Legal Article Retrieval

Chinese source (authoritative): ../../skills/legal-article-retrieval/SKILL.md

Overall Retrieval Process Map

Preparation Stage → Thinking Stage → Execution Stage → Review Stage → Deliverable Stage
    ↓                    ↓                ↓               ↓                ↓
Clarify purpose    Hierarchy of     Systematic      Cross-validation   Report presentation
Tool configuration   sources         retrieval      Subsumption test    Conclusion formation
                   Legal relations   Keyword method Retrieval loop      Risk warnings
                   Claim-based       Case reverse-
                     thinking          lookup
                   Validity screening
                   Conflict handling

Stage 1: Retrieval Preparation and Information Confirmation

1.1 Defining the Retrieval Purpose

Law is abstract. Statutory text may present unclear major-premise semantics or indeterminate word meaning and scope. In practice, parties often dispute the specific meaning of a provision. Therefore, before citing a legal rule, counsel should not only understand the provision’s literal meaning and logical structure, but also consider its application requirements and consult authoritative interpretations by relevant bodies.

Typical retrieval scenarios:

1. Determining the legal basis for litigation claims
2. Reviewing the law applied by the opposing party
3. Rechecking the law applied in an adjudication

[Case Study] Highway and Residential Area Distance Case Retrieval purpose: Ascertain restrictive rules on how far a highway under construction must be kept from residential areas

1.2 Prerequisite Information Confirmation (Mandatory Process)

Before entering legal retrieval, confirm that all of the following information has been obtained:

Questioning template:

Please supplement the following information so I can accurately retrieve legal authorities:

1. [Dispute type] What kind of legal issue are you facing?
   - Labor dispute (overtime pay, resignation, work injury, etc.)
   - Contract dispute (sale, lease, loan, etc.)
   - Tort liability (traffic accident, personal injury, etc.)
   - Marriage & family (divorce, inheritance, property, etc.)
   - Other (please specify)

2. [Party information] What is your status?
   - Worker / consumer / citizen / enterprise, etc.

3. [Core facts] Briefly describe what happened (time, course of events, relief sought)

4. [Geography] Does a specific locality apply? (e.g., Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, or other places with special rules)

5. [Legal relationship] Have you and the other party signed a contract? (e.g., employment contract / service contract)

[Strictly Prohibited]

• Do not call any legal retrieval tool before the user has confirmed the facts
• Do not perform inferential legal analysis based on assumptions
• Do not include legal conclusions in the fact summary

Process requirements:

1. Output a “Fact Summary” covering: parties (you vs. the other party), timeline (what happened), conduct (specific acts), issues in dispute (what you want), geography (localities involved)
2. Explicitly ask for confirmation: “Are the above facts accurate? Please state any supplements or corrections.”
3. Enter the legal retrieval stage only after the user confirms

[Case Study] Highway and Residential Area Distance Case

• Parties: Highway construction entity vs. owners of adjacent residential properties
• Core facts: Highway construction is too close to the residential area; owners claim their rights and interests are harmed
• Issue in dispute: Whether law clearly restricts the distance between a highway and residential areas
• Geography: Consider national laws and local rules (e.g., Guangdong Province Highway Regulations)

Stage 2: Retrieval Tool Configuration and Database Selection

Classified by types of sources of law:

2.1 Baseline Databases (Primary Legal Resources)

Definition: Normative legal resources, mainly laws, administrative regulations, legal interpretations, and similar instruments enacted by state legislative bodies and government. In common-law jurisdictions these also include judicial precedents and decisions. Such resources have legal effect and are normative.

