Chet,
I completely agree.
Melanie
On 2/26/2014 9:48 AM, Chet Ensign
wrote:
Hi John, hi everybody,
I hate to add to a long list, but I think there is one
other subject area / subcommittee that we need to consider:
secondary materials. Treatises, encyclopedias, journals, etc.
While not primary legal material, such publications are
important to the practice of law and in fact do get cited in
primary legal content. They are a very distinct kind of
beast.
It may be that the use cases for them are covered by the
use cases from the other categories but I believe it is worth
at least having a few concerned citizens ponder on it a bit to
make sure that's the case.
/chet
On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 8:32 AM, John
Joergensen <>
wrote:
Some
things to keep in mind:
There needs to be a general technical sub-committee to keep
a handle on
the code. Any subject area sub-committees need to start
with a
compilation of use cases, which is a large and non-trivial
activity.
Only after the generation of use cases can we really see
what we need to
get done.
This need not necessarily be said now, but it is useful: we
will not be
able to accommodate the entire world. That's not going to
be our job
anyway. We also are not going to be able to agree on the
boundaries of
what we ought to cover. This is the bane of all such
projects. As a
workable approach, I suggest that all sub-committees
concentrate on core
material and work outward. This is because what constitutes
core
material is easier to agree on. In this way, we can
generate useful
work product while there is the will and energy, and get to
everything
else as possible.
The above consideration also implies that the subject area
sub-committees need to generate categories of material that
they intend
to address. These categories should be designated "core"
and
"non-core". It would be an important part of a use-case
document.
As some guidance about core vs. non-core, Ken Hirsh's
suggestion is, I
think, important. The most important material to address is
that which
binds the most of us most powerfully. Those are the actual
text of
constitutions, statutes, treaties,regulations and court
decisions. This
material is the most important to cite, but is by far the
most cited.
If we cover nothing more than these, we will have success.
As to the actual sub-committees, I think everyone has had
great ideas.
Along with a technical committee, I have seen the following
subject area
committees listed:
constitutions
treaties
regulations
court documents
legislation
parliamentary documents
Given the nature of the material, placing constitutional
material in
with legislation would not be awful, and would save a
sub-committee.
Doing the same with treaties is tempting, but I think they
are
sufficiently different to warrant a separate committee.
I really like Daniel Bennett's approach, but as I think
about mapping
the world, I keep thinking of really good use case
documents, and,
frankly, that would be easier to do broken down by document
category.
As to string theory and deducing the use: should we have two
technical
sub-committees? One to work on the strings, and another to
think about
formats and uses?
Talk to you all soon.
John
------------------------------------------------------------
John Joergensen
Associate Dean for Information Services and Professor of Law
Rutgers School of Law - Newark
------------------------------------------------------------
On 02/20/2014 11:44 AM, Fabio Vitali wrote:
> Dear John,
>
>>> Personal proposal for the definition of a
few relevant terms to this TC:
>>> * citation: an explicit, human-readable
mention of a legal text as found in another text,
providing sufficient detail for an averagely competent
person to identify with precision the relevant text.
>>> * reference: a machine-readable
representation of a citation, containing at least the
same quantity of information (but possibly more) as the
plain text citation for the purpose of identifying the
relevant text.
>>> * identifier: a string univocally
associated to a document that identifies it. Using an
identifier in a reference is a simple way to make it
work, but it is not the only way: there will be
references that do not contain an identifier, and
require more work to find the relevant text.
>>>
>>
>> Having an explicit human readable and machine
readable does not mean that they have to be fare
different from each other. It is important to have a
machine readable which looks as close as possible to the
human readable one. A unique identifier which should be
used should be recognizable, readable and
understandable by both humans and computers at the same
time.
>>
>> Meaning that somebody who knows how to cite a
legal citation in a country, will almost be able to
construct the “URI” which would lead you to the machine
readable citation.
