4. Workshop on "Legislative XML“
Wednesday, 2005-11-16
Harald Hoffmann (METADAT, Wien),
Friedrich Lachmayer (University of Innsbruck)
Synopsis of the last workshops

Workshop on "Legal XML"
as practised today in
Denmark, Italy, The Netherlands
and Switzerland
Macolin, 17-19 March 2004

"Legal information in Switzerland: challenges from 4 languages and
27 systems"
Ardita Driza Maurer, Copiur, Federal Office of Justice, Bern
Switzerland being a federal state, laws are adopted by the federal
parliament as well as by cantons based on the distribution of
competencies as foreseen by the federal constitution. The Confederation
and the 26 cantons publish both chronological and systematic collections
of law, in printed form as well as on the Web. The main difficulty relates
to the fact that there exist 27 ways of classifying laws in the systematic
collections. Numbering of laws also differs and "multilinguism"
complicates the matter a bit further. On top of that, there is absolutely no
harmonisation of data models and formats used for Internet publications
by the 27 entities.
Introduction : Processing legal data:
general context and problems identified

Title
"Legal information in Denmark"
Author
Lise Garkier Hendriksen,
Secretariat for legal information,
Danish Ministry of Justice
Introduction : Processing legal data:
general context and problems identified

"Managing the dynamic of the law in time: legal and
technological aspects"
Monica Palmirani, Research Centre of History of Law, Philosophy and Sociology of
Law and Computer Science and Law (CIRSFID), University of Bologna
The growing number of norms produced to meet the exigencies of our developing
society has yielded a legislative morass that is undermining the certainty of the law and
bearing down on our economy and on the administration of justice. The need to ensure
widespread knowledge of the law has prompted us to develop lawmaking techniques
and software systems enabling us to draw up norms in a more proficient fashion than
we are currently able to do and achieve a better grasp of our bodies of law.
Nevertheless before to apply these methodologies and automatic tools some principles
of theory of law should be fixed inside of a community/country in order to avoid the
proliferation, in automatic or semi-automatic way, to several discrepant law texts.
These acts sometime are not valid under the legal theory point of view, however could
be define the corpora "de facto" in the Web.
Introduction : Processing legal data:
general context and problems identified

Proposed solutions (I):
Presentation of ongoing projects
"MetaLex: an interchange format for structured legal
documents"
Radboud Winkels, University of Amsterdam
MetaLex provides a generic and easily extensible framework
for the XML encoding of the structure and contents of legal
documents. It differs from other existing metadata schemes for
legal documents in two respects; It is language and jurisdiction
independent. Because of this it is an ideal candidate for an
interchange format for structured legal documents. MetaLex
also aims to accommodate uses of XML on legal documents
beyond search and presentation services.

Proposed solutions (I):
Presentation of ongoing projects
"Access to laws: main projects and overall approach in Italy"
Caterina Lupo, Centro Nazionale per l'Informatica nella Pubblica
Amministrazione (CNIPA)
In the last years several initiatives have been undertaken in Italy, aiming
to allow free access to legal documents through the internet: the project
Normeinrete has defined standards and built a portal upon a co-operative
architecture that implements a federative approach; regulatory acts that
promulgate these standards have been issued by AIPA (now CNIPA);
the main public Italian legislative database, the Court of Cassation's
Italgiure Find, has been re-engineered implementing Normeinrete
standards; a mid-term program has been started to automate norms life-
cycle including approval and publication phases, the Normeinrete
federative approach extension to the 20 Italian regions has been funded.

"Facilitating the legislative process: legal and
technological aspects"
Ib Skovsted Thomsen, Knud Erik Petersen, Folketing – the Danish
Parliament
Section 41 in the Danish Constitutional Act lays down that a Bill shall be read three
times in the Folketing before it can be adopted. The thoroughness of legislation is
safeguarded also by the committee work which comes between the first and second
readings in the Chamber. The first reading is a reading in principle. The details are
examined by the committees and during the second reading the individual sections are
discussed and amendments are often made before eventually adopting the entire Bill at
the third reading. Amendments may be introduced either by the committee or by an
individual MF. The consolidation of the original bill and the amendments adopted by
the Folketing are done manually by legal counsellors serving the Folketing. We have
put up the automation of this consolidation as a specific aim in our XML project.
Proposed solutions (I):
Presentation of ongoing projects

