One-sentence brief
Legal documents can be strong primary records, but the document type and procedural stage determine what can safely be said.
INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION INTEGRITY
A publication vocabulary for distinguishing complaints, investigations, indictments, charges, pleas, trial findings, acquittals, dismissals, appeals, settlements, administrative decisions, and available remedies.
ORIENTATION
Legal documents can be strong primary records, but the document type and procedural stage determine what can safely be said.
WORKING BRIEF
A police statement, prosecutor filing, regulator notice, trial judgment, appellate opinion, settlement, and legislative report answer different questions and carry different procedural consequences.
Investigation, complaint, arrest, charge, indictment, plea, conviction, acquittal, dismissal, appeal, remand, and final disposition should not be merged. Later stages can narrow or reverse earlier theories.
Write “the complaint alleges,” “the court found,” “the defendant pleaded,” “the charge was dismissed,” or “the regulator ordered.” Avoid “proved” unless the defined forum and proposition justify it.
A conviction tied to named actors and acts does not prove that every participant, channel, symbol, movement, institution, or population shared responsibility.
A body may identify a violation yet lack power to award compensation, order deletion, stop activity, publish reasons, or compel compliance. Name what remedy was available and what outcome was actually ordered.
Where safe and lawful, preserve the subject response, later correction, appeal posture, and outcome. A no-determination or neither-confirm-nor-deny response is not proof of the underlying event.
COMPLETE DOSSIER
Terms are defined for this site’s evidence method, not as universal legal or clinical definitions.
| Stage | Required record | Unsafe shortcut | Publication-safe action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intake | Exact proposition, source origin, version, date, and claimant | Treating a link count as corroboration | Create a bounded claim record |
| Review | Directness, independence, custody, counterevidence, legal posture, and affected-person implications | Combining confidence, reliability, and legal outcome | Record separate fields and scoped reviewer questions |
| Publication | Narrow wording, decision source, uncertainty, response, and remedy | Implying authority not granted by the evidence | Publish the supported proposition only |
| Correction | Reason, prior state, dependent routes, owner, date, and reopening trigger | Silent overwrite or deleted uncertainty | Propagate and preserve the revision history |
Is the exact proposition and evidence state named?
Pass condition: Observation, interpretation, legal posture, reach, effect, and remedy are not silently merged.
Are evidentiary origins traced rather than inferred from citation count?
Pass condition: Common origins, actor-controlled material, translation, syndication, and copied anomalies remain visible.
Is the public wording bound to the exact evidence revision and review date?
Pass condition: A later change can supersede one claim without silently rewriting the historical record.
Can affected people or institutions understand, contest, correct, or appeal the claim?
Pass condition: Notice, response, correction, escalation, and remedy paths are explicit where applicable.
Is identity disclosure minimized and operational enablement excluded?
Pass condition: The content remains public-interest education rather than identification, surveillance, targeting, or operational attribution.
RESEARCH EDITION
This page follows the public method for provenance, confidence, source independence, alternative accounts, limitations, review state, and visible correction.
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