xml for the recovery of the law in force

1 XML for the recovery of the Law in force

XML for the recovery

of the Law in force

UNIVERSITY OF MURCIA

Javier de Andrés Rivero <[email protected]>


Index

1. Introduction.

2. XML’s benefits to mark legal documents.

3. The made computer system.

4. Conclusions.

5. Future work.


1. Introduction

By the great overload of legal norms that exists 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 effective law.

This computer system will manage all the life cycle of a

legal norm.


Artículo 4. Empleo de la firma

electrónica.

1. Esta Ley se aplicará al uso

de la firma electrónica en el

seno de las Administraciones

públicas.

Plain text

<Articulo id="4">

<Tit>Artículo 4. Empleo de la firma

electrónica.<Tit>

<CuerpoArticulo>

<Apartado id="4.1">

<Tit>1.</Tit>

<CuerpoApartado>

<Enunciado id="4.1.1">

<Cuerpo>

Esta Ley se aplicará al uso de la

firma electrónica en el seno de las

Administraciones públicas

</Cuerpo>

</Enunciado>

</CuerpoApartado>

</Apartado>

</CuerpoArticulo>

</Articulo>

XML Document

It allows to add metadata.

2.XML’s benefits to mark legal documents



<CuerpoLegal>

<MetaInformacion>… </MetaInformacion>

<Articulado>

<Articulo id="1">

<CuerpoArticulo>

<Apartado id="1.1">

<Tit> …. </Tit>

<CuerpoApartado>

<Enunciado id="1.1.1">

<Tit> … </Tit>

<Cuerpo> … </Cuerpo>

…

…

It saves the data from hierarchic form.



It allows to integrate the connections of the references in

the own text.

Independency from the presentation layer.

It is possible to integrate easily a search engine.

Diversity of supports and means of diffusion for a same

database.


3. The made computer system

Our first task was to develop a sufficiently flexible DTD

to be able to define all types of legal norms in the

Spanish legislation.

DTD

Legal

Norm

XML

Document


The architecture

Made architecture

Business

Layer

Presentation

Layer


The architecture

Module of consolidation of the law.

Module of XML database.

Edition module of the legal documents.

Search module of the legal documents.

The modules of the business layer are:


The architecture


• This it 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 date of

publication to the date in which we want to recover it.

• 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.


The architecture


Its operation is:

(time)

Original

Norm

N1

(Date A)

Norm

that

Substitutes

N1

N2

Date B

(B > A) Date C

(C > A)

N3

Norm

that

Integrates

N1

Resultant

Norm

Norm N1 in a

concrete date

N4

Norm

that

Derogates

N1

Date D

(D > A)

N5

Norm

that

Cancels

N1

Date D (D>A)


Here we indicated the norm

and the date in which we want

to recover it

The main screen is:

Module of consolidation of the law. (Example of use)

The architecture


The result is:

The architecture


The norm is in its

original state

The architecture


If we change the date to recover to the 15th of September of 2001

We can observe that

section 1 of article 7 has

been modified by the

Real Decree 4/1999

The architecture


And if now we change it to 6th of June of 2005, it will be:

Now the section 1 of

article 7 is modified by

the RD170/2004, and in

addition article 8 too.

The architecture


The architecture


• 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:

I. It is not needed to transform the document

XML in other structure of data.

II. It is not centered in the data, i.e. it does not

store atomic data, but it stores documents

XML


The architecture

• This module is the one in charge of transforming

the original legal norm into the document XML

with the necessary structure, for its later addition

in the database.

• It is developed like an Web application for the

manual introduction of the data (copy and paste).

• A research line, we are working in, is to make it

automatic.



The architecture

• We have developed a module to make searches on

the contained legal norms in the database.

• Searches can be make by means of different

criteria.

• The most important searches are the searches by

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.



The architecture






Consolidation

BD XML

Edition Search

MADE SOLUTION


The architecture






Consolidation

BD XML

Edition Search

MADE SOLUTION

WEB

Module

PRESENTATION LAYER


4. 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.


5. Future Work

We have two important research lines :

1. The improvement of the created applications,

mainly in the automatization of the edition module.

2. 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.


THE END

Project of Investigation Reference BJU2001-0495, financed by

the Ministry of Science and Technology of Spain and FEDER,

under the National Plan of Scientific research, Development

and Technological Innovation.

Thanks for your attention