"CH-Gesetzesdatenbank"
Omar Abou Khaled, Mobile information system laboratory, University
of applied sciences of Fribourg
Eventually, the objective of this project is to create a one-stop-shop for accessing Swiss
(federal and cantonal) collections of laws published on the Net. The future portal must
allow for comparative search of norms. During its initial phase, researchers will
catalogue all types of legal "documents" included in the aforementioned collections and
will make an inventory of the technical means used for their Internet publishing. An
XML-based model valid for any legislative document will be proposed and a series of
XML-based pilot demonstrations will illustrate the advantages of XML technology in
the subject area. Finally, to conclude the initial phase of the project, the specialist team
from the University of applied sciences of Fribourg, will propose some architectural
solutions for putting into place the future portal and further integrating it into the very
diverse technological panorama of today's legal publications on the Internet.
Proposed solutions (I):
Presentation of ongoing projects

Proposed solutions (II): Presentation and
discussion of data models, XML schemas,.
DTDs, etc., which have been adopted
by the aforementioned projects
"Design strategies and data models in the NIR project"
Fabio Vitali, Department of Computer Science, University of Bologna
The NIR project aimed at producing data models and global naming schemas for the
markup of law texts at all levels of the Italian normative process (local, regional,
national). The choice of using XML and URN has been only the first of a long series of
specific design strategies in the project: a clear distinction between legislative data and
editorial contributions, separate support for descriptive markup (for existing texts) and
prescriptive markup (for new texts), required global names at all levels(URNs for
whole documents, fragment IDs for subparts), etc. Choosing DTDs over XML Schema
has been a choice dictated by timing (Schema was not finished at the time), and can be
turned over at a moment's notice. But other considerations may end up slowing down
the switch.

Proposed solutions (II): Presentation and
discussion of data models, XML schemas,.
DTDs, etc., which have been adopted
by the aforementioned projects
"Uniform names for norms adopted in the
Italian legal environment"
Pier Luigi Spinosa, Istituto di teoria e tecniche dell'informazione
giuridica (ITTIG) - Italian National Research Council (CNR)
In order to facilitate retrieval and navigation between legal documents in a distributed
environment, a standard has been defined, within the national project Normeinrete, to
construct a global hypertext (lasting and independent of location on the Web): the
identification of the measures through uniform names (URNs). The main characteristics
are: a) a schema for assigning the names, based on the formalised representation of the
essential elements of a legal act; b) the possibility to build the uniform name, manually
or automatically (by a parser), from the reference; c) the principles of the resolver
service from name to location on the Web.

Proposed solutions (II): Presentation and
discussion of data models, XML schemas,.
DTDs, etc., which have been adopted
by the aforementioned projects
"Data models in the MetaLex project"
Alexander Boer, University of Amsterdam

Proposed solutions (II): Presentation and
discussion of data models, XML schemas,.
DTDs, etc., which have been adopted
by the aforementioned projects
"Data models in CH-Gesetzesdatenbank project"
Mario Ramalho, Mobile information system laboratory,
University of applied sciences of Fribourg

Proposed solutions (II): Presentation and
discussion of data models, XML schemas,.
DTDs, etc., which have been adopted
by the aforementioned projects
"Data models in the Danish project"
Knud Erik Petersen, Folketing – the Danish Parliament

Proposed solutions (III):
Presentation of XML editors
"The NIREditor: an XML specific environment for legislative
drafting"
Carlo Biagioli, Enrico Francesconi, Istituto di Teoria e Techniche
dell'Informazione Giuridica (ITTIG)
NIREditor is a specific law drafting environment, able to produce legal documents
according to the XML standards established within the national Project Norme in rete
(Legislation on the Net) which aims at making easier the retrieval and navigation
between legal documents in a distributed environment. The main functions that help the
user to apply such standards and the possible working situations are presented: the
transformation of legacy law content into the XML-NIR standards as well as the
composition and organisation of new texts.

Proposed solutions (III):
Presentation of XML editors
"Norma-Editor"
Monica Palmirani, Research Centre of History of Law, Philosophy and
Sociology of Law and Computer Science and Law (CIRSFID),
University of Bologna
Norma-Editor is an legal drafting editor based on MicrosoftWord environment
developed for helping public administration officers to produce acts in line with the
XML standard defined inside of NIR project. Norma-Editor permits: (1) to mark in
automatic way the old and new texts bringing out XML documents in line with the
DTDs of NIR and building URN names; (2) to detect in automatic way the normative
references and support their classification respect the type of action they produce on the
rest of the corpora; (3) to enter the normative texts in the versioning database in a
coherent and orderly way; (4) to help to build consolidated acts or in other words to
build the law in force in the time.