Characteristics:

1. Mandatory and normative
2. Different levels of hierarchical effect
3. Legal documents have temporal validity
4. Large volume of legal literature
5. Accessed and used through particular methods

Commonly used baseline databases:

• PKULaw (北大法宝) (including English version)
• Lawyee (北大法意)
• Angle Knowledge Base (月旦知识库)
• Westlaw China (万律网)
• WestlawNext
• Lexis Advance
• HeinOnline
• Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law
• Kluwer Law Online
• Beck-online (German)
• China Judgments Online (中国裁判文书网)

[Case Study] Highway and Residential Area Distance Case Retrieval tools: PKULaw (北大法宝), China Judgments Online

2.2 Auxiliary Databases (Secondary Legal Resources)

Definition: Non-normative legal resources—all literature and information that interprets, researches, discusses, or comments on law, such as law review articles, monographs, textbooks, and explanations or commentaries on statutes and cases. Such resources do not have legal force.

Characteristics:

• Multiple publication types, large volume, widely used
• Retrieved by literature type (books, journals, theses, etc.)
• Includes self-media, WeChat official accounts, and other new-media resources

Types of auxiliary resources:

• Secondary materials: Textbooks, practice guides, monographs, WeChat official accounts, Wolters Kluwer China professional commentary, firm work product, government websites, case analyses, academic articles, online discussion, legislative developments, etc.
• Global search: Search engines (Google, Baidu, Sogou WeChat) to retrieve articles for background
• AI assistance: AI for fuzzy retrieval and preliminary analysis, but results may be used only after verification against baseline databases

Important note: Titles of laws and regulations, category, issuing authority, issuance date, effective date, and validity status are of particular importance.

2.3 Proprietary Databases

• The user’s local databases
• The law firm’s accumulated case-handling experience

Stage 3: Retrieval Thinking and Methodological Framework

3.1 Hierarchy-of-Sources Retrieval

Retrieval order: Constitution → statutes (laws) → administrative regulations → local regulations → departmental rules → judicial interpretations

Contemporary Chinese system of sources of law:

Hierarchy-of-effect rules (as provided in the Legislation Law):

• The Constitution has the highest legal effect
• Statutes have higher effect than administrative regulations, local regulations, and rules
• Administrative regulations have higher effect than local regulations and rules
• Local regulations have higher effect than local government rules at the same level and below
• Rules of provincial/autonomous-region governments have higher effect than rules of governments of cities divided into districts and autonomous prefectures within that administrative region

Application rules:

• Normative documents enacted by the same body: where a special provision conflicts with a general provision, apply the special provision; where a new provision conflicts with an old provision, apply the new provision
• Conflict adjudication procedures: conflicts between statutes are decided by the NPC Standing Committee; conflicts between administrative regulations by the State Council; conflicts between departmental rules and local government rules by the State Council

Operational points:

• Record invalid retrieval paths (to understand legislative gaps)
• Excerpt effective provisions and keep the original text intact
• Identify the relationship between jurisdiction and the rank of the issuing body
• Flag documents from bodies without authority (e.g., internal meeting minutes cannot be used directly as adjudicative authority)

[Case Study] Highway and Residential Area Distance Case Hierarchy-of-sources retrieval process:

• Invalid retrieval (record the path): Road Traffic Safety Law; Regulations on the Implementation of the Road Traffic Safety Law; Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Measures for Completion (Handover) Acceptance of Highway Engineering Projects (no specific distance rules)
• Valid retrieval:
  • Statutes: General Principles of the Civil Law Art. 83 (neighboring relations), Art. 106 (tort liability); Property Law Art. 91 (safety of immovable property)
  • Administrative regulations: Regulations on Highway Safety Protection Art. 11 (highway building control zone of no less than 30 meters), Arts. 13 and 28
  • Local regulations: Guangdong Province Highway Regulations Arts. 5 and 9 (highway and building clusters no less than 200 meters)
  • Other normative documents: Technical Standard of Highway Engineering Art. 3.0.1

3.2 Legal-Relationship Thinking

Core logic: Examine legal relationships in the chronological order in which case facts arose; treat legal relationships as the focus of examination; determination of legal facts and legal relationships precedes the search for norms.

