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Subject: Re: [legaldocml] Bills and Acts


Just starting to listen to the listserv. Considering the XML tags do not have legal standing so that the name of the tag or attributes do not have meaning, has there been an effort to show people how to abstract their legal system and map it into the Akoma Ntoso vocabulary. I would think that having an abstraction layer that can be mapped (literally/actually) would be great and then a way to use that as a template to bridge the abstract layer to the AKN layer would help with this confusion. Also, this might allow for faster and better mapping to AKN and as well allowing comparing two or more legal systems at both the abstract layer and the AKN layer.

My apologies if this work has already been done. I am looking to use this eventually to create a way to create model language/code for various US states, that could be more easily translated into the specific version of AKN  for each state.

Thanks,
Daniel
daniel@citizencontact.com
+1-202-651-1964
skype/twitter/linkedin: citizencontact

On 2/7/2013 6:31 PM, monica.palmirani wrote:
Dear Grant,

sorry but as Fabio said in the previous email about ontology, I need to boring you, and the others, with some preliminary notions of theory of law (at the end I am coming from philosophy of law department). For your more curiosity you can find good literature in http://plato.stanford.edu/ (Kelsen, Bobbio, Hart, Raz, Ross, etc.).

Preamble: Lesson learn in Italy in the definition of taxonomy of legal documents.
One of the main discussion in Italy during NormeInRete definition standard was how to classify the different type of normative acts (including those document already passed like Royal Decree) and to find a common terminology. We discussed for two years and at the end we obtained a list of 20 different denominations for covering all the possible normative documentation used in Italy in any situation. We lost time, definitely we lost generality and abstractness and the possibility to have a fruitful dialogue with other legal system (e.g. Europe, US, etc.).  

For each country "law" and "act" means a different type of documents and as well as for "bill".
Usually the meaning of these terms are linked to other parameters like authority, steps in the law-making process, juridical effect, jurisdiction, geo-spatial scope, legal tradition. Simply called metadata.

So we decided in AKOMA to use a different approach: to use neutral categories coming from the theory of law and not from a list of document nomenclature, list that each country could interpreted in different way. Example: US uses "bill" with a particular meaning in a such particular step of the process, but in Australia bill has a different meaning, and also in California bill is different respect House of Representative bill, and in UK the same, without to speak in Italy (we have several different bills: from government, from parliament, from people, from regions).

So let me start on the fact that we used more abstract categories coming from the theory of law: LAW, ACT and BILL (uppercase) belong to general theory of law definitions in this sense and not represent "the bill" "the act" as concrete document in a country tradition.

 What is it a LAW in legal theory? it is not a document!!

1) LAW is any normative statements (also oral also in picture) that were endorsed by a powered authority, addressed to some subject, producing some legal effects. The authority could be for example, and this is not an exhaustive list: legislative body, governative agency, military committee, ministry, etc.

 What is it a normative ACT ?
2) The normative statements are usually expressed, but not limited, by textual document called NORMATIVE ACT. A normative ACT (now called ACT as abbreviation) could be for example, and this is not an exhaustive list: legislative act (so called law lower-case), statute, constitution, resolution, etc. Also resolution includes normative statements that have some validity and some juridical effects (e.g. in jurisprudence, etc.).

LAW is a general concept of normative statements, LAW is expressed by a NORMATIVE ACT --> briefly called ACT
So a resolution is a NORMATIVE ACT, the positive code is definitely a NORMATIVE ACT, an act (lowe-case) is an ACT, the non-positive law probably is not a NORMATIVE ACT, but it is simply a DOC. I agree with you.

NORMATIVE ACT is also government act, ministry act, regulation, directive, ordinance, communication, municipality law, region law, etc.

What is it a BILL cleaned to the other parameters/metadata?
3) BILL is any preliminary document that the intention is to become a normative act.
BILL in our nomenclature is only a category of ideal document, neutral respect the other metadata that we can define separately.  We have the block <workflow> for defining the procedural steps, we have <proponent> for defining the initiative proponent, we have @refersTo for defining the correct meaning of the document according to a local ontology.

BILL: include bill in strict sense, initiative by the people, bill that introduces amendments to other normative act, draft version of European directive, etc.

In other words we have a meta-level around NORMATIVE ACT and BILL (draftNormativeAct?).
Below we have a list of document nomenclature related to each single legal tradition, law-making process, etc.

          GENERAL                                                  NORMATIVE ACT
                                                                           /            |              \
        LOCAL LEGAL TRADITION            act            statue        constitution ..... regulation.... etc.


About the terms chosen, at the end any synecdoche uses a well-known term for evocating something different ("Use of the term "The Internet" to refer to the World Wide Web http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche").

Finally: I propose you to define together a taxonomy/light-ontology/vocabulary (defined outside of the TC) concerning the nomenclature of the normative acts used in US and to link this taxonomy to the tag <act refersTo="#resolution"> using refersTo. In this way you can use your ontology, the Chile its ontology in Spanish with their specific nomenclature, Italy as well its ontology in Italian.

What do you think about this?

Yours,
Monica






Il 07/02/2013 19:51, Grant Vergottini ha scritto:
Hi Monica, Fabio, All,
 
I can understand the need to define the relevant concepts in the fewest possible terms. In fact, I have tried to do this always. And I still carry the battle scars from when I tried to use terms in an abstract way that were already well understood in a specific way. This simply did not fly. In my experience, people are extraordinarily sensitive to overusing terms for which they have a very precise definition.
 
