Cronolex: One System for the Dinamic Respresentation of Laws

CRONOLEX 1
UNIVERSITY OF MURCIA
CRONOLEX
One System for a dynamic
representation of laws
Javier de Andrés Rivero <jandres@dif.um.es>
Antonio F. Gómez Skarmeta <skarmeta@dif.um.es>

CRONOLEX 2
Motivation of the project
By the great overload of legal norms that exist 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 law in force.
This computer system manages all the life cycle of
a legal norm.

CRONOLEX 3
Our XML structure
The first task was to develop a XML structure
sufficiently flexible to be able to define all
types of legal norms in the Spanish legislation.
This XML structure we have captured in a
DTD.

CRONOLEX 4
Our XML structure
The DVD have two great parts.
The metadata of the norm
The text of the norm.

CRONOLEX 5
Our XML structure
The metadata of the norm:
<Metadata> ··· </Metadata>
• The metadata tag contains information to
identify and describe the legal norm.
• This information is not part of the text of the
norm.
• It is the part that is updated when other norm
modifies (revokes, replaces, cancels or
includes) to the norm.

CRONOLEX 6
Our XML structure
It’s composed of:
• Urn: Global identifier of the legal norm.
• Publication date.
• Take effect date (it can have several).
• Approbation date.
• Gazette where the norm was published.
• Unofficial name.
• Source of the norm.

CRONOLEX 7
Our XML structure
It’s composed of:
• Links tags: Links that the norm has with other norms, or
with parts of the other norms.
• Derogations tags: Derogations that the norm has suffered by
others norms from its publication to nowadays.
• Cancellations tags: Cancellations or annulations that the
norm has had, for example by judicial sentences
• Integrations tags: Parts included (passages of text) by other
norms.

CRONOLEX 8
Our XML structure
It’s composed of:
• Substitutions tags: It represents changes that other norms
have made to fragments of text of the norm, throughout the
time
All these tags have attributes to indicate
the date of the change, the part of the
norm that it’s updated, and the identifier of
the modifier norm.

CRONOLEX 9
Our XML structure
<MetaInformacion>
<urn>urn:um:COU185/2000</urn>
<FechaAprobacion date="20000228"></FechaAprobacion>
<FechaPublicacion date="20000228"></FechaPublicacion>
<FechaVigencia desde="20000228" id="v1"></FechaVigencia>
<Boletin date="20000228" numero="111" tipo="BOE"></Boletin>
<Alias>COUNCIL DECISION</Alias>
<Modificacion id="m1" fecha="20021203" parteModificada="@1.1.2"
xlink:href="urn:um:COU954/2002@1.1.1"/>
<Rango>Council</Rango>
<Numero>185</Numero>
<IdOrden>EC</IdOrden>
</MetaInformacion>
Example of the metada of “Council
Decision of 28th February of 2000” in
actual date

CRONOLEX 10
Our XML structure
The text of the norm:
These tags represent all the parts of a legal
norm.
<Head> ··············· </Head>
<Introduction> ··· </Introduction>
<Articulate> ······· </Articulate>
<Resolutions> ··· </Resolutions>
<End> ················· </End>
<Attachés> ········· </Attachés>

CRONOLEX 11
Our XML structure
The text of the norm:
<Articulate>
<Book>
<Chapter>
<Section>
<Subsection>
<Article>
<Paragraph>
<Statement>
Only the tags “article”, “paragraph” and
“statement” are obligatory, the other tags are to
represent in a hierarchical way the legal norm.

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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 system are:
The system

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• This 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
take effect date to the date in which we want to
recover it.
The system

CRONOLEX 14
• Besides the original norm, it processes all later
norms that substitutes, integrates, derogates or
cancels the norm, from its take effect date to the
concrete date.
• 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 system

CRONOLEX 15
Here we indicate 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 system

CRONOLEX 16
The result is:
The system

CRONOLEX 17
The system
The council is in
its original form.

CRONOLEX 18
If we change the date to recover to the 4th of December of 2002
We can observe that one
statement of article 1 has
been modified by the
Council Decision 954 /
2002 (in 03/12/2002)
The system

CRONOLEX 19
And if now we change it to 5th of January of 2004, it will be:
The system
Now the statement of
article 1 is modified by
the Council Decision
161/2004 (in 01/01/2004)

CRONOLEX 20
• 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 on the data, i.e. it does not
store atomic data, but it stores documents
XML
The system

CRONOLEX 21
• This module is the one in charge of
transforming the original legal norm into the
document XML with the necessary structure.
DTD
Legal
Norm
XML
Document
The system

CRONOLEX 22
• When the norm is transformed in XML, it is
saved in the database and at the moment the
system can use it.
• It is developed like an application Web for the
manual introduction of the data (copy and
paste).
• A open research line, we are working in, is to
make this automatic task.
The system

CRONOLEX 23
We insert the "COUNCIL DECISION of 28th
February 2000" in the system with the module.
Edition module of the legal documents (example).
The system
Here, we see the windows to
introduce the data to transform a
legal norm in the XML structure
and to save in the database

CRONOLEX 24
The system

CRONOLEX 25
The system
The resulting XML
We can observe that
only it has its own tags
of metadata

CRONOLEX 26
The system
Continuation of the XML

CRONOLEX 27
The system
• When we insert the “Council Decision of 3th
December 2002” in the system.
• Now the metadata tags of the XML that
represent the "COUNCIL DECISION of 28th
February 2000" change.
• The resulting XML of the “Council Decision
of 28th February of 2000” is:

CRONOLEX 28
The system
There is two new tags that
indicate the changes, that the
"Council decision of 3th December
of 2002" have realized.

CRONOLEX 29
The system
• Now, when we insert in the system the
"COUNCIL DECISION of 10th February
2004" the metadata, of “Council of 28th of
February of 2000”, change again.There are two new tags that
represent the new modifications that
have been introduced.

CRONOLEX 30
• We have developed a module to make searches on the
contained legal norms in the database.
• Searches can be made by means of different criteria.
• The most important searches are the searches for 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 system

CRONOLEX 31
The modules of the system are:
The system

CRONOLEX 32
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.

CRONOLEX 33
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.

CRONOLEX 34
THE END
Thank you very much for your attention
Excuse me by my English
Javier de Andrés Rivero <jandres@dif.um.es>
Antonio F. Gómez Skarmeta <skarmeta@dif.um.es>

Cronolex: One System for the Dinamic Respresentation of Laws

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