Download - A. Boer TIME and VERSIONS Alexander Boer Leibniz Center for Law University of Amsterdam.

A. Boer

TIME and VERSIONS

Alexander Boer

Leibniz Center for LawUniversity of Amsterdam

Summary

Dies consulti, dies signum Not versioning, not always there in lower

regulations

Dies edicti: date-publicationDies coactu: date-enacted (inwerkingtreding)Dies valens: date-effective (.. werking)Date of modification = dies coactu of modifying provision

Overview

METALex Exchange vs. METALex StoreDesign requirementsMETALex StoreVersions and IdentityLegislation lifecycleSummary

Exchange vs. Store

Limitations of Exchanging documents Aboutness = information about doc X is part

of doc Y (e.g. date of repeal) Completeness = There is only incomplete

information about YSolution for exchange: Explicitly exclude information about a

document that is not easily, or customarily maintained in a store.

Include good references to a store with global identifiers.

Example: date-repealed

Repealing Legislation Repeal

RepealedLegislation

LegislationAttributing

Competence to repeal

2004/12/12

input

output

output

input

at

type type type

type

Enact



RepealedLegislation



2004/12/12

input

output

output

input

@

type type type

type

Enact

Metadata:

Date-repealed=

“2004/12/12”

about

“12 december 2004” ????

substring

Requirements

Independence of jurisdiction; When in doubt, leave it out No exotic options for jurisdictions

Independence of user languageExtensibility; Make the easy things easy, the hard things possibleUse W3C standards for the purposes for which they are intendedIntegrate with common and free software

XSL

XSL

XSL

Use of W3C standards

Equivalent XML schema and RDF schemaXSL (eXtensible Stylesheet Language) for transformation between languages, METALex and RDF, and METALex and XHTMLNamespaces and static URL and URN names for `global identity’ regulations, persons, and public bodiesXML Linking and XPointer support for references

Requirements Exchange

Functional requirements: Presentation in XHTML and definition in XML Translation to XML/SGML/HTML standards Translation to RDF/OWL for store Search and filtering on any meaningful level

of granularity Global identity and references Description of temporal validity and change Embedding in XML technologies for storage,

transfer, knowledge representation, code generation, rule generation, and verification

Requirements StoreFunctional requirements:

Presentation in XHTML, definition in RDF/OWL, (de)serialization in METALex XML

Search and filtering on any meaningful level of granularity

Global identity, HTTP access, references, and description of the semantic relations between regulations

Management of temporal validity and change Incomplete versions for legislative drafting Embedding in XML technologies for storage, transfer,

knowledge representation, code generation, rule generation, and verification

Example Store (DTCA)

HTTP GET HTTP GET

Cocoon: reply filtering, translation to HTML, input forms, URL sitemap, load balancing, etc.

CMS: answering queries, updating, text search, parsing

Jena: storage of RDF

Racer: inference, consistency

Content Content

HTTP GET/POST

HTTP POST (DIG XML)

HTTP GET/POST

RDF example

ConstitutionArticle 81Article 89

Article 134Article 134, lid 1

Law,Delegation

CompetenceArt. 134 Royal Decree,

AMVB, Creationof SER

Regulation(binding

employees and

employers)

Government and States General

Government

Social-economic Council (SER)

Attribution

AttributionAttribution

Attribution

Attribution

Subdelegation

Delegation



RepealedLegislation



2004/12/12

input

output

output

input

at

type type type

type

Enact

Advantages of RDF

1. Statement about something is the representational primitive: (subject, predicate, object)

2. URI `identity’ of Regulation and XML documents (files) are separated; A statement can be stored anywhere

3. Capable of storing incomplete models of a regulation

4. Uses global URI identity for non-retrievable objects; persons, acts, events, competences, decisions, etc.

5. RDF can be used to `encode’ UML, OWL and other software engineering languages

Versions and Identity

A Regulation is One regulation, but different versions Publication, XML document, RDF model, signed paper? Not draft legislation or proposed legislation?

Reference is to a version (of local part) of a Regulation on a date in a language?

Reference to identity is an injective function, e.g. publication source, citation title, database key

Also reference to identity of reference, e.g. intranet table that refers to XML documents of publisher)

Citation (art. 1 Constitution) vs. reference (that Law, specific regulation, our Minister)


Globally unique identity regulation: URI, URN, URLLocally unique identity regulation in (globally unique) namespace: ID for XML/RDF or XPath for XMLHow to obtain XML/RDF content for a reference is unspecified!

<Reference xlink:href=“global#local” ref-date=“time point”>textual reference object

</Reference>


XML/RDF model is not always complete representation of all versions wrt. language or timeRepresentation of time versions was correct (not complete) on date-versionTime intervals should therefore be closed in incomplete XML/RDF model

Time and Versions

Time and Versions

Date-repealed, date-enacted, date-publicationDate-version and “date-of-interest”!Date-ref on a reference

If missing by default the current version (date-version)!

Date-effective Semantics cannot be fixed in a standard

which pretends to be jurisdiction-independent

Time and Versions



RepealedLegislation



2004/12/12

input

output

output

input

@

type type type

type

Enact

Metadata:

Date-repealed=

“2004/12/12”

about

“12 december 2004” ????

substring

Legislation lifecycle

Fix (sign) L at T by A with competence C attributed by L’Publish L at T by A with competence C attributed by L’Enact L at T in L’’ by A with competence C attributed by L’Repeal L at T in L’’ by A with competence C attributed by L’Change L at T in L’’ by A with competence C attributed by L’

L and L’’ are different objects, but versions of the same abstract object

L’’ was published at the date the change was made

Complications

relative dates of change, enact, retract (two weeks after) The date may occur in no document as a

string!

the importance of date-version Future changes may not lead to an

unambiguous (consolidated) version (yet)

Date-enacted vs. effective/applicable



RepealedLegislation



2004/12/12

input

output

output

input

at

type type type

type

Enact

Competence/Power

Acting Attributing a competence to Y to do X Taking a competence to do X from Y Using a competence to do X Mandating Y to do X

Submandating Y to do X Delegating a competence to do X to Y

Subdelegating a competence to do X to Y (Autodelegation/Allodelegation)

Change

Dates when active, when is the change made? to what (which version) is the change

therefore made?

looking into the future...Temporary changesStacking changes on one date minimizing number of consolidated versions Jurisdiction-specific tiebreaker needed

Stacking changes

Tiebreaking rule Netherlands: date of enactment date of signing serial number of publication

This one always terminates

Summary

Future documents may be ambiguous nowURN vs URL not yet solved Authority/competence for URN

schemes Internally (DTCA) URL’s work fine

6+1 dates are really relevant Fix/Sign-date is candidate 7

Summary

Changes must to law be completely specified in law for version mangement Word change: Agreement in sentence

+ anaphoric reference

Parsing/understanding enactment, repeal, change clauses presuppose understanding of competence and relative dates

Summary

Dies consulti, dies signum Not versioning, not always there in lower

regulations

Dies edicti: date-publicationDies coactu: date-enacted (inwerkingtreding)Dies valens: date-effective (.. werking)Date of modification = dies coactu of modifying provision

Where to get it:

www.metalex.nl