Standard for legal documents: the italian experience within the Normeinrete project

Transcript

1 Jurix 2003 International workshop on the development of standard for describing legal documents Utrecht 11 december 2003 Standard for legal documents: the italian experience within the Normeinrete project Caterina Lupo

2 Workshop issues Do we need such standards? Who should set the standards? What is the best way to promote these standards?

3 Results : > 50 Public Administrations involved > / legal documents indexed > search sessions monthly 2 standard issued by National Centre for IT in PA DTDs for Italian legislation XML format URN (Uniform Resource Name) for any kind of legal document Editors and other software tools developed and distributed to PA to support standard implementation

4 Do we need such standards?

5 From centralization towards distribution Legislative power UE, State, Regions, Authorities, Technologies from mainframes to Internet

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8 Centralization (80s) Corte di Cassazione Court of Cassation Gazzetta Ufficiale Official Journal Editori Publishers

9 uncontrolled distribution (90s) Central PA Judicial offices Local PA Publishers

10 .normeinrete I Central PA Judicial offices Local PA Normeinrete

11 Normeinrete II Perspective CED Corte Cassazione Ministeri Corti superiori Autorità Regioni normativa statale primaria circolari e decreti pareri e pronunce leggi regionali

12 Normeinrete standard Document Type Definition (DTD) for italian legislative and regulatory acts (based on W3C) to represent documents structure, semantics and metadata Uniform Resource Name (URN) definition (based on IETF) to: identify each document regardless of its physical address (URL) allow automatic hyperlink through a resolution system (as DNS)

13 Elements (categories) Structural elements heading, preamble, sections, articles, paragraphs Special elements references to other laws, formatted text-embedded relevant entities Metadata subject-matter classification, publication data, preparatory iter Semantic elements obligation, prohibition, penalties, exceptions, modifications...

14 Uniform Resource Name Each law contains several references to other laws: the whole legislative corpus can be seen as a net, laws being nodes connected through references; Manual activity is usually required to build laws hypertext through URLs; The URN is a persistent, location-independent, resource identification mechanism.

15 Art. 13 Elettorato attivo automatic Hyperlink LEGGE 23 ottobre 2003 n Hanno diritto di voto per l'elezione del Comitato i cittadini italiani iscritti nell'elenco aggiornato di cui all'articolo 5, comma 1, della legge 27 dicembre 2001, n. 459, che sono residenti da almeno sei mesi nella circoscrizione consolare e che sono elettori ai sensi del testo unico delle leggi per la disciplina dell'elettorato attivo e per la tenuta e la revisione delle liste elettorali, di cui al decreto del Presidente della Repubblica 20 marzo 1967, n. 223, e successive modificazioni.

16 Art. 13 Elettorato attivo automatic Hyperlink LEGGE 23 ottobre 2003 n Hanno diritto di voto per l'elezione del Comitato i cittadini italiani iscritti nell'elenco aggiornato di cui all'articolo 5, comma 1, della legge 27 dicembre 2001, n. 459, che sono residenti da almeno sei mesi nella circoscrizione consolare e che sono elettori ai sensi del testo unico delle leggi per la disciplina dell'elettorato attivo e per la tenuta e la revisione delle liste elettorali, di cui al decreto del Presidente della Repubblica 20 marzo 1967, n. 223, e successive modificazioni.

17 Cooperative architecture administration i domain norms NIR-node central registries DTD repository names registry administration j domain NIR-node norms NIR gateway NIR-nodes directory norms catalogue NIR gateway NIR services indexing search index searching URN resolution front-office channels

18 Functional project goals Improving accessibility to legislation by providing a unique point of access to Italian and EU legal documents published on different web sites Supporting PA in managing legislative documentation life cycle and law consolidation by providing suitable mark-up, software tools and methodologies

19 Do we need such standards? Interoperability Document life cycle automation Reuse YES

20 Whoshouldset the standards?

21 Italian experience In 1993 : AIPA Autorità per l informatica nella PA (IT authority for Public administration) Now become : CNIPA. Centro Nazionale per l informatica nella PA (National Center for IT in Public administration)

22 Standard definition Working group open to PA representative and domain expert Formal definition by AIPA 2 Regulatory acts published on Official Journal

23 What is the best way to promote these standards?

24 Project strategy Specialized portal Standard definitions to allow interoperability Development and distribution of open source software to support legislative document management and publishing; Training and knowledge sharing among Public Administrations.

25 What is the best way to promote these standards? Partecipation Benefits (software tools) Knowledge sharing Education Community

26 Conclusions

27 Conclusions based on italian experience Do we need such standards? YES : interoperability, reuse Who should set the standards? There must be an official imprimatur but the key factor is a partecipated definition What is the best way to promote these standards? Software tools, benefits, education, knowledge sharing, reuse

28 Conclusions at european level Do we need such standards? Who should set the standards? What is the best way to promote these standards?

29 to know more