Automatic Translation from Textual Representations of Laws to Formal Models through UML

JURIX 2005 – 18JURIX 2005 – 18thth Annual Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems Annual Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information SystemsBruxelles, December 8, 2005Bruxelles, December 8, 2005


Istituto di Teoria e Tecniche dell'Informazione Giuridica

CNR


CNR

Dipartimento di Sistemi e Informatica

Università degli Studi di Firenze



Automatic Translation from Textual Automatic Translation from Textual Representations of Laws to Formal Models Representations of Laws to Formal Models

through UMLthrough UML



Pietro MercataliPietro MercataliFrancesco RomanoFrancesco Romano

Pietro MercataliPietro MercataliFrancesco RomanoFrancesco Romano

ITTIG-CNRITTIG-CNR{ mercatali, romano }@ittig.cnr.it{ mercatali, romano }@ittig.cnr.it


Luciano BoschiLuciano BoschiEmilio SpinicciEmilio Spinicci Luciano BoschiLuciano BoschiEmilio SpinicciEmilio Spinicci

DSIDSI{ boschi, spinicci }@dsi.unifi.it{ boschi, spinicci }@dsi.unifi.it


P. Mercatali, F. RomanoL. Boschi, E. SpinicciP. Mercatali, F. RomanoL. Boschi, E. Spinicci 2222

Automatic Translation from Textual Representation of LawsAutomatic Translation from Textual Representation of Lawsto Formal Models through UMLto Formal Models through UML


OutlineOutlineOutlineOutline

Introduction

Information Extraction&Modelling of Express Textual Amendments using UML

UML Modelling of the contents of a legislative text and of the applied amendments;

LexLooter plug-in Tool functionalities: UML instantiation, generation of

coordinated text; Application example;

Conclusions and future perspectives




IntroductionIntroduction Motivations:

Legislative text contents liable to Express Textual Amendments (ETAs) may present intelligibility problems

Support for recognition and validation can be achieved using

● NLP and IE tools&techniques (XML markup);● Formal representation of legislative contents (UML);● Automatic generation of the coordinated text;

Goal: Implementing a suitable software tool for automatic

processing a legislative text prone to several ETAs● LexLooter;





Introduction


LexLooter plug-in


Introduction


LexLooter plug-in





Express Textual AmendmentExpress Textual Amendment((NovellaNovella))

Kind of normative nexus, where an active disposition affects the passive one, by modifying its text;

Coordinated(Enforced)

Text

ExpressTextual

Amendment

RootLaw

repealinsertion

substitution




2. La presente legge e' finalizzata all'applicazione dei principi di efficienza e di trasparenza nