XML for the Recovery of the Law in Force

1XML for the recovery of the Law in force
XML for the recovery
of the Law in force
UNIVERSITY OF MURCIA
Javier de Andrés Rivero <jandres@dif.um.es>

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

XML for the Recovery of the Law in Force

Recomendados

Recomendados

Más contenido relacionado

Destacado

Destacado (15)

Similar a XML for the Recovery of the Law in Force

Similar a XML for the Recovery of the Law in Force (20)

Último

Último (20)

XML for the Recovery of the Law in Force