SDU BWB

The Dutch SDU BWB standard. This XML format is currently used for encoding the laws in the Dutch Basiswettenbestand (BWB) database, that is a large database containing almost all Dutch laws and
decisions. SDU BWB, as an XML format, is used for encoding the laws in the Dutch Basiswettenbestand (BWB) database, which is a large database containing almost all Dutch laws and decisions. The standard is based on a DTD originally developed by SDU publishers, and now maintained by the Dutch government. A law or decision is divided in intul, introduction, the actual text, closure and appendices.

The standard is based on a DTD originally developed by SDU publishers, and now maintained by the Dutch government.

Document structure

Documents are classified among 20 different types (including laws, decisions,Orders of Council, EU Guidelines and treaties). Other documents may be referenced using an element.

“A law or decision is divided in intul, introduction, the actual text, closure and appendices. The structure of the actual text is given through the following regular expressions:

regulation ! book+|part+|(chapter|title|department|paragraph|article)*
book ! (chapter|title|department|paragraph)*
part ! (chapter|title|department|paragraph|article)*
title ! (chapter|department|paragraph)*
department ! (chapter|paragraph|article)*
chapter ! (title|department|paragraph|article)*
paragraph ! (department|subparagraph|article)*
subparagraph ! (article|subparagraph)*
article ! (member)*

All these structure elements can contain actual text. This text comes before any subparts. The only exception to this is the article, which can mix text and members.

Instead of the structure given above, a regulation may also consist directly of the actual text (without any intervening layers) or it may contain a single article (which is a separate element from a “regular” article).

A regulation is structured similar to a law or decision, but it cannot contain books a parts. However, it may contain (at top level) modification articles, which contain modification to existing laws. These modification articles can themselves contain law text, which may be structured as is given above.

A circulaire is composed, like the other documents, from an intul, an introduction, the actual text, closure and (possibly) appendices. However, the actual text is composed differently than it is within the other documents. In a circulaire, text can be unstructured, divided into articles or follow a more layered structure. This layered structure is less formal than it is within the other documents, and therefore, a more abstract approach is chosen. A circulaire can be split into divisions, which can themselves consists of divisions. A division differs from the other structure elements in that it need not be called a division in the actual text, while a book should also be named a book in the actual text.

The fourth structure, the treaty, consists of an intul, an introduction, the actual text and a closure. The actual text may be structured like a law (the first structure) or similar to a circulaire (the third structure, which is more loose).”(1)

Each structure element has an ID for identification of the document. For use in the web based system, two other identifiers (IDs) may be added: an ID for a specific part of a regulation, which encompasses all versions of that part, and an ID for a specific version of a specific part of a regulation.

Features of SDU BWB

Paragraphs

“BWB XML divides the text into individual paragraphs. Actual parts of text are included in paragraph (different from the paragraph structure element) and list elements. These appear in articles, members, divisions and in the structuretext element (which may be included at the start of any other structure element). If no structure is present in the document, paragraph and list elements can appear directly below a regulation-text, circulaire-text or treaty-text element.”(2)

Quoting text

“There are two different ways of quoting text using BWB XML:
1. Quoting a legal text (using the wetcitaat element). The text that appears in
this element can be structured into articles and members using other XML
members.
2. Quoting other texts (using the aanhaling element). This text is not structured.
In both cases, attributes are provided to link to the quoted document.”(3)

Metadata of the model

The general metadata of SDU BWB “includes:
• The publication in which the legislation was published.
• The location where it was created, and the date on which it was created.
• The name of the ministry (or other body) that is the main responsible for the legislation.
• The official title of the document, any other titles it may have and any abbreviations of these titles.
• An overview of the parliamentary history of the regulation.
• References to those laws that empower the regulation.
• In case the document is a translation of another document: a reference to the original and the name of the translator.
• In case of a treaty: the names of the different parties that take part in the treaty.”(4)

Other Features

• In BWB XML, the “entire history of each article is tracked in relation to modifications
  to the text of the article, though only the latest version of the text is included in
  the document. For each modification, the source document of that modification is
  listed,”(5) together with an explanation of the modification (Original text, repeal, modification, etc).
• “The source document is identified by its publication type, year of publication and
  date of publication…. The metadata includes the current source of the text (including the source of the enactment date), as well as a history (containing all sources that have modified
  this text in some way, including the last).”(6)
• “BWB XML provides tags with information on how a text should be presented to
  the user.”(7) For example, Emphasis (italics, bold, smallcaps etc), Superscript and Underlined (for formulas).
• BWB XML “allows for several kinds of editor’s notes: comments, markers for official/
  unofficial information and markers for tentative/active information.”(8)