> Completely agree. But I fear that technical
constraints will make us inevitably compromise on this.
Namely if, as I hope, we end up with choosing URIs, then
the syntax of URIs will inevitably separate machine
readable references from textual citations, maybe just a
little bit, but we need to be ready for this.
>
>>> Next are some standard Web terms that are
relevant for this TC, I believe:
>>> * A locator is an identifier of a physical
resource (e.g., a file on a hard disk somewhere on the
net) that is actionable (that is, it can be immediately
used for dereferencing).
>>> * Resolution: the act of determining a
usable, active locator of a physical resource given a
reference to a document of which said physical resource
is a reasonable representation.
>>> * Dereferencing: the act of delivering a
copy of a physical resource given its locator.
>>>
>>
>> The ELI FBER model could give some ideas -
abstract resource - legal resource - interpretation –
format . You will notice that we have 4th layer has been
added, the “abstract resource” being a new introduction,
in comparison to the FBER model – work - _expression_
–manifestation. On of the main aims of the “abstract
resource” was to “link” with consolidated acts or even
with other documents of other sources.
>>
>> Simple example attached of the future
Luxemburgish ontology.
> I appreciate this effort, but I also have some
doubts.
>
> FRBR (both in its original, ER version [1] and in
its newer OO version [2] is a widely successful
conceptual model for complex documental situations,
tools and ontologies and models abound also outside of
the narrow scope of legal documents, librarians use and
accept it with joy, and we in Akoma Ntoso managed to use
it quite successfully for all our documental needs.
>
> I'll confess that abandoning it in favor of a
different conceptual model, either a superset of FRBR or
a completely different model, will require some serious
convincing on me.
>
>>> Accessing a document given a reference,
therefore, has two well-distinguished steps: the
reference is first resolved, obtaining a locator, and
this locator is subsequently dereferenced, obtaining a
representation of a physical copy of the document that
is actually stored and available somewhere on the web.
>>>
>>> Please note that I have abstained from
using web-specific acronyms such as HTTP, URI, URL, and
URN, because these concepts exist independently from
their web implementation, but web standards and best
practices are completely consistent with the above
terminology.
>>>
>> The Official journals are moving away from
paper versions to officially online documents, some are
even moving to “Legal Open Data”. Having said that, the
http URIs become more and more important because almost
all the documents are available online.
> I am personally ALL IN FAVOR of an http only naming
schema. I believe it to be the only way forward.
Alternatively, I suggest we could go on with an abstract
model that can be mapped equivalently on both http URIs,
URNs as well as OpenURL [3] as I suggested a few years
ago in [4].
>
>>> * there could be many different physical
copies of the same "document", some authoritative (e.g.
from the web site of the office emanating it), some not
so much (e.g., a union, a political party, a local
administration giving access to their own personal stash
of documents even when they are not the official
publishers of these documents), some plain, some richer
in metadata (e.g., a commented version provided by
private publisher).
>>
>> It is important to have an « official » source-
official authority - for a legal document, which the
user can trust in. This authority has, of course, also
to guaranty that the provided document is authentic, has
not been altered etc.
> Authoritativeness of the source is a matter of the
resolution engine, not of the reference itself. The
reference, in itself, must not indicate an origin, and
points to an abstract idea of the document that may be
represented in the best way by the copy at the
authoritative server. But expecting that only
authoritative storage are served by the URI is a way to
force non-authoritative storage to piggyback on
authoritative URIs and become indistinguishable from
authoritative servers. Much better, in my view, is to
support both authoritative and non-authoritative
manifestation URIs, and have resolvers let the users
decide on the resolution policies.
>
>>> * there could be many variants of the same
document differentiated by content (e.g., a full copy
vs. an excerpt, maybe of a very long, multi-topical
text, of the bits that are relevant to the activities of
an office), by language (all European legislation exists
in 27 different languages, and the citation to an
European act that an Austrian friend sends me as taken
from the German version, when I use it I see the right
place of the Italian version), by temporal validity (a
reference to a 1999 act subsequently modified in 2007,
2010 and 2013, if examined in 2014 for a civil suit
about events in 2011, will bring me neither to the 1999
version, nor to the 2013 version, but to the 2010
version of the act).
