[legalxml-courtfiling] Re: [legalxml-sc] [Fwd: [legalxml-comment][Announcement] MetaLex: an Open XML Standard forLegal Sources]

[Rolly Chambers <rlchambers@smithcurrie.com>]

As requested, attached is a summary comparison of MetaLex and the proposed
Court Document 1.1 spec. The comparison is not exhaustive, but points out
some of the more obvious differences and a few general similarities in the
approaches being taken.

Rolly Chambers
Co-chair, Court Document subcommittee

----- Original Message -----
From: "John M. Greacen" <john@greacen.net>
To: "Court Filing List" <legalxml-courtfiling@lists.oasis-open.org>;
"Steering Committee" <legalxml-sc@lists.oasis-open.org>
Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 11:21 AM
Subject: [legalxml-sc] [Fwd: [legalxml-comment] [Announcement] MetaLex: an
Open XML Standard for Legal Sources]


> This should be of particular interest to the Court Document
> subcommittee.  I would appreciate having one of the cochairs review the
> European approach and contrast it for the rest of us with the approach
> that we are taking.  Thanks.
>
> --
> John M. Greacen
> Greacen Associates, LLC.
> 18 Fairly Road
> Santa Fe, NM  87507
> 505-471-0203
>
>

Title: metaLex

METALEX AND THE PROPOSED COURT DOCUMENT 1.1 SPEC

On September 3, 2002, the European E-POWER Project announced the availability of MetaLex, an XML standard for legal sources. The E-POWER Project is a consortium of The Dutch Tax and Customs Administration (NL), O&I Management Partners B.V. (NL), Application Engineers Nv. (B), Mega International (F), FB Insurance NV/SA (B), Universiteit Van Amsterdam (NL) and Librt B.V. (NL). Through LeXML NL, MetaLex is associated with the LeXML initiative, a point of co-ordination among European legal communities for the development of standardized XML structures, vocabularies and data exchange tools.

The table below offers a summary comparison of the approach taken by MetaLex to the approach taken by the proposed OASIS Legal XML Court Document 1.1 specification. The comparison was made at the request of John Greacen, chair of the OASIS Legal XML Court Filing TC. MetaLex is part of an effort to define an XML standard for legislation rather than for court documents. Thus, in general there are more differences than similarities between MetaLex and the proposed Court Document 1.1 DTD. Additionally, the MetaLex site does not yet offer many sample XML instance documents, so this comparison is preliminary rather than definitive.

Rolly Chambers, Co-chair; Legal XML Court Document Subcommittee (2002-09-30)

MetaLex	Court Document 1.1
Metalex is "part of an effort to define a XML Standard for Legislation and Public Decisions in the Netherlands"	CD 1.1 "describes an XML DTD for validating the syntax of XML court documents" (the category of legal documents filed or exchanged by the parties in formal legal proceedings)
MetaLex uses an XML schema for validation	CD 1.1 uses a DTD for validation
Root element is "Regulation" and primary parts are "CitationDesignation" "Introduction" "Article" or "Part" "Conclusion" "Appendix" "Annotation"	Root element is "legal" and primary parts are "documentMetadata" "caseMetadata" "documentBody" "signers" "proofOfService" "attachedItem" "electronicSignature"
In MetaLex, text content appears within a "Text" element and there is no mixed content	CD 1.1 allows mixed content within the "paragraph" element
MetaLex uses an xslt stylesheet to translate from an XML schema using English element names to an XML schema using Dutch element names; it uses the "xml:lang" attribute in connection with this process	CD 1.1 uses a DTD with English element names and does not provide for translation of element names into other languages
MetaLex uses the "xml:lang" attribute with a "Text" element to describe the language of any text within an XML document	CD 1.1 uses a "language" attribute with various structural elements to describe the language used within them
A MetaLex "Part" can contain an "Article" "Sentence" "Subpart" or "List" (which contains "SentenceFragment" elements)	A CD 1.1 "paragraphGroup" can contain a "paragraphSubgroup" or "paragraph" (which contains various ‘structural’ elements such as "subparagraph," "phrase," "keyword," "quotation," "list," and "table")
MetaLex does not incorporate elements to describe document metadata	CD 1.1 incorporates elements based on the Dublin Core metadata element set to describe document metadata
MetaLex does not incorporate elements to describe case metadata, information about signers of a document, or electronic signature information	CD 1.1 incorporates elements from the Court Filing 1.1 standard to describe case metadata, includes elements to describe information about the signers of a court document, and includes elements to describe electronic signature information
MetaLex does not include elements to describe the participants commonly referred to in a court document and does not include any of the "data elements" describing their names, addresses and other contact information, or similar data	CD 1.1 includes elements to describe the participants commonly referred to in a court document and incorporates "data elements" from the CF 1.1 DTD to describe names, addresses and other contact information, and similar data
MetaLex uses attributes to describe the date a "Regulation" (or one of its component parts) was enacted, published, or repealed	CD 1.1 uses various "date" elements and a common "date" attribute to describe the date a court document was created or modified, signed, and served
MetaLex includes a "CitationDesignation" element, which describes a formal citation for a "Regulation" document	CD 1.1 does not include an element to describe a formal citation for a court document
In the MetaLex XML schema, "[e]ach element of the text is marked with an identifier that is unique in the document" – i.e. an "id" attribute is required for all of the structural elements	In the CD 1.1 DTD, the "paragraphGroup" and "paragraph" elements have a required "id" attribute, but an "id" attribute is optional for other structural elements appearing within a paragraph
MetaLex contemplates the use of XSLT stylesheets to transform XML to human readable text	CD 1.1 contemplates the use of XSLT stylesheets to transform XML to human readable text