Retrieval process

• Retrieval content

[Case Study] Highway and Residential Area Distance Case Characterization of the legal relationship: Neighboring-relations dispute + tort-liability dispute

• Subject qualification: Highway construction entity (holder of rights in immovable property) vs. neighboring residents (holders of rights in adjacent immovable property)
• Rights and obligations: The construction entity must not endanger the safety of adjacent immovable property; residents enjoy neighboring-rights protection
• Applicable law: Neighboring-relations rules in the General Principles of the Civil Law; Property Law Art. 91; Tort Liability Law

1. Application relationship between General Provisions and Specific Provisions

Principle–exception structure analysis

30-meter rule (mandatory norm; floor)
    └── 200-meter rule (planning norm; ceiling)
            └── Proviso: “determined according to requirements such as safe sight distance”

System-logic conclusion:

• <30 meters: Directly unlawful
• 30–200 meters: Need further examination of whether safety is “endangered”
• ≥200 meters: Conforms to planning; generally not a tort
  Structure of rights and obligations content

Rights system
├── Dominion rights (real rights, personality rights) → absolute rights → erga omnes
├── Claim rights (obligatory rights) → relative rights → inter partes
├── Defenses (against claim rights)
└── Formative rights (unilaterally change a legal relationship)

Obligations system
├── Duties to act (affirmative conduct)
└── Duties to forbear (non-infringement)

3.3 Claim-Based Thinking Retrieval

Core logic: Start from the claim basis; examine whether the plaintiff’s litigation claims can be established; the search for norms precedes determination of legal facts.

1. Retrieval order

1. Whether the claim has already arisen
2. Whether the claim has not been extinguished
3. Whether the claim may be exercised

Tier 1: Contractual claims (priority of private autonomy)
    └── Detailed reasons table for priority over negotiorum gestio, real rights, tort, and unjust enrichment
    
Tier 2: Claims from unilateral juristic acts (bequests, reward advertisements)

Tier 3: Quasi-contractual claims (culpa in contrahendo, unauthorized agency)
    └── Priority reason: related to contracting; good-faith duties higher than in ordinary relations

Tier 4: Claims under status law (maintenance, child support, parental support)

Tier 5: Negotiorum gestio claims (lawful justification)
    └── Justifying character + alignment with Core Socialist Values (avoid the adverse effects of the “Peng Yu case”)

Tier 6: Real-rights claims (priority of real-rights protection)
    └── Three reasons for priority over obligatory rights (priority of effect, no limitation period, no fault required)
    └── Four-type table (return of the original thing, elimination of obstruction, elimination of danger, restoration to original condition)

Tier 7: Possession-protection claims (protection of factual status)
    └── Four types + 1-year preclusive period (除斥期间)

Tier 8: Unjust enrichment claims (correction of benefit shifts)
    └── Reason for priority over tort (fault not required)

Tier 9: Tort claims (catch-all protection)
    └── Four types (general, presumed fault, no-fault, joint)
    └── Reason for placing last (not a premise for other claims)

2. Concurrence and choice of claims (highway case)

Litigation strategy:

• Assert real-rights claim + tort claim together (aggregation of claims)
• First seek elimination of obstruction and elimination of danger
• Concurrently seek damages

3. Three-layer structure for examining claims

Has the claim arisen?
    ├── Tatbestand (符合构成要件 / fits the constitutive elements)
    ├── Unlawfulness (whether justifying grounds exist)
    └── Culpability (whether fault exists)
        ↓
Has the claim not been extinguished?
    ├── Performance, deposit, set-off, release, merger
    ├── Expiry of the limitation period
    └── Right-holder’s waiver
        ↓
May the claim be exercised?
    ├── Do defenses exist?
    └── Are there other obstacles to exercise?

