JURIVOC: Swiss Legal Thesaurus

Introduction to JURIVOC

JURIVOC is a legal thesaurus of the Federal Supreme Court and the former Federal Supreme Insurance Court (currently the Social Law Courts of the Federal Supreme Court) intended for use in the intellectual indexing of laws, case law and legal doctrine. This thesaurus was developed in collaboration with the Swiss legal libraries. Jurivoc is targeting to index the principal sources of the law.

History of electronic legal information and databases in Switzerland

Swisslex (now part of the Westlaw offering) obtained an exclusive contract to exploit the electronic database of legal information from the Swiss Confederation in the 90’s. In January 1997, the Swiss Federal Government, following the report “A study of a new approach for the distribution and retrieval of legal information using electronic means” , decided, as later was the case with other countries, like Canada, that the legislation must be made available, free of charge, on Internet.

One month later, in February 1997, an statement made by the Federal Chancellery and the Federal Department of Justice and Police to the Swiss Federal Government proposing a new policy for the dissemination of legal information, included the following:

“The authors propose a clear distribution of tasks between the State and the private sector for
the electronic publication of legal information.

In practice the information disseminated covers mostly the legislation (Constitution, laws, regulations, international law) and the Federal codified law which should be made available to the public in all the official languages. All other legal information held electronically (doctrine, legal commentary, law manuals etc.) should on the other hand be available on the market. The Confederation should however make available to private enterprise .. the electronically held legal information of which it disposes.”

Jurivoc, the legal thesaurus

The project of a lagal thesarurusi was launched at the beginning of the 1990s with the objective of integrating and normalising the indexation vocabulary used in the different databases of legal information. The Jurivoc application, developed in Java, is available free of charge since November 1998 on the internet site of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.

The Jurivoc thesaurus contains roughly 8,000 descriptors and 10,000 non-descriptors (synonyms, quasi-synonyms and antonyms in certain cases) for each of the official languages (currently French, German, soon Italian and eventually English). The descriptors which are at the roots of the hierarchies have been chosen to be as closely related as possible to structure of the Federal legislation, a structure well understood by the Swiss legal profession.

The thesaurus does not claim to have any scientific truth, but meets the practical needs of an intellectual indexing legal documents. Legal terms constitute the essential terminology, however, the terms of other areas (eg. Geography, medicine …) are in the thesaurus to the extent that they are necessary to clarify an aspect of legal indexing .

Features of Jurivoc

JURIVOC is multilingual, namely German, French, Italian.

JURIVOC is systematic, that is to say that the terms (descriptors) are located in hierarchies that essentially repeat the plan of systematic collection of federal law.

JURIVOC monohiÃ©rarchique is, that is to say that each term (descriptor) has only one generic term.

JURIVOC is constantly changing, the updates are performed on the Internet every Tuesday of even weeks.

Case and relationships

1 Main

CAPITAL for the terms used to represent a concept, namely DESCRIPTORS (eg. NEGLIGENCE).
LOWER (non-descriptors) for terms not used for indexing documents that refer to one or more descriptors choice it comes to synonyms, quasi-synonyms, antonyms or abbreviations of descriptors that they refer (eg. guilt or dip USE FOUL USE PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW).

2 Relations

The semantic structure of the thesaurus: descriptors and non-descriptors or descriptors them are organized by the following relations:

Compared to a descriptor (when the term introduced as search is a term used as a descriptor)

LT (lead term) search term
SN (scope note)
explanatory note, definition, usage restrictions (eg. CONTRACT LAW SN regarding the general principles of contract law, see OBLIGATION (REPORT obligational) and NT CONTRACT)
COM (2nd scope note)
comment, note internal managers thesaurus
UF (used for)
synonymous almost synonymous antonym which returns the descriptor
(Eg. DISUNION UF marital breakdown)
UFA (used for … and …)
combination of the descriptors
(Eg. MARRIAGE UFA nullity of marriage)
NT (narrower term)
term lower in the hierarchy, specific term
(Eg. CONCLUSION OF MARRIAGE and DIVORCE are CONCUBINAGE or NT WEDDING)
SA (see also)
referral to another descriptor that covers a very similar concept, the reference is not necessarily reciprocal or symmetrical in all languages
(Eg. LUCRATIVE BUSINESS PROFESSION SA)
BT (Broader term)
generic term
(Eg. CIVIL LAW is the BT FAMILY LAW)

Compared to a non-descriptor (when the term entered as search criteria is not retained as a descriptor term)

USE (use)
reference to a descriptor or a choice between several descriptors
(Eg. Marital breakdown USE DISUNION)
USA (use. .. and …)
reference to a combination of the descriptors to be used for identifying the concept
(Eg. Marriage annulment USA MARRIAGE & REVOCATION)

3 Qualifiers

Level descriptors, the use of qualifiers in parentheses serves to clarify the meaning of the descriptor when covering different meanings depending on the field, so eg. AUTHOR (CRIMINAL LAW) to distinguish it from AUTHOR (INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY) specifier is not necessary in German because it is not difficult to distinguish Tater descriptor, which is AUTHOR (CRIMINAL) descriptor Urheber , which corresponds to AUTHOR (INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY).

4 Multi-target references

In terms of non-descriptors, use the designation “(eq)”after the word to indicate that the term refers to several descriptors (eg. AUTHOR (CRIMINAL LAW) has a UF author (eq) to indicate that non-descriptor also refers to other descriptors namely AUTHOR (INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY), author …).

Tips for using online Jurivoc

1 Language.:

Click on the drop-down menus or LANGUAGE SOURCE DESTINATION (= translation) to select languages.

2 Search for a word or phrase.:

Possible methods

write the word or phrase in a comprehensive manner (eg lawyer.)
truncation: use an asterisk before and after the search term (eg * lawyer or attorney *.)
permuted list: put an asterisk before and after the search term (= before and after truncation, eg * lawyer *.)
alphabetical sequence: put a colon (:) between the terms defining the sequence (y: z)

JURIVOC