One System for a dynamic representation of laws UNIVERSITY OF MURCIA CRONOLEX One System for a dynamic representation of laws Javier de Andrés Rivero <jandres@dif.um.es> Antonio F. Gómez Skarmeta <skarmeta@dif.um.es> 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
Motivation of the project By the great overload of legal norms that exist in Spain, we have made this project to help lawyers in the task of consulting a law in a certain date. We have worked in the development of a computer system of legal text management with views to the creation of a consolidated database that allows the automatic recovery of the law in force. This computer system manages all the life cycle of a legal norm. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
Our XML structure The first task was to develop a XML structure sufficiently flexible to be able to define all types of legal norms in the Spanish legislation. This XML structure we have captured in a DTD. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
Our XML structure The DVD have two great parts. The metadata of the norm The text of the norm. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
Our XML structure The metadata of the norm: <Metadata> ··· </Metadata> The metadata tag contains information to identify and describe the legal norm. This information is not part of the text of the norm. It is the part that is updated when other norm modifies (revokes, replaces, cancels or includes) to the norm. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
Our XML structure The metadata of the norm: It’s composed of: Urn: Global identifier of the legal norm. Publication date. Take effect date (it can have several). Approbation date. Gazette where the norm was published. Unofficial name. Source of the norm. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
Our XML structure The metadata of the norm: It’s composed of: Links tags: Links that the norm has with other norms, or with parts of the other norms. Derogations tags: Derogations that the norm has suffered by others norms from its publication to nowadays. Cancellations tags: Cancellations or annulations that the norm has had, for example by judicial sentences Integrations tags: Parts included (passages of text) by other norms. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
Our XML structure The metadata of the norm: It’s composed of: Substitutions tags: It represents changes that other norms have made to fragments of text of the norm, throughout the time All these tags have attributes to indicate the date of the change, the part of the norm that it’s updated, and the identifier of the modifier norm. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
Our XML structure <MetaInformacion> <urn>urn:um:COU185/2000</urn> <FechaAprobacion date="20000228"></FechaAprobacion> <FechaPublicacion date="20000228"></FechaPublicacion> <FechaVigencia desde="20000228" id="v1"></FechaVigencia> <Boletin date="20000228" numero="111" tipo="BOE"></Boletin> <Alias>COUNCIL DECISION</Alias> <Modificacion id="m1" fecha="20021203" parteModificada="@1.1.2" xlink:href="urn:um:COU954/2002@1.1.1"/> <Modificacion id="m2" fecha="20021203" parteModificada="@3.1.3" xlink:href="urn:um:COU954/2002@1.1.2"/> <Modificacion id="m3" fecha="20040101" parteModificada="@1.1.2" xlink:href="urn:um:COU161/2004@1.1.1"/> <Modificacion id="m4" fecha="20040101" parteModificada="@3.1.3" xlink:href="urn:um:COU161/2004@1.1.2"/> <Rango>Council</Rango> <Numero>185</Numero> <IdOrden>EC</IdOrden> </MetaInformacion> Example of the metada of “Council Decision of 28th February of 2000” in actual date 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
Our XML structure The text of the norm: <Head> ··············· </Head> <Introduction> ··· </Introduction> <Articulate> ······· </Articulate> <Resolutions> ··· </Resolutions> <End> ················· </End> <Attachés> ········· </Attachés> These tags represent all the parts of a legal norm. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
Our XML structure The text of the norm: <Articulate> <Book> <Chapter> <Section> <Subsection> <Article> <Paragraph> <Statement> Only the tags “article”, “paragraph” and “statement” are obligatory, the other tags are to represent in a hierarchical way the legal norm. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system The modules of the system are: Module of consolidation of the law. Module of XML database. Edition module of the legal documents. Search module of the legal documents. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system Module of consolidation of the law. This is the most important module of the system. It is the one in charge of recovering the state of a legal document in a certain date. The module processes the legal norm, from its take effect date to the date in which we want to recover it. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system Module of consolidation of the law. Besides the original norm, it processes all later norms that substitutes, integrates, derogates or cancels the norm, from its take effect date to the concrete date. The result of the process is a new document XML with the state of the norm in that date. The new XML is not kept in the database, i.e., versions of the legal norms are not kept. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system Module of consolidation of the law. (Example of use) The main screen is: Here we indicate the norm and the date in which we want to recover it 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system The result is: 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system The council is in its original form. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system If we change the date to recover to the 4th of December of 2002 We can observe that one statement of article 1 has been modified by the Council Decision 954 / 2002 (in 03/12/2002) 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system And if now we change it to 5th of January of 2004, it will be: Now the statement of article 1 is modified by the Council Decision 161/2004 (in 01/01/2004) 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system Module of XML database. This module is the one in charge of keeping all the XML documents that represent the legal norms. We used a native XML database (XINDICE) because: It is not needed to transform the document XML in other structure of data. It is not centered on the data, i.e. it does not store atomic data, but it stores documents XML 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system Edition module of the legal documents. This module is the one in charge of transforming the original legal norm into the document XML with the necessary structure. DTD Legal Norm XML Document Process of Transformation 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system Edition module of the legal documents. When the norm is transformed in XML, it is saved in the database and at the moment the system can use it. It is developed like an application Web for the manual introduction of the data (copy and paste). A open research line, we are working in, is to make this automatic task. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system Edition module of the legal documents (example). We insert the "COUNCIL DECISION of 28th February 2000" in the system with the module. Here, we see the windows to introduce the data to transform a legal norm in the XML structure and to save in the database 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system Edition module of the legal documents (example). 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system Edition module of the legal documents (example). The resulting XML We can observe that only it has its own tags of metadata 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system Edition module of the legal documents (example). Continuation of the XML 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system Edition module of the legal documents (example). When we insert the “Council Decision of 3th December 2002” in the system. Now the metadata tags of the XML that represent the "COUNCIL DECISION of 28th February 2000" change. The resulting XML of the “Council Decision of 28th February of 2000” is: 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system Edition module of the legal documents (example). There is two new tags that indicate the changes, that the "Council decision of 3th December of 2002" have realized. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system Edition module of the legal documents (example). Now, when we insert in the system the "COUNCIL DECISION of 10th February 2004" the metadata, of “Council of 28th of February of 2000”, change again. There are two new tags that represent the new modifications that have been introduced. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
The system Search module of the legal documents. We have developed a module to make searches on the contained legal norms in the database. Searches can be made by means of different criteria. The most important searches are the searches for the dates that affect the legal norm as approval date or publication date or take effect date. The criteria can be mixed to make more precise searches. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
Crono Lex The system The modules of the system are: Module of consolidation of the law. Crono Lex Module of XML database. Edition module of the legal documents. Search module of the legal documents. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
Conclusions With this project the work of a user is facilitated when he needs to recover the state of a norm at a concrete date. Besides saving work, it makes errors reduce because the system is going to consider all the changes that have affected the legal norm from its publication date to search object date. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
Future Work We have two important research lines : The improvement of the created applications, mainly in the automatization of the edition module. To include the created system in a much more complex one. Its primary target is to determine, for a certain case, what norms are applicable and what version of these, understanding by version, the state of that norm in a concrete date. 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX
THE END Thank you very much for your attention Excuse me by my English Javier de Andrés Rivero <jandres@dif.um.es> Antonio F. Gómez Skarmeta <skarmeta@dif.um.es> 19/02/2019 CRONOLEX