Abstract
This chapter details the need to create local application profiles of AKN, exemplified by the German federal legal system and the complex legal processes and drafting rules. It is against this backdrop that the section also features a brief excursion into the German application profile LegalDocML.de that currently continues to be further developed.
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Notes
- 1.
Vitali and Palmirani (2019).
- 2.
Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (2018), Akoma Ntoso Version 1.0 Part 1: XML Vocabulary. Edited by Monica Palmirani, Roger Sperberg, Grant Vergottini, and Fabio Vitali. 29 August 2018. OASIS Standard. http://docs.oasis-open.org/legaldocml/akncore/v1.0/os/part1-vocabulary/akn-core-v1.0-os-part1-vocabulary.html. Latest version: http://docs.oasis-open.org/legaldocml/akn-core/v1.0/akn-core-v1.0-part1-vocabulary.html, http://docs.oasis-open.org/legaldocml/, section 2.1. See also Dimyadi et al. (2017), Sartor et al. (2011), Sartor (2016, p. 218), Boella et al. (2014, p. 173), Palmirani and Vitali (2012, pp. 159–169).
- 3.
Dolin (2021). Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (2019a), Electronic Court Filing Version 5.0, Committee Specification 01, 18 April 2019, https://docs.oasisopen.org/legalxml-courtfiling/, Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (2019b), Litigant Portal Exchange Version 1.0, Committee Specification Draft 01 / Public Review Draft 01, 06 August 2019, https://docs.oasis-open.org/lp/ Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (2021b), LegalRuleML Core Specification Version 1.0, OASIS Standard, 30 August 2021, http://docs.oasis-open.org/legalruleml/. Also see http://www.legalxml.org/.
- 4.
- 5.
For a recent review of interoperable systems, tools and ontologies in legal informatics, see Loutsaris and Charalabidis (2020). For further examples specifically making use of Akoma Ntoso, see e.g. Stavropoulou et al. (2020), Moreno Schneider et al. (2022), Leventis Anastasiou and Fitsilis (2020), Palmirani et al. (2021), Joshi et al. (2021). However, also consider Francesconi (2022), for a discussion on the potential and limitations of the semantic web and related technologies such as AI in the context of legal informatics.
- 6.
See e.g. Publications Office of the European Union (2020), Akoma Ntoso for EU (AKN4EU), Version 3.0, http://publications.europa.eu/resource/dataset/akn4eu; United Nations System, Chief Executives Board for Coordination, High-Level Committee on Management (HLCM) (2020), Akoma Ntoso for the United Nations System, Guidelines for the mark-up of UN normative, parliamentary and judicial documents, https://www.w3id.org/un/schema/akn4un/; Vergottini (2018, p. 9), Ostendorff et al. (2020), Bundesministerium des Innern, für Bau und Heimat (2020).
- 7.
Gen et al. (2016).
- 8.
When looking at the German legislative system, Germany boasts a large variety of legally or factually independent constitutional actors and entities that each will need to implement the LDML.de application profile in their own tools, which can be particularly challenging. Specifically, the Office of the Federal President, the federal ministries, the Bundestag administration, the parliamentary committees, the parliamentary groups, the Bundesrat and the German states generally do not use a standardized or uniform IT infrastructure. In the EU, this is similarly the case as regards the European Council, the European Commission and European Parliament.
- 9.
In the German case study, executive law may not only be published by the Federal Law Gazette (Bundesgesetzblatt), but also by gazettes of the different federal ministries such as the Bundessteuerblatt (BStBl.) or the Gemeinsames Ministerialblatt (GMBl.). Similar examples are the Danish Lovtidende (Law Tidings) and Statstidende (State Tidings), which are respectively the law gazettes of the legislative and executive bodies.
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
See for example the guidelines on AKN4UN: United Nations System, Chief Executives Board for Coordination, High-Level Committee on Management (HLCM) (2020), Akoma Ntoso for the United Nations System, Guidelines for the mark-up of UN normative, parliamentary and judicial documents, https://www.w3id.org/un/schema/akn4un/.
- 13.
- 14.
Unlike AKN itself, the herein described application profile does not aim to be universally and perpetually applicable, but rather, to formally capture (and make testable) a set of legislative rules at a given point in time. Changes in drafting guidelines over time would instead be addressed via a corresponding version of the applicable national application profile to ensure consistency and take into account changes over time.
- 15.
- 16.
However, see the EU localization of AKN made use of this approach: Publications Office of the European Union (2020), Akoma Ntoso for EU (AKN4EU), Version 3.0, http://publications.europa.eu/resource/dataset/akn4eu.
- 17.
See http://egesetzgebung.bund.de/index_en.html and http://egesetzgebung.bund.de/legaldocml.html as well as Bundesministerium des Innern, für Bau und Heimat (2020), Spezifikation LegalDocML.de—XML-Standard für Dokumente der Bundesrechtsetzung, Fassung vom 27.03.2020, Version 1.0. For a more comprehensive German description see Piesker et al. (2020).
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Flatt, A., Langner, A., Leps, O. (2022). Model-Driven Development of AKN Application Profiles: Background and Requirements. In: Model-Driven Development of Akoma Ntoso Application Profiles. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14132-4_2
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