It's quite acceptable to define a very general term for an abstract concept if that general term has no pre-existing meaning. But as soon as you hijack an existing term, they come to the meeting armed with whatever force they feel necessary to slay your proposal in its entirety. You're doomed from the very start. I believe that will also happen to Akoma Ntoso too.  Here is why:
 
1) You cannot call a resolution that does not propose law a bill. A resolution is most often a statement or an opinion made by the legislative body. Calling it a bill brings with it the notion that it is proposing law and, upon approval, will become a law. Certainly, there are cases where a resolution does propose law - such as a US joint resolution. But this is the exception rather than the rule. What about a California Constitutional Amendment? It proposes an amendment to the constitution and is thus regarded as a resolution - put forth to the people of the state, suggesting a modification to the Constitution. It is not considered a bill. When it is adopted, it causes the creation of a proposition to the people - a separate document. It takes successful passage of the proposition for the law to change.
 
2) You cannot call an initiative by the people, proposing law, a bill. A bill is usually defined as a law proposed by a legislative body. An initiative is not a bill in that it comes from the people rather than from the legislative body. Calling it a bill misplaces its source of origin.
 
3) You cannot refer to non-positive titles of the US Code as acts. You can call a non-positive title of the US Code a lot of things, but you most definitely cannot call it an act. It was not enacted - and that is an extremely important point. Without enactment, it is only evidence of the law rather than law itself. The entire purpose of the codification of the US Code into positive law is to deal with this important characteristic. I cannot and will not suggest modeling a non-positive title in the US Code using an <act> tag.  It would be less controversial to suggest the non-sensical <automobile> tag.
 
I think you have to look at the meanings that the words like bill and act bring with them. They are not abstract terms. They have preexisting meanings and meddling with those meanings will only incite quarrels which will lead to the rejection rather than adoption of the standard.
 
I bring this up as I have tried to deal with this issue too many times in the past and have only found that the only way forward is to either accept a broader vocabulary or to choose a vocabulary unencumbered with existing meaning.
 
-Grant


On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 12:15 AM, monica.palmirani <monica.palmirani@unibo.it> wrote:
Dear Grant,

I understand your linguistic doubts, and I see your points. Thanks.

However "bill" and "act" are two general terms selected as representative of two concepts.

In the semiotic triangles of Peirce the concept is represented by a sign, a sign is a representative term/picture/etc. (usually it is the best term for represent the concept), an object is the concrete thing in the real world.

So during the last 5 years, when Akoma Ntoso core was founded, we had about 20 seminars around the world (Africa, Europe, Latin America, US, etc.) and we have interviewed about 1000 people at the end we decided to use "bill" for representing all the proposed legislation/regulation/order not yet approved by the authority and "act" for any legislative/regulative/government normative document approved by the authority.

Take also in consideration that "bill" is really a general concept and it deosn't represent any legislative procedural step. "bill" is a pre-proposal, it is the document proposed officially to the clerk, it is the document discussed in the assembly, it is the document approved by the Senate but not yet approved by the Chamber, etc. Bill is any draft document of a future "law" in any steps of any legal tradition, in any law-making system.

Similarly "act" includes all the endorsed/approved documents by a empowered authority, including, paradoxically also the autocratic and military regime documents. :-)

They are only and simply abstract terms for representing all the other types of legal document according with each state legal tradition.
It is a synecdoche: we use a part for representing the whole.

I am confident that we can can explain this in the documentation of the D1 that I am now populating for this afternoon.

Cheers,
Monica

Il 07/02/2013 00:20, Grant Vergottini ha scritto:
There are two document types in Akoma Ntoso which appear intended to cover a wide range of documents - Bills and Acts. I'm having a bit of a difficulty accepting how these two general terms would map into local terms - largely because of the overlap.

The basic model is, I believe, proposed vs. enacted law. A proposed law is a bill and an enacted law is an act. But that over simplifies the documents. In my experience:

Proposed legislation:
===============

Measures might be the general term. I'm not sure if the term measure is applied to enacted law. 
 - Bills
 - Resolutions (Resoluitions are sometime proposed law and sometimes formal expressions of the legislature.)

Sometime the term "bill" is used to describe all types of measures, but that is sloppy use of language rather than correct use of language. 

Enacted Law:
==========

Law is maybe the general term. Depending on the jurisdiction, laws are referred to as:
 - Acts
 - Statutes
 - Ordinances
 - Codes
 - "Titles" in the case of the US Code
 - Constitution

These are all things that are enacted. I am not convinced that you can refer to these all as "acts"

-- Grant
____________________________________________________________________
Grant Vergottini
Xcential Group, LLC.
email: grant.vergottini@xcential.com
phone: 858.361.6738


-- 
===================================
Associate professor of Legal Informatics 
School of Law
Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna 
C.I.R.S.F.I.D. http://www.cirsfid.unibo.it/ 
Palazzo Dal Monte Gaudenzi - Via Galliera, 3 
I - 40121 BOLOGNA (ITALY) 
Tel +39 051 277217 
Fax +39 051 260782 
E-mail  monica.palmirani@unibo.it 
====================================




--
____________________________________________________________________
Grant Vergottini
Xcential Group, LLC.
email: grant.vergottini@xcential.com
phone: 858.361.6738


-- 
===================================
Associate professor of Legal Informatics 
School of Law
Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna 
C.I.R.S.F.I.D. http://www.cirsfid.unibo.it/ 
Palazzo Dal Monte Gaudenzi - Via Galliera, 3 
I - 40121 BOLOGNA (ITALY) 
Tel +39 051 277217 
Fax +39 051 260782 
E-mail  monica.palmirani@unibo.it 
====================================




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