Resources

Notes and References

1. C.Lupo,F.Vitali,E.Francesconi,M.Palmirani,R.Winkels,E.deMaat,A.Boer,andP.Mascellani. General XML format(s) for legal sources. Technical report, IST-2004-027655. La Estrella Project.
2. Idem
3. Idem
4. Idem
5. Idem
6. Idem
7. Idem
8. Idem

See Also

• Semantic Web and Law
• Semantic Indexing and Law
• XML Standards for Legislation
• MetaLex
• LegalXML
• SDU BWB
• LexDania
• NormeinRete
• AKOMA NTOSO
• CHLexML
• EnAct
• Legal RDF
• eLaw
• LAMS
• JSMS
• UKMF
• Estrella Project
• Legal Ontologies
• Artificial Intelligence and Law
• CELEX
• Free Access to Law Movement
• Legal Information Institute resources

Further Reading

• Arnold-Moore, T. (1997). Automatic generation of amendment legislation. In Proceedings of the International Conference of Artificial Intelligence and Law.
• Biagioli, C. and Francesconi, E. (2005). A semantics-based visual framework for planning a new bill. In Proceedings of the Jurix Conference: Legal Knowledge and Information Systems,
• Alexander Boer, Rinke Hoekstra, Radboud Winkels, Tom van Engers, Frederik Willaert Pages: 142-149, EGOV ’02 Proceedings of the First International Conference on Electronic Government 2002
• Jérôme Fuselier et Boris Chidlovskii, Traitements Automatiques pour la Migration de Documents Numériques vers XML, in Document Numérique, vol 9/1 -2006.
• Ovidiu Vasutiu, David Jouve, Youssef Amghar, Jean-Marie Pinon, XML based Legal Document Drafting Information System, 20th Aniversary Annual JURIX Conference, Workshop on Legislative XML, LIRIS, 12/2007
• Estrella Project user report. Deliverable4.5,EuropeanCommission, 2008.
• Tucker, H. (2004b). LexDania – Documentation. Guidelines for Writing Omni- and DocType and Application Schemas.
• Tucker, H. (2004f). Lex Dania – White Paper. A System of XML Schemas for Danish Legislative Documentation.
• Data models for version management of legislative documents, Marà­a Hallo Carrasco,
  Journal of Information Science.
• T. Bench-Capon and F. Coenen. Isomorphism and legal knowledge based systems. Artificial
  Intelligence and Law, 1(1):65-86, 1992.
• V. R. Benjamins, P. Casanovas, J. Breuker, and A. Gangemi, editors. Law and the Semantic
  Web: Legal Ontologies, Methodologies, Legal Information Retrieval and Applications.
  Springer-Verlag, 2005.
• C. Lupo and C. Batini. A federative approach to laws access by citizens: The Normeinrete system. In R. Traunmuller, editor, Proc. Second International Conference on Electronic
  Government, Berlin, 2003. Springer.
• R. Rubino, A. Rotolo, and G. Sartor. An OWL ontology of fundamental legal concepts. In
  Proc. JURIX 2006, pages 101-110, 2006.
• S. Sadiq, M. Orlowska, andW. Sadiq. Specification and validation of process constraints for
  flexible workflows. Information Systems, 30(5):349-378, 2005.
• G. Wagner, G. Antoniou, S. Tabet, and H. Boley. The abstract syntax of RuleML towards
  a general web rule language framework. In Proc. Web Intelligence 2004, pages 628-631.
  IEEE, 2004.
• Sébastien Ros, Mapping objet-relationnel, Couches d’accès aux données et Frameworks de persistance, Février 2003
• Faà¯za Abbaci, Pascal Francq , Classement des fragments de documents XML par une méthode d’aide à la décision, RNTi E9 – Extraction et gestion des connaissances EGC’2007
• Fatiha Sais et al, Enrichissement sémantique de documents XML représentant des tableaux in: Journées Francophones Extraction et Gestion des Connaissances, vol. 2, pp. 407-419, janvier 2005
• Vanyo Peychev, XML Model for Legal Documents, PROBLEMS OF ENGINEERING CYBERNETICS AND ROBOTICS, 54, Sofia, 2004
• Guillaume ZUNINO, «Outils de transformation de données XML», Université de Caen, Master 2005-2006
• Yannick PRIE, «Modélisation de documents audiovisuels en Strates Interconnectées par les Annotations pour l’exploitation contextuelle», thèse, INSA lyon, 99 ISAL 0112, 1999
• Thomas F. Gordon, Guido Governatori, and Antonino Rotolo. Rules and norms: Requirements for rule interchange languages in the legal domain. In Guido Governatori, John Hall, and Adrian Paschke, editors, Rule Representation, Interchange and Reasoning on the Web, LNCS 5858, pages 282-296. Springer, 2009.