Macolin, 17-19 March 2004

Workshop on legislative xml
Kobæk Strand, Skælskør,
September 22 – 24, 2004

What has happened since
we met in Magglingen/Macolin
MetaLex Radboud Winkels
University of Amsterdam
CHLexML .
NormeinRete Caterina Lupo
Centro Nazionale per
l’informatica nella pubblica
amministrazione - CNIPA
Lex Dania XML Knud Erik Petersen
The Folketing

Legislative time management
Vocabulary on dates and
time -
how to reach a shared
understanding of concepts
and terminology
Nina Koch
Secretariat for Legal
Information
Legal time management
- analysis of possible variants
Friedrich Lachmayer,
Guenther Schefbeck, Harald
Hoffmann and Helga Stöger
Friedrich Lachmayer,
University of Innsbruck

Legislative time management
Times and Versions in
MetaLex XML
Alexander Boer, Rinke
Hoekstra, Radboud Winkels,
Tom van Engers and
Matthijs Breebaart
Alexander Boer
University of Amsterdam
Dates and time in Swiss law
& time management in
CHLexML
.

Legislative time management
Dates and time in
Danish law & (planned)
time management in Lex
Dania
Dan Bjerring
MOJ, Legal Department &
Lise Garkier Hendriksen
Secretariat for Legal
Information
Dates and time in Italian
law & time management
in NormeInRete
Monica Palmirani
University of Bologna

Legislative time management
Moment of Truth –
discussion and
bookkeeping
Knud Erik Petersen & Britt
Thøgersen, The Folketing

Legislative time management
Our vocabulary on dates
and time - conclusions
Nina Koch
Secretariat for Legal
Information
The use of SGML and
XML at the Publications
Office
Holger Bagola
Publications Office

An Italian appetizer to metadata
as a possible subject for future work
Metadata in the current NIR
dtd
Fabio Vitali,
University of Bologna
The role of metadata for
creating and preserving
digital documents
Mariella Guercio;
University of Urbino

Kobæk Strand, Skælskør,
September 22 – 24, 2004

3rd Workshop on legislative xml
6 – 8 April 2005, Furore Inn,
Furore (Costa d’Amalfi)

I. Upgrade of ongoing projects since
Koebek Strand and new presentations
Upgrade of the project CHLexML since Koebek Strand
Mr Urs Paul Holenstein, Office federal de la justice, service Copiur,
Switzerland
Legislative XML in the Irish Parliament – our reasons and our
experience
Ms Patricia Doran, Public Bills Office Office of the Houses of the
Oireachtas, Leinster House, Ireland
Legal xml/metalex issues in the Netherlands and European (FP6)
initiatives
Mr Winkels Radbound, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

I. Upgrade of ongoing projects since
Koebek Strand and new presentations
Normeinrete and e-leges
Ms Caterina Lupo, Centro Nazionale per l'Informatica nella
Pubblica Amministrazione (CNIPA), Italy
Lex Dania since Kobaek
Mr Knud Erik Petersen, Folketing, Denmark

II. Data and time management:
a new attempt to agree on
common definitions and vocabulary
Time model for managing law in force in a normative system
perspective
Ms Monica Palmirani, Research Centre of History of Law, Philosophy
and Sociology of Law and Computer Science and Law (CIRSFID),
University of Bologna, Italy

III. Focus on ongoing projects’ standards
definitions relevant peculiarities
Schema CHLeXML
Mr Hubert Münst, Datafactory AG, Switzerland
Lex Dania Schema Development
Mr Ole Lianee, CSC Denmark, Denmark

III. Focus on ongoing projects’ standards
definitions relevant peculiarities
Genericity and flexibility in the NIR schema
Mr Fabio Vitali, Department of Computer Science, University
of Bologna, Italy
Extension and internationalisation of Italian URNs
scheme
Mr Pier Luigi Spinosa, Istituto di teoria e tecniche
dell’informazione giuridica (ITTIG) – Italian National
Research Council (CNR), Italy

IV. Presentations of tools
(editors, resolution systems, search,
categorization, knowledge extraction)
Presentation of a case of consolidation with Norma-
System using DTD v. 2
Ms Monica Palmirani, Research Centre of History of Law,
Philosophy and Sociology of Law and Computer Science and
Law (CIRSFID), University of Bologna, Italy
NIREditor developments: support for planning a new
bill
Mr Enrico Francesconi, Istituto di Teoria e Tecniche
dell’Informazione Giuridica (ITTIG), Italy

V. Law’s production processes /
systems interoperability
Including XML in the central production system of
Retsinformation
Mr Søren Broberg Nielsen, Civil Affairs, Legal Information Division,
Denmark
Enabling service oriented architecture in Danish eGovernment
Mr Rene Løhde , Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and
Innovation, Denmark

