification, legal effect, review, correction and access assertions.
  • Local record stewardship and mappings to external vocabularies with declared losses.

Out of scope

  • Case pleadings, hearing workflow, evidence custody and adjudication of the dispute, owned by WM-POL-009 and other masters.
  • Sanction or sentence administration and all enforcement execution, owned by WM-POL-022 and WM-POL-023.
  • Non-adjudicative administrative acts, legislation, private advice and automated decisions without an adjudicative legal profile.
  • Legal advice, automated merits determination, autonomous issuance, service, appeals or publication of case records.
  • Operational guidance for weapons, detention or controlled items; any related decisions remain policy-level references.

Why it exists Filled

Describe one adjudicative decision with its authoritative text, disposition, reasoning and evidence-qualified status, separate from case management and enforcement.

Distinguishing features Filled

  • It is the authoritative outcome of a case, while the case record holds the whole proceeding.
  • Its legal effect depends on finality, so appeal status is part of the record.
  • It contains sanctions and remedies, which are enforced separately.
  • Distinct from an administrative decision by a public authority, which is not issued by a court or tribunal.

What robots and AI may and may not do Filled

Must not

  • Present a summary or headnote as the authoritative text of the decision.
  • De-anonymize parties or witnesses in published decisions.
  • Give individual legal advice on what a party should do.
  • Treat a decision as final or binding when an appeal is pending.
  • Alter the text of a decision instead of recording a correction issued by the court.

Only with a human decision

  • Relying on a decision in legal advice or a filing.
  • Publishing a decision that has not been anonymized by the court.

May

  • Retrieve and cite published decisions with their identifier and status.
  • Summarize the operative part and reasoning while linking to the full text.
  • Report whether a decision is final or under appeal from the court record.
  • Find related decisions by cited provision or precedent.

Moral aspects Filled

  • Published decisions can expose parties, victims and witnesses, so anonymization rules must be respected.
  • Open access to case law supports equality before the law and scrutiny of courts.
  • Automated summaries can distort the reasoning that people's rights depend on.

Who is affected

  • Parties to the case
  • Victims and witnesses
  • Lawyers and courts
  • The public

Owners Filled

Steward

The registry of the issuing court or tribunal answers for the authentic text and status of its decisions.

Roles

Decision records custodian
Maintain master identity, authoritative source bindings and approved corrections.
Legal profile reviewer
Assess jurisdiction, formal requirements, effect and review assertions without inferring universal rules.
Disclosure and records officer
Authorize recipient views, restrictions, retention and lawful disposal.
Interoperability maintainer
Pin mappings, record losses and validate references and schemas.
Assisting agent
Read within scope, preserve evidence and unknowns, flag conflicts and prepare only authorized local changes.

Master systems

  • Court case management system
  • Official case law publication database
  • Arbitral institution award register

Links to other meta-models Filled

references

  • WM-POL-009 - Reference the producing Court / Arbitration Case master as the inverse context of its incoming candidate CONTAINS edge; do not duplicate case workflow.
  • WM-POL-023 - Optional Enforcement Action reference and decision basis; target owns authorization assessment and execution, never this record.

composes

  • WM-POL-022 - Optional Sanction / Sentence binding preserves the candidate contains relation only when such an outcome exists. The target owns administration; local content is the operative anchor and binding.

aligned

  • European Case Law Identifier - Optional externally allocated identifier and metadata alignment; allocation and jurisdiction participation require a verified profile.
  • Akoma Ntoso 1.0 - Conceptual mapping of decision text and judicial metadata; schema conformance and round-trip behavior are unimplemented.
  • PROV-O - Conceptual assertion and representation derivation mapping, not an external audit-trail implementation or legal authority test.

neighbor

  • WM-POL-009 Court / Arbitration Case - The case may produce multiple decisions. This decision references one or more proceeding masters without copying case lifecycle or evidence holdings. The incoming candidate CONTAINS edge is preserved as case context, not inheritance.
  • WM-POL-022 Sanction / Sentence - Outgoing candidate CONTAINS maps to optional COMPOSE. Only an ordered sanction reference and operative-text anchor belong here; no sanction is required and sanction administration remains external.
  • WM-POL-023 Enforcement Action - Outgoing REFERENCE carries the decision basis and scoped effect assertions. It does not initiate or govern enforcement, and absence of an enforcement reference proves nothing about legal enforceability.
  • Decision representations and derived commentary - An original, corrected text, language expression, public redaction, headnote and summary must not collapse into a single authoritative file. A revised legal decision and a corrected transcription require different provenance.
  • Administrative acts and rules - The title is bounded by the court/arbitration case parent. Judicial review of an administrative act is in scope as its own adjudicative decision; the underlying administrative act stays separately mastered.

