
France bans the publication of statistical information about judges’ decisions - megamega
https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2019/06/04/france-bans-judge-analytics-5-years-in-prison-for-rule-breakers/
======
mlacks
>After all, how can a society dictate how its citizens are allowed to use data
and interpret it – if that data is already placed in public view, by a public
body, such as a court?

I’m totally flabbergasted at how public domain is now not only censored, but
sharing of it is punishable by prison time...

>This seems to be like giving someone access to a public library, but banning
them from reading certain books that are sitting right there on the shelf for
all to see. This is a sort of coercive censorship, but of the most bizarre
kind – as it’s the censorship of justice’s own output.

The phrasing of the law is more close to being allowed to read important books
about historical events, but you are forbidden to summarize or think about the
conclusions of said events and share your findings. I can’t seem to think of
another way to rationalize those who approved this into law other than the
judges simply didn’t like the public knowing ‘how they think’. What a truly
bizarre verdict.

~~~
krstf13
The article is misleading, it’s not what the law says. The law specifically
forbids the use of personally identifiable data (ie judges and clerks name) to
conduct statistical analysis predictions. This seems to be in line with the
privacy laws that require prior consent to allow this kind of private data
processing (by private I specifically mean related to identifiable
individuals)

~~~
x220
The government doesn't have the right to privacy. If you work for the
government, people should have the right to know your name and what choices
you made in an official capacity. France is practicing the opposite of
transparency.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
> The government doesn't have the right to privacy.

France clearly disagrees.

I think that's misguided on France's part, but it's not "censorship" per se.

------
shrimpx
This is preposterous. Judges are acting predictably in making critical
decisions about people's lives. Instead of trying to fix the
bias/predictability problem, France moves to censor data revealing said
predictability.

Edit: grammar.

~~~
cm2187
There is a long tradition of shielding judges from any sort of accountability
in France. It is illegal for instance to criticize a court decision.

Even the most appalling wrongdoings have no consequences on judges. Like the
judge instructing the Outreau case (an alleged poedophile ring that resulted
in dozens of people sent to jail and/or loosing custody of their children,
before the whole case collapsed when it became clear the only evidence was the
false testimony of a single person). The judge responsible faced a
parliamentary hearing, where he appeared unfit for the job, incapable of even
speaking in public. As far as I am aware it didn't even dent his career. Or
the Nice court affair, where the president of the court was caught tipping off
a gangster from his freemason lodge. The judge was quietly sent to retirement
and never saw the bars of a jail.

Judges in France are highly politicized, as the "mur des cons" scandal
illustrated. There is a long tradition of judges prosecuting a political party
before resigning to take a senior position in a competing party (Thierry Jean-
Pierre, Eva Joly, Eric Halphen, etc).

It is therefore unsurprising to see some law trying to prevent surfacing any
evidence of partiality and/or wrong doing.

~~~
kmlx
"It is illegal for instance to criticize a court decision."

this can't be for real.

when did France become so conservative?

~~~
nraynaud
Clovis baptism?

You have to understand that France has some other traits that are way more
progressive than in the US: crossing the street is not a crime, you won't be
arrested for drinking in the street, women work more than in the US, and they
get married less, birth control and abortions are covered by insurance.

The balance is different than in the US, but people have a longer life
expectancy with a way lower GDP/capita, so something is seriously right.

~~~
viklove
What does any of this have to do with censorship? Are you saying France is
forgiven because they have other progressive policies? Seems like a very
strange stance to take.

~~~
nraynaud
that was an answer to "when did France become so conservative?"

------
XMPPwocky
Is there a good article on this that isn't from a source that seems pretty
unashamedly biased in favor of the AI companies?

~~~
thepangolino
The article directly links to the legal text:
[https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/eli/loi/2019/3/23/2019-222/jo...](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/eli/loi/2019/3/23/2019-222/jo/article_33)

> « Les données d'identité des magistrats et des membres du greffe ne peuvent
> faire l'objet d'une réutilisation ayant pour objet ou pour effet d'évaluer,
> d'analyser, de comparer ou de prédire leurs pratiques professionnelles
> réelles ou supposées. La violation de cette interdiction est punie des
> peines prévues aux articles 226-18,226-24 et 226-31 du code pénal, sans
> préjudice des mesures et sanctions prévues par la loi n° 78-17 du 6 janvier
> 1978 relative à l'informatique, aux fichiers et aux libertés. » ;

Which translates roughly to:

> The identity data of magistrates and members of the greffe can not be re-
> used for the purpose or effect of evaluating, analyzing, comparing or
> predicting their actual or alleged professional practices. Violation of this
> prohibition is punished by the penalties provided for in Articles
> 226-18,226-24 and 226-31 of the Penal Code, without prejudice to the
> measures and sanctions provided for by Law No. 78-17 of 6 January 1978
> relating to data processing, files and freedoms

------
siculars
Ok, so French citizens/entities are bard from analyzing legal decisions. But,
like, uh, how does this stop a non-French entity from doing the very same
thing? ... and then making it available to the world!