4. Supplementary doctrinal explanations

5. Case: Nine-tier examination table for the highway case

3.4 Screening the Validity of Statutory Provisions

Operational process

Theoretical framework of legal effect

3.4.1 Personal Effect: Four Principles

Operational flowchart:

Does the case involve foreign-related elements?
    ├── Yes → Judge the type of connecting factor
    │           ├── Act/result within Chinese territory? → Territoriality first
    │           ├── Is one party a Chinese citizen? → Personality as supplement
    │           └── Harm to major Chinese national or citizen interests? → Protection as supplement
    └── No → Apply territoriality directly

3.4.2 Spatial Effect of Law: Concrete Application of Levels and Scope

Hierarchical retrieval flowchart:

Determine where the case arose
    ↓
Layer 1: Retrieve central legislation (nationwide effect)
    ├── Constitution → statutes → administrative regulations → departmental rules
    ↓
Layer 2: Retrieve local legislation (effect within the administrative region)
    ├── Provincial local regulations → local regulations of cities divided into districts → provincial government rules → municipal government rules of cities divided into districts
    ↓
Layer 3: Retrieve special-region legislation (may adapt)
    ├── Autonomy regulations, separate regulations → SEZ regulations
    ↓
Layer 4: Judge conflicts and application

3.4.3 Temporal Effect of Law: Effectiveness, Termination, Retroactivity

Temporal-effect operational flowchart:

Build a case timeline
    ↓
Determine time of legal act vs. time law took effect
    ↓
Compare and judge
    ├── Act before law took effect → generally apply old law (non-retroactivity)
    │                               ├── Criminal law: retrieve “old law with lighter penalty if favorable”
    │                               ├── Civil law: favorable retroactivity generally not allowed
    │                               └── Procedural law: apply new law (procedure from the new)
    └── Act after law took effect → apply new law
            ↓
Judge whether the law has been repealed (express / implied)
            ↓
Judge whether it is a time-spanning act → generally apply new law (from-the-new principle)

3.4.4 Level of Effect and Conflict Resolution

Conflict-resolution decision flowchart:

Discover conflict between provisions
    ↓
Judge whether enacted by the same body
    ├── Yes (same rank) → Judge conflict type
    │                       ├── Special vs. general → apply special law
    │                       ├── New vs. old → apply new law (only for acts after new law takes effect)
    │                       └── New general vs. old special → request enacting body to decide
    └── No (different ranks) → Judge level of effect
                            ├── Lower conflicts with higher → apply higher-level law
                            ├── Local regulations vs. departmental rules → State Council opinion → decision
                            ├── Departmental rules vs. local government rules → State Council decides
                            ├── Autonomy / separate regulation adaptations → preferential within authority
                            └── SEZ regulation adaptations → preferential within the SEZ

General principles for resolving legal conflicts

Special situations in resolving legal conflicts

When conflict cannot be resolved: Refer to the purpose of the norms and existing precedents; use dialectical reasoning (substantive reasoning) to resolve hard problems caused by the complexity of legal provisions.

Situations for dialectical reasoning:

• Certain legal provisions clearly lag behind social development
• Provisions at the same rank conflict with each other
• Hard problems arise from the complexity of legal provisions
• Two legal propositions serving as premises of legal reasoning contradict each other Special conflict-resolution situations:

Highway case: hierarchy-of-effect conflict check:

Validity-check table (highway case)

Stage 4: Retrieval Execution Methods and Techniques

4.0 Data-Source and Tool-Call Convention (Mandatory)

Core principle: Every statutory provision cited under this skill must come from real retrieval. Fabricating article numbers or content from memory is strictly forbidden.

Before executing the retrieval methods below, first determine whether a regulation-retrieval tool exists in the runtime environment (e.g., a connected regulation-library MCP service, retrieval API, or local regulation library):

1. If it exists: The designed search queries must be submitted to that tool; its returned real results (law name, document number, effect level, effective/expiry dates, provision text, source link) are the sole data source for subsequent subsumption, citation, and reporting. Do not substitute or supplement retrieval results with “provisions” from memory.
2. If it does not exist: Complete search-query design and methodological steps as usual, but mark every place involving a concrete provision as [待查] (to be verified), and state in the report that “no regulation library is connected; the following queries must be executed manually.” Never fabricate article numbers, content, or document numbers.
3. **Tool-agnos

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