Transcript Computer representation of legal documents

Computer representation of legal
documents
Fabio Vitali
University of Bologna
May 2nd, 2000
“When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty
said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means
just what I choose it to mean - neither
more nor less”
Lewis
Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
A few words of caveat
 Natural
languages
 Technical languages
 Computer languages
 Alphabet soup
A scenario
A legal
drafter is writing a contract. He is writing a
structured text with clauses. Many of these
clauses refer explicitly to articles of national,
international and local laws. Some these laws
have changed since they were first approved.
The contract is put on the Web for all the
interested parties to read and approve it. Then it
is printed for signatures and added to the firms’
electronic collection of active contracts.
Purposes of computer representation
Printing
Browsing
Searching
Connecting
Reusing
Understanding (not
in our scope today)
Summary
We
will discuss some issues
regarding computer support in:
Structuring
legal documents
Referring to legal documents
Presenting legal documents
Structuring documents
 The World
Wide Web
 Markup languages
 HTML, SGML, XML
 XML for legal documents
The World Wide Web (1)
The Web
was originally the result of some
protocols and languages:
HTML
HTTP
URL
Software:
browsers and servers
The World Wide Web (2)
Several additions make the
Server-side:
current Web complex
DB connectivity, CGI applications,
servlets, PHP, etc.
Computation: javascript, Vbscript, Java applet,
embedded objects
Presentation: CSS, HTML 4, etc.
New media: video, audio, VR, etc.
A simple document
Marking documents up
Markup
as the means to make explicit an
interpretation of a text
Text
vs. binary markup
Types of
markup
Punctuational
and presentational markup
Procedural markup
Descriptive and referential markup
The mere content
threemeninaboattosaynothingofthedogjeromek
jeromefvbookschapter1threeinvalidssufferings
ofgeorgeandharrisavictimtoonehundredandsev
enfatalmaladiestherewerefourofusgeorgeandwi
lliamsamuelharrisandmyselfandmontmorency
weweresittinginmyroomsmokingandtalkingab
outhowbadwewerebadfromamedicalpointofvie
wimeanofcoursewewereallfeelingseedyandwe
weregettingquitenervousaboutit
With punctuational markup
Three men in a boat
To say nothing of the dog!
Jerome K. Jerome
FV Books
Chapter 1
Three invalids - Sufferings
of George and Harris - A
victim to one hundred and seven fatal maladies - …
There were four of us - George, and William Samuel
Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. We were sitting
in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we
were - bad from a medical point of view I mean, of
course.
We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite
nervous about it...
A binary specific format
A specific text format
HTML
XML (1)
XML (2)
Extensible Markup
Descriptive
Language, 1996, W3C
markup
Text
format
Emphasizes structures
Meta-markup
Standard but with strong industry support
Document types
and DTDs
XML for legal documents
 Meta-markup:
many document types
 Descriptive markup: elements are described according to
their meaning, not aspect
 Structure: legal documents are heavily structured, and
can easily be referred to according to their structures
 Duration: legal documents are supposed to last for long
periods, longer than the average Web page.
XML for legal documents
Italian laws
A main
are composed of
heading
A preamble (not always)
A structure of articles and clauses, divided in “parte”,
“libro”, “titolo”, “capo”, “sezione”, “paragrafo”, then in
“articolo”, then in “comma“ (actual law clauses). Each
of them is numbered according to specific rules.
A conclusion (not always)
Zero or more attachments
XML for legal documents
<codice>

<testata>

<estremi id="l0001985022800047">

<tipodoc>LEGGE </tipodoc>

<datadoc>28 febbraio 1985</datadoc>,

<enumdoc>47</enumdoc>

</estremi>

<epigrafe> TITLE OF LAW </epigrafe>

</testata>

<articola>

<capo id="l0001985022800047p00al00at00ac01a">

<canum><numelem>CAPO I</numelem></canum>

<catitolo>TITLE OF HEADING I </catitolo>

<articolo id="l0001985022800047ar0001a">

<grnumart><anum>1.</anum></grnumart>

<rubrica>TITLE OF ARTICLE 1</rubrica>

<comma id="l0001985022800047ar0001ac001a">

<corpo> BODY OF CLAUSE 1 OF ARTICLE 1 </corpo>

</comma>

<comma id="l0001985022800047ar0001ac002a">

<corpo> BODY OF CLAUSE 2 OF ARTICLE 1 </corpo>

</comma>

<comma id="l0001985022800047ar0001ac003a">

<corpo> BODY OF CLAUSE 1 OF ARTICLE 1 </corpo>

</comma>

</articolo>
...

</capo>
...

</articola>
</codice>
Referring to legal documents
References are
the moving blood of any working
legal system.
Implicit
vs explicit references
Modifications and references
Human and computer references
Synonyms and identifiers
URLs, URNs
URLs:

universal locators of resources
The specific method of access is explicit
http://www.cs.unibo.it/~fabio/laws/1985/0047#a11
http://
protocol for access
 www.cs.unibo.it/
domain name of web site
 ~fabio/laws/1985/0047 local name of resource
 a11
internal location within resource