You know, cause a non-French entity is outside of France's jurisdiction.

~~~
docdeek
Surely an enterprising person will do this.

There’s a law in France regardiung the release of exit polls on the day of an
election - basically, you are restricted from releasing these polls before the
polls close so as not to impact people who vote later in the day. The law
applies to French media in France, but it doesn’t apply to non-French media
entities. Hence, if you are looking for exit polling date on the day of the
election, you hit up a French-language source in Switzerland or Belgium that
carries the polling instead of the local French news site.

I suspect this legal analysis could be a more lucrative and sustainable use
case for a non-French-but-still-French-language startup to make their way.

------
busymom0
This is the second time I am reading some absolutely ridiculous new law from
France. The other time was when I learnt paternity tests and DNA testing is
illegal in France too.

Source:

[https://www.thelocal.fr/20181220/french-ban-on-dna-
testing-c...](https://www.thelocal.fr/20181220/french-ban-on-dna-testing-cant-
stop-the-craze)

[https://www.ibdna.com/paternity-testing-ban-upheld-in-
france...](https://www.ibdna.com/paternity-testing-ban-upheld-in-france/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_paternity_testing#France](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_paternity_testing#France)

[https://www.irishtimes.com/news/french-men-s-insecurity-
over...](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/french-men-s-insecurity-over-
paternity-of-offspring-creating-a-society-of-doubt-1.773569)

~~~
seszett
But what's the point of paternity testing if it's not within the frame of a
legal procedure? And if there's a legal procedure, then it's legal.

~~~
busymom0
As a parent, if you caught your SO cheating on you, you would probably also
want to check if the kid is yours or not before divorce. Last thing you would
want to have to do is paying child support for a kid which came from your SO
cheating and not yours.

~~~
seszett
> _you would probably also want to check if the kid is yours or not before
> divorce_

Why? If you have doubts, then the DNA test will be ordered in the divorce
proceedings.

~~~
x220
It raises the costs of paternity testing. Instead of privately, cheaply
performing a test, you have to do it publicly and expensively. This _de facto_
stops many men from performing tests, which is significant and not something
you can just dismiss. Legal restrictions on consensual activity is not normal
and needs a good justification for it. It's the norm to be free to do as you
please as long as all parties involved consent.

Maybe you want to figure out if the child is genetically yours before you
initiate divorce.

~~~
seszett
The legal costs of a divorce are not very high in France (I should know)
justice is quite different from the US. And a legal paternity test is 150€,
which is cheaper than what most private labs offer.

> _consensual activity_

> _all parties involved consent_

Well that's the crux of it, indeed. Most private testing is not done in a
consensual way because that would require the assent of the child, which is
likely minor, meaning it requires the assent of both its legal parents. If you
have the assent of both the father and mother, it's easy (and free) to ask a
court to allow the testing.

~~~
carlmr
I'm not sure if you need the consent of both guardians normally.

~~~
seszett
It is required, but the consent of the other parent is _assumed_ in normal
circumstances. In a lack of trust situation like this one, the consent of the
other parent cannot be assumed.

------
cheschire
I think before the pitchforks are raised, folks should try to get familiar
with the concepts laid out in this charter published last December by the
European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice. Then you can raise the
pitchforks in an informed manner.

[https://rm.coe.int/ethical-charter-en-for-
publication-4-dece...](https://rm.coe.int/ethical-charter-en-for-
publication-4-december-2018/16808f699c)

------
sabas123
From the article it sounds like they banned any kind of statistical analysis.
I can understand that you might want to put a temporary ban on AI's that
directly advise judges, however this seems excessive.

~~~
krstf13
This is not what the law says. In France, judgements are anonymized before
being published, however the name of the judges and their teams are kept. The
law says that the names of the judges cannot be used to predict or analyse
decisions from a specific judge/court. Although I can understand why it would
be appealing to do so (eg to prove bias...), it could easily be misused to put
judges under political pressure, or encourage court shopping by less ethical
entities. Also this seems in line with data privacy laws, where you must get
prior consent in order to use personally identifiable data. It has nothing to
do with analysis of legal decisions in general.

------
ddebernardy
Isn't the L. 10-1 article also worth a note? The first paragraph seems to be
worded so as to give them legalese to prevent collecting the data in bulk.
IANAL but to me that reads like "you may access the data but we reserve the
right to deny you bulk access" (by repetitive and systematic download, aka web
scraping).

> Les tiers peuvent se faire délivrer copie des jugements, sous réserve des
> demandes abusives, en particulier par leur nombre ou par leur caractère
> répétitif ou systématique.

[https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/eli/loi/2019/3/23/2019-222/jo...](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/eli/loi/2019/3/23/2019-222/jo/article_33)

------
rplnt
I'm sure there must be a better way to word the title. I seriously had no idea
what it's trying to say without reading first few sentences of the article. Or
was that the intention?

(the stupid capitalization doesn't help either)

~~~
bonestamp2
Ya not a great title. I had to read the title a few times before I got it.

That capitalization nomenclature is called "Title Case"... typically used for
newspaper/article titles. It comes from a time when it was more time consuming
(and sometimes impossible) to add emphasis to words in some other way using
the typesetter. Newspaper sections were typically ALL CAPS and article titles
were Title Case. This allowed for different levels of emphasis using the same
character set. It's not really necessary anymore but it lives on out of
tradition.

------
Hasknewbie
I was curious why a law like that would not cause more scrutinity other than
that one website. After looking it up, the law is from this past March and has
only been discussed by a couple of French-language sites. This is not causing
more alarm because the data was previously available only in printed form,
which meant that typically only a lawyer would access it, and only on a case-
per-case basis. So in practice the data is being made more easily available,
but in a limited form. They're basically handling this like it's a whois
request.

The law specifically state that what is illegal is publishing data identifying
a judge ("Les _données d 'identité_ des magistrats et des membres du greffe ne
peuvent faire l'objet..."), so publishing general or anonymized stats is
legal. For stats regarding a judge I guess one would have to rely on the
previously available printed format. Why that is I have no idea, the only
argument I've seen is some vague reference to protecting againt "judge/lawyer
AI", which I can't make sense of in this context (is judge AI even a thing?).
This seems to me to be some kind of over-reaction to new tech.

I've come to call these type of laws 'Peak French': unforeseen issue on the
horizon? No worries, just lock everything down and pretend the problem is
solved.

------
olivierduval
Watch out: it's about "personal identities"... Like name for example. But
replacing the name by an id might be ok: it's still possible to build a model
for every judge (as a function) but not to link it to a person!

Moreover, please keep in mind that the french system is quite different from
the US/UK. In France, Judges are really tighly controlled by the law. In US/UK
they're more "free". So this kind of software has more value in US/UK where
the personality of the judge matter more

------
dsl
The site is pretty hammered. Mirror here:
[http://archive.is/kPqeg](http://archive.is/kPqeg)

------
nnq
Sounds like a _totally backwards and nonsensical_ way to solve the (possibly
legitimate) problems that they have:

\- you can choose to release _partially anonymized data_ (like without
identities of judges etc.), and have laws _preventing the use of ML to de-
anonymize data statistically_ (examples of this can be seem with medical data,
this can work fine)

\- ...you CAN'T _have the data available_ but _prevent people from using it_

 _Or did we completely misunderstood what this was about?_

Dunno WTF is with this pattern of legislations cropping around the EU (like
the copyright directives etc.) that seem the product of what can only be
explained by (a) _levels of incompetence bordering actual mental-impairment_
from the part of the legislators, or (b) _a really dark agenda being played
out behind the scenes_ (thing Germany cca. 1939-ish...).

 _This is sad because some of us really love the idea of the EU open society!_

It's like there's some dark force trying to destroy it and its countries from
within under the guise of "protecting" imaginary "rights".

------
hu3
> In short, they didn’t like how the pattern of their decisions – now
> relatively easy to model – were potentially open for all to see.

The article nonchalantly displays bias but it does seem like AI scared French
judges about their class job security. If this is the case, more than
anything, it validates AI in the judiciary.

------
derka0
Here an example of an analysis of past french judge rulings.
[https://medium.com/@supralegem/the-impartiality-of-some-
judg...](https://medium.com/@supralegem/the-impartiality-of-some-judges-
undermined-by-artificial-intelligence-c54cac85c4c4)

------
bryanrasmussen
wait a minute, was this decision made by a judge? Did anyone see this coming?

~~~
ddebernardy
Judges don't get to create rules in Roman Law systems like they do in Common
Law systems.

This is (rider?) legalese that got lobbed into a larger legislative reform.

[https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/eli/loi/2019/3/23/2019-222/jo...](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/eli/loi/2019/3/23/2019-222/jo/article_33)

~~~
vixen99
Facts in a case shape decisions or should do. Parliamentary lawmakers can
never anticipate the application of their laws to cover all possible disputes.
Common law is evolutionary and recognizes our inability to be omniscient & lay
down rules worthy of eternal justification. Moreover the logic in a case is
preserved and provides a basis for deciding similar situations via precedent.

------
bayesian_horse
Holding the users/abusers of AI to account is more important and effective
than regulating the AI technology itself.

We must never let someone say things like "It's not me that's racist, it was
the AI that made the decision!"

------
lordnacho
Presumably the same conclusions - this judge is lenient, this one harsh - are
what people familiar with the courts would have in their minds anyway. And
those people would have reached those conclusions using a neural network.

If this law is real the story might evolve. People in the law industry will
know how to structure an offshore entity that can do the analysis. And people
who get the results are going to know how to act like they didn't need the
computer.

~~~
cm2187
But if you present hard evidence it might challenge the official fiction of a
fair and impartial legal process.

------
baybal2
Last time I checked, freedom of thought was a part of article 10.

A challenge through line of EU institutes may well be able to cancel this law.

------
mar77i
[https://i.imgur.com/AzZLlDu.png](https://i.imgur.com/AzZLlDu.png)

------
crististm
Can you publish the algorithms and the method of scrapping data and let the
client make the final assembly of the pieces?

