Public review comments for LegalDocumentML

["Tabone, Catherine" <Catherine.Tabone@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk>]

The National Archives is responsible for the publication of UK legislation and the www.legislation.gov.uk website. Akoma Ntoso XML is one of the legislation data formats provided on www.legislation.gov.uk .  Together with our partners, UK Parliament, Scottish Parliament, Office of the Parliamentary Council and Scottish Parliamentary Council Office we are currently working to develop a browser based drafting tool for legislation, based on Akoma Ntoso/LegalDocumentML . We are submitting the following feedback as part of the LegalDocumentML Public Review:

 

We would like to request that the specification be modified to separate compliance with the Akoma Ntoso XML mark-up standard for legal document content from the Akoma Ntoso Naming Convention for URI/IRI patterns.

 

Legal documents and traditions in different countries are extremely varied and as a result do not share common identifying features. The rigid nature of the Akoma Ntoso Naming Convention compels implementers to identify documents using values that are irrelevant and/or misleading and prevents the inclusion of the necessary values required to uniquely identify documents in their jurisdictions.

 

We would not be able to comply with the standard, as framed, with data from the www.legislation.gov.uk  API.

 

We feel that complying with the Akoma Ntoso standard should not force implementers to use identifiers that do not allow clear and unambiguous identification of documents especially if there are clear, well documented URI schemes already widely used and recognised.

 

We would like to see use of the Akoma Ntoso Naming Convention made optional and the specification modified to allow for any other well-defined URI/IRI scheme to be used to identify and reference documents.

 

We also support the feedback submitted by the Office of Publications of the European Union.

 

Kind regards,

 

Catherine Tabone

 

Data Manager

Legislation Services

The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU

catherine.tabone@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk

www.legislation.gov.uk | www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

 

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