Fwd: Representation of the annexes in Akoma ntoso

Dear Monica, dear Fabio,

This is a small reflexion on the representation of the annexes and attachment of an act or a bill.

In the European legislation among others, there is an important semantic distinction between the annexes and the attachments :

Annexes are used as a means of presenting material outside the actual enacting terms because it is technical or voluminous or both. Examples of such material might be rules to be applied by customs officers, doctors or veterinarians (such as chemical analysis techniques, sampling methods, and forms to be used), lists of products, tables of figures, plans and drawings and so on.
Attachments, on the other hand, are other legal acts pre-existing that are attached (not ‘annexed’) to an act. They are generally approved by the act where they are attached. Examples of acts which may be set out in this way are rules of subordinate bodies and international agreements.

Akoma Ntoso represents these two concepts with a componentRef inside an attachments element and considers that both are independent documents.

But the annexes are, by their nature, an integral part of the current act. It is more a structural decomposition than another document. It has no special metadata. In the European legislation, it has not other heading that the word ANNEX with, eventually, an number in the case of multiple annexes.

So, the constraint to structure it has an independent document is an inconvenient.

Why not represent the annexes with a specific structural element (for example, called <annex>) that has a content of type "maincontent" and can occurs after the conclusions of the act/bill ?

If there is a need to represent it as another XML instance (voluminous), it is still possible to represent it as a fragment (a componentRef inside the annex element). So, the decision to leave the annex as part of the xml instance of the bill or to put it in a specific xml instance will become a technical decision.

We can reserve the attachments element only for the other legal act that is attached to the current act and is really another document with its own metadata.

This proposal simplifies also the representation of the amending bill or the amendment when the modification is about a complete annex, as you can see in the following examples.

The file COM_COM(2011)0876_EN.doc contains an example of an amending bill, with a annex (annex 1) containing a new annex (annex X) to introduce in the amended act (Directive 2000/60/EC) .

As you can see in the drawing amending-bill.jpg, with the current representation in Akoma Ntoso, 3 xml instances are needed :

one for the bill,
a second for the annex and
a third for the quoted annex.

With representation of annexes by a structural element <annex>, the representation can be more simple, because there is only one xml instance : the annex is a structure inside the bill and contains a quotedStructure containing an annex.

The structure will be something like this :

<bill>

<body>

</body>

<annex>

<num>ANNEX I</num>

<annex>

<num>ANNEX X</num><heading>LIST OF PRIORITY SUBSTANCES IN THE FIELD OF WATER POLICY</heading>

<table>

...

And, finally, the representation of amendment like the following is also simplified (in blue: text of the amendment; in green, text of the annex of the amending bill; in bruin, the text of the annex in the amended act):

<DocAmend>Proposal for a directive</DocAmend>

<Article>Annex II a (new)</Article>

<DocAmend2>Directive 2008/105/EC</DocAmend2>

<Article2>Annex II (new)</Article2>


Text proposed by the Commission	Amendment
	*ANNEX IIa*
	*‘ANNEX II*
	*– Regulation (EC) No. 850/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004;*
	*– Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006;*
	*– Directive 98/8/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 February 1998;*
	*– Regulation (EU) No 528/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2012;*
	*– Regulation (EC) No. 1107/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2009;*
	*– Directive 2009/128/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2009;*
	*– Directive 2010/75/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 November 2010;*
	*– Regulation (EU) No 1235/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 December 2010;*
	*– Directive 2010/84/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 December 2010.’*

Or. <Original>{EN}en</Original>

What do you think of this proposition ?

Kind regards

Véronique Parisse

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