[Research News] “Why was this law enacted or amended?” ~New Feature to Identify and Summarize Reasons for Proposals by AI~.

Tomoya Sano, a lecturer at our center, in collaboration with Associate Professor Naoya Iwata (also from our center) and Associate Professor Takahiro Komamizu from the Center for Artificial Intelligence, Mathematical and Data Science, has developed a new feature that identifies and summarizes the reasons for proposed laws using AI. This feature is now available on the legal database published by Nagoya University (URL: https://jahis.law.nagoya-u.ac.jp/lawdb/).

The research results have been published on Nagoya University’s research dissemination website. Below is an excerpt from the article.

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In November 2023, Nagoya University launched a database that allows full-text searches of laws and imperial ordinances. This database aims to support access to legal information for a wide range of users—from experts to the general public—and to serve as a starting point for researching, understanding, and utilizing the law. However, the text of legal statutes alone can be difficult to comprehend at a glance. This is especially true for historical laws, where understanding the background—such as the legislative intent and purpose—is essential.

In this study, we first used AI to identify relevant sections indicating the reasons for legislative proposals from the minutes of the National Diet and the Imperial Diet. However, the explanations for legislative intent in these records are often lengthy and difficult to read. To address this, we applied summarization techniques to significantly improve readability. In the database, links to the original statements are also provided alongside the summarized content to ensure transparency and reliability of the information.

With this new feature, users can more easily grasp background information such as legislative purposes and intents, gaining key insights that are crucial for researching and understanding legal statutes.

(https://www.nagoya-u.ac.jp/researchinfo/result/2025/04/-ai-8.html)

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Principal Investigator：Tomoya Sano (Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences, Lecturer)