Modelling Judicial Decision Making as a Random Boolean Network: An exploratory first look

An overview of Boolean networks is presented, covering network structure, dynamics, and classification of phases. The phenomenon of judicial decision making is discussed in light of the potential for quantitative modelling of this process as a collective phenomenon. A brief overview of the legal test for the fair comment defence against a claim of defamation is made, followed by a description of one way the fair comment test might be modelled as a random Boolean network. Some preliminary computational explorations of this model are presented and discussed.