>>>
>> What the public, lawyers etc. want is the
OFFICIAL version
> My experience is completely opposite. Given the
choice between the official, bare copy of an act from
the official server, and a heavily commented and
annotated copy of the same from a private publisher,
possibly consolidated to the current version, I believe
most of the users will definitely go for the commented
one.
>
>>> * there could be citations to documents
that are not accessible, available or even existing yet:
e.g. a citation of a court document that will be
released in a separate moment from the publication of a
sentence, a citation of a document for which I have no
security clearance, a citation of a regulation that will
be written after the enactment of the legislation it is
mentioned in, a citation of an act that it is foreseen
it will modify existence, validity or jurisdiction of
this one.
>>>
>> Can we solve all cases ?
> Hopefully yes.
>
>>> d) contracts: the purpose of this SC is to
deliver, in a multinational, multi-language and
multi-jurisdictional fashion, the features that
characterize citations of contracts. These features
should be clearly characterized in terms of identifying
vs. accessory, required vs. desired, and describing the
cited document vs. describing the citation.
>>>
>> Not exactly what is meant by contracts –
contracts between two businesses e.g. – if yes not sure
this would be the place.
> Yes. I believe contracts are in scope. Both private
contracts between parties, not meant for publication, as
well as standardized EULAs for sw licences and the like.
>
>>> e) technical SC: the purpose of this SC is
to deliver one or more syntactical approaches to express
the features of the above-mentioned citation types, so
as to provide an easily implementable navigation system
using standard browsing tool, as well as to determine
behavior, response types and error handling of tools
connected to the use of legal references, mainly how to
characterize successful and unsuccessful resolution and
dereferencing of legal references.
>>>
>>
>> Concerning a b c, I am not convinced that we
need 3 sub-committees for each purpose. Legal documents
are still quite similar, even if they come out of
courts, the parliament or governments.
> I wish you were right. My impression is that we
have a reasonably good grasp of legislation, but are
starting just to scratch the surface with court
documents. We'll see if most sc will have an easy job,
then.
>
>
>> If we want this identifier to work around the
world, it is very important that this identifier or
system is compatible with existing technological
systems. Nobody will change completely their system to
implement a new standard, but they will be willing to
adapt slightly or add a layer to their existing systems.
>>
>> A flexible, self-documenting, consistent and
unique way to reference legislation across different
legal systems is a need. But the magic word is flexible,
because of the so many different legal systems in the
world..
>>
>> A flexible identifier would be a set of
building blocks where each country, region …, courts,
parliaments etc … can take the bricks they need to
uniquely identify their documents. There is no need to
have a identical identifier everywhere, which by the way
would be impossible.
>>
>> Everybody takes its pieces of LEGO (child
memories) and will build its own identifier, but on a
common and big (flexible) ground
> Totally agree with you on this.
>
> Ciao
>
> Fabio
>
> --
>>
> [1] http://archive.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/frbr1.htm
> [2] http://www.cidoc-crm.org/frbr_inro.html
> [3] http://www.niso.org/standards/z39-88-2004
> [4] http://www.lri.jur.uva.nl/~winkels/legXMLAbstract.pdf
>
>
> --
>
> Fabio Vitali Tiger got
to hunt, bird got to fly,
> Dept. of Computer Science Man got to sit and
wonder "Why, why, why?'
> Univ. of Bologna ITALY Tiger got to
sleep, bird got to land,
> phone: +39
051 2094872 Man got to tell himself
he understand.
> e-mail:
Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), "Cat's cradle"
> http://vitali.web.cs.unibo.it/
>
>
>
>
>
>
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/chet
----------------
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