V. Law’s production processes /
systems interoperability
Legal standards in the spatial domain and representation of norms
Mr Alexander Boer, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The X-Leges System for Legislative Document Exchange
Mr Massimo Mecella, Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica –
Università di Roma La Sapienza, Italy
PAPI – Business justification and technical highlights
Mr Robert Kenny, Propylon, Ireland

VI. Metadata (concerning documents
and semantics) and ontologies
Towards self explaining texts through analytical
metadata
Mr Carlo Biagioli, Istituto di Teoria e Tecniche
dell'Informazione Giuridica (ITTIG), Italy
Ontology for modelling the knowledge in the norms
Ms Raffaella Brighi Research Centre of History of Law,
Philosophy and Sociology of Law and Computer Science and
Law (CIRSFID), University of Bologna, Italy

VI. Metadata (concerning documents
and semantics) and ontologies
Metadata in Lex Dania XML
Mr Benny Høyer, Folketinget, Denmark
LOIS: a multilingual semantic lexicon
Ms Daniela Tiscornia, Istituto di Teoria e Tecniche
dell’Informazione Giuridica (ITTIG), Italy

6 – 8 April 2005, Furore Inn,
Furore (Costa d’Amalfi)

4. Workshop on "Legislative XML“
Wednesday, 2005-11-16
Alexander Boer
(Leibniz Center for Law, University of Amsterdam)
Recent developments in MetaLex and
Legislative XML in the Netherlands

4. Workshop on "Legislative XML“
Wednesday, 2005-11-16
Herald Reichel (Onlaw Internet-Technologie, Wien)
Freely Structured Segments in Rigidly
Structured Documents

4. Workshop on "Legislative XML“
Wednesday, 2005-11-16
T. Agnoloni, C. Biagioli, E. Francesconi, P. Spinosa, M.
Taddei (ITTIG, Firenze)
Towards a shared platform for legislative
editors based on XML national standards

4. Workshop on "Legislative XML“
Wednesday, 2005-11-16
Friedrich Lachmayer (University of Innsbruck)
Visualisation of the Societal Context
of Legislation

4. Workshop on "Legislative XML“
Thursday, 2005-11-17
Alexander Boer (NL), Fabio Vitali (I), Helmut Weichsel (A)
Presentation and discussion of the results of
implementing the Palmirani documents

4. Workshop on "Legislative XML“
Thursday, 2005-11-17
Carlo Biagioli, Maria Angela Biasiotti, Stefano Pietropaoli,
(ITTIG, Firenze)
DAO: a model for explaining pragmatic and
semantic features of
legislative texts fragments

4. Workshop on "Legislative XML“
Thursday, 2005-11-17
Carlo Biagioli, Fabrizio Turchi (ITTIG, Firenze)
Meta - Search: searching for provisions and
their relevant conceptual contents in
legislative XML data bases

4. Workshop on "Legislative XML“
Thursday, 2005-11-17
Helmut Auer (Justizministerium, Wien)
XML and electronic accounting documents

4. Workshop on "Legislative XML“
Thursday, 2005-11-17
Fabio Vitali (CIRSFID, Universita di Bologna)
Versioning model for managing consolidated
normative system

4. Workshop on "Legislative XML“
Thursday, 2005-11-17
Comparison beween Normeinrete and PAPIr
Fabio Vitali (CIRSFID, Universita di Bologna)

4. Workshop on "Legislative XML“
Thursday, 2005-11-17
Wolfgang Engeljehringer (Parlamentsdirektion, Wien)
The Austrian parliament’s system

4. Workshop on "Legislative XML“
Friday, 2005-11-18
Elisabeth Janeschitz
(Amt der Kärntner Landesregierung, Klagenfurt)
Legislative workflow of local communities

4. Workshop on "Legislative XML“
Friday, 2005-11-18
Harald Hoffmann
(METADAT, Wien)
Legislative business processes

4. Workshop on "Legislative XML“
Friday, 2005-11-18
Giovanni Sartor
(Dipartimento di Scienze Giuridiche «Antonio Cicu»,
Universita di Bologna)
Project ONE-LEX

4. Workshop on "Legislative XML“
Friday, 2005-11-18
Günther Schefbeck (Parlamentsdirektion, Wien)
Beyond Legal-XML

"Klagenfurter Legistikgespräche 2006“
Workshop on Legislative Informatics
Wednesday, 2006-11-8
-
Friday, 2006-11-10
Lachmayer @ chello.atHarald.Hoffmann @ metadat.com