Liberty-immunity pitfalls

Wrong forms, silent outcomes, LDC-E diagnostics, typical formalizer mistakes, and how to detect them.

OverviewBoundariesCorpus formsPitfalls

1. Absence of a prohibition is not permission

By default absence of a prohibition returns UNDETERMINED, not permission. A weak query is true only relative to an explicitly chosen universe of rules, source/time snapshot, interpretation, and closure policy over applicable prohibitions. An AI agent answering “permitted” to a normless question invents a position: the honest answer is UNDETERMINED listing the query’s chosen parameters.

2. Cross-wired parties

Liberties and immunities have holder/against; duties and prohibitions have bearer/beneficiary; powers have holder/over. bearer on a liberty is not “a synonym of holder” but a marker of a foreign modality: the reader looks for a duty where the norm grants a right. The claim_right view permutes the parties on purpose — which is exactly why it is a view, not a record.

3. A liberty has no goal

Performance, breach, deadline are duty categories. A liberty has only a window: CREATED before, ACTIVE inside, EXPIRED after. A test expecting position(MayX, SATISFIED) or VIOLATED fails because of a carried-over category, not because of the engine. Performing the action (withdraws) neither “performs” the liberty nor discharges it.

4. Immunity locks the effect, not the action

Immunity blocks the legal transformation but does not necessarily prohibit the organ’s physical action: an invalid exercise may still factually happen and carry separate consequences. Modelling “arrest is prohibited” as immunity loses the tort of the arrest itself: a prohibition on the organ is prohibition, un-lockability of the effect is immunity. Both forms side by side is normal; one for the other is a mistake.

5. Liberty against a prohibition with no priority

The pair is considered only for one ground subject with overlapping windows; structurally only forbearance and liberty over the same action conflict. Priority gives the loser DEFEATED, its absence — UNRESOLVED_NORMATIVE_CONFLICT, and both positions stand. Silent outcome: the case answers with conflict where the author expected permission to win. Detection — read evaluation_status, not only the positions.

6. A judge in valid_when is a request, not a refusal

A judgment relation in valid_when or condition gives NEITHER with REQUIRES_JUDGMENT and a JudgmentRequest to the named organ: no POWER_INVALID_EXERCISE is issued then — the organ has not spoken yet. The mistake is reading this NEITHER as “the power is invalid”. If the effect is already locked by immunity, the judge is not asked at all.

7. Incomplete liberty and immunity — LDC-E1305

A liberty without a holder, an action, or a window, an immunity without a holder, a protected_effect, or a window is rejection LDC-E1305 for each missing field. Detection: law engine check lists every missing field — read the whole list, not the first item.