parent

  • WM-POL-009

contains

  • WM-POL-022

What else AI and robots need to interact with it Filled

Identity and identifiers required Filled

  • A decision is identified by its court, case number and date, and in many European jurisdictions by a European Case Law Identifier.
  • Neutral citations and official report citations identify published decisions in many common law jurisdictions.

Direct properties not applicable Not applicable

Not applicable

A judgment is an institutional record with no physical properties to measure.

Recognition optional Filled

  • A decision names the issuing body, the parties or case, the date, an operative part and usually reasons.
  • Often confused with a pleading, a press release about the decision, a headnote or a non-binding opinion.

Capabilities and actions required Filled

  • Decisions can be issued, corrected, appealed, affirmed, reversed and published.
  • They can be cited and linked by case, provision and precedent.

Hazards and failure modes required Filled

  • Exposure of protected parties through incomplete anonymization.
  • Reliance on reversed or non-final decisions.
  • Misreading the reasoning through inaccurate summaries.

Standards and interfaces required Filled

  • European Case Law Identifier and its metadata.
  • Akoma Ntoso, the OASIS LegalDocML standard, for the decision text.
  • Court e-filing and case management interfaces where the court provides them.

Context of use required Filled

  • Used by courts, lawyers, legal publishers, researchers and the public.
  • Publication and anonymization follow procedural law and data protection law of each jurisdiction.

Sources Filled

  1. European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - European Commission
  2. Akoma Ntoso Version 1.0. Part 1: XML Vocabulary - OASIS Open
  3. Civil Procedure Rules Part 40 - Judgments and Orders - Ministry of Justice
  4. Civil Procedure Rules Part 52 - Appeals - Ministry of Justice
  5. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure - United States Federal Judiciary
  6. European Convention on Human Rights - Council of Europe
  7. UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration 1985, with amendments adopted in 2006 - United Nations Commission on International Trade Law
  8. Civil Procedure Rules Part 5 - Court Documents - Ministry of Justice
  9. PROV-O: The PROV Ontology - World Wide Web Consortium
  10. Date and Time on the Internet: Timestamps - Internet Engineering Task Force
  11. European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) (Council of the European Union)
  12. Akoma Ntoso Version 1.0, LegalDocML (OASIS)
  13. European Convention on Human Rights, Article 6 on the right to a fair trial and public pronouncement of judgment (Council of Europe)

Open questions

  • Retrieve the two limited sources in full, verify all source versions and check enacted jurisdiction profiles with competent reviewers.
  • Build nested instance schemas and fixtures for joined cases, multiple decisions, partial relief, appeal without stay, unknown finality, corrected text, separate opinions and redacted projections.
  • Pin neighboring model versions and mappings; test losses, restricted metadata leaks, lawful disposal and stale-status handling.
  • Restore independent external review before any canonical or publishable-draft promotion.
  • Independent second-provider review is absent; the required later no-tools assessment is a local self-audit.
  • Direct HTTP status and hashes are unmeasured in this sandbox. ECLI and arbitration PDF content are limited to official indexed evidence; current versions and enacted applicability remain open.
  • Criminal, family, customary, religious, constitutional and specialized tribunal profiles are not exhaustively researched; dangerous matters stay policy-level.
  • Cross-border recognition, res judicata, precedential weight, legal calendars and automated effect determination are not implemented.
  • Nested instance schemas, neighboring model version pins, mapping fixtures and executable validation are not delivered by candidate object groups.
  • Applicable licensing, archival rules, privacy regimes and retention schedules require adopting-jurisdiction review.

Machine files

Card as JSON Specification AGENTS.md Source Card backlog vercy.card/1

Provenance

world-models research · reviewable-draft

Built from: models/wm-pol-021-judgment-legal-decision/spec.yaml, ver-cy/world-models/card-supplements/wm-pol-021-judgment-legal-decision.json