URNs:


universal names of resources
The name is stable and reliable. It is converted to a URL when needed
urn://nir/L198502280047#a11
XPath
 A stable
way to refer to locations within resources:
 Specific
internal names
 Specific nodes identified via tree navigation
 Specific text chunks identified via absolute addresses
urn://nir/L198502280047#a11
Element called “a11” within document
urn://nir/L198502280047#2/3/5
5th element within 3rd element within 2nd element of resource
urn://nir/L198502280047
#xpointer(/doc/chapter[5]/section[2])
2nd section of 5th chapter of element doc within the resource
XLink (1)
A way
to express sophisticated hypertext links
(inter-document relationships)
Simple
links: point-to-point, local, directional,
embedded
Extended inline links: point-to-point, local,
multidirectional, embedded links
Extended out-of-line links: point-to-point, remote,
multidirectional, external links
XLink (2)
<extlink
xl:type=“extended” xl:role=“extlink”
xl:title=“prova”>
<ruolo xl:type=“arc” xl:from=“one”

<ruolo xl:type=“arc” xl:from=“one” xl:to=“two”/>
xl:to=“two”/>
<ruolo xl:type=“arc” xl:from=“one” xl:to=“three”/>
<ruolo
xl:type=“arc” xl:from=“one”
xl:to=“three”/>
xl:role=“one”>
 <local
<local xl:type=“resource”
xl:type=“resource” xl:role=“one”>
Click
here
Click here
</local>
</local>
<url xl:type=“locator”
xl:type=“locator” xl:role=“two”
<url
xl:role=“two”
xl:href=“http://www.sitetwo.com/”/>
xl:href=“http://www.sitetwo.com/”/>
<url xl:type=“locator” xl:role=“three”
xl:href=“http://www.sitothree.com/”/>
l:type=“locator”
xl:role=“three”
xl:href=“http://www.sitothree.com/”/>
</extlink>
URNs and XLink for legal documents
 Support
for absolute references
 Regardless
 Support
of modifications
for specific references
 Modifications
are specific and local
 Support
for automatic conversion between human,
traditional references and computer, Web-based
references
 “See
clause 3 of article 5 of law 47 of 1985
 urn://nir/L198502280047
#xpointer(/art/articolo[5]/comma[3])
Presenting legal documents
Legal
documents must be transformed in order to
be read by humans and to be used.
Printed
and on-line versions
Inclusions and quotations in other legal documents
Summaries and comments by researchers
(semi-)automatic generation of modified texts
CSS
Cascading
Style Sheet (CSS) adds rendering semantics
to existing XML documents.
Used to specify that a text node is a block element, or an
inline element, and what appearance attributes to give it.
comma
{ element-type: block;
font-size: 100%;
text-align: left;
margin-right: 5px;
margin-left: 5px;
color: #0000FF
}
XSLT and XSL
Extensible
Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT)
transforms an XML element with structural semantics into
another XML document with rendering (or other)
semantics.
Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) is a set of
elements with specific rendering semantics. Fo:block is a
paragraph, while fo:inline is an inline element
XSLT transforms any XML document into either an XSL
or an HTML document. We can use to specify that an
element in the source XML document is a fo:block element
or a <P> element
XSLT - an example
<xsl:template

<HR/>
match=”articolo">
<H2> <xsl:value-of
select=”grnumart"/> <xsl:value-of select=”rubrica"/>
</H2>

<xsl:apply-templates />
</xsl:template>
Each
element in the source element is matched with the
best fitting template, and the output is written in the
destination document.
Two case studies
There are
several experiences in Italy on using
XML for the law. Two will be examined:
Zanichelli
publisher
Norme in rete
(http://www.normeinrete.it/)
Zanichelli
A project born
in 1996 using SGML instead of
XML (but with XML in mind for evolution)
An
SGML DTD for laws and normative documents of
all kinds
An SGML database with the whole civil and criminal
code, and some 400 additional laws and normative
documents
A converter for the selection of the laws for print
A converter for the selection of laws for a CD
http://www.normeinrete.it/
 A project
born in 2000 from a joint initiative of Italian
Senate, Chamber and the Prime Minister’s office.
 A working
group identifying the best XML tools for legal drafting
and verification
 A working group delivering a DTD to constrain and shape future
laws
 A working group delivering URNs for all present and past
normative documents.
 A working group delivering meta-information sets for Italian laws
and other official documents.
Conclusions
Representing legal
Useful
documents with computers
for quotations, references, access, evolution
Requires sophisticated languages more than tools
URNs and XPaths for correct references
XML for correct structuring
XSLT for transformation into usable documents.
References (1)

Case studies



Norme in rete:
Zanichelli:
http://www.normeinrete.it/
http://www.zanichelli.it/
XML

J. Bosak, XML, Java, and the future of the Web,
http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/suninfo/standards/xml/why/xmlapps.htm

T. Bray, J. Paoli, C.M. Sperberg-McQueen, Extensible Markup Language (XML)
1.0, W3C Recommendation, 10 February 1998,
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml

T. Bray, The annotated XML Specification,1998,
http://www.xml.com/axml/testaxml.htm
References (2)

XSLT


James Clark, XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 1.0, W3C Recommendation
16 November 1999, http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt
E.R. Harold, XSL Transformations (XSLT), capitolo 14 del libro XML Bible,
disponibile in rete:
http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/books/bible/updates/14.html


James Clark, XSLT in Perspective,
http://www.jclark.com/xml/xslt-talk.htm
XPointer e XLink



S. DeRose, E. Maler, D. Orchard, B. Trafford, XML Linking Language (XLink),
W3C Working Draft , 21 February 2000,
http://www.w3.org/TR/xlink/
J. Clark, S. DeRose, XML Path Language (XPath), Version 1.0, W3C
Recommendation 16 November 1999,
http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath
S. DeRose, R. Daniel Jr., E. Maler, XML Pointer Language (XPointer), W3C
Working Draft 6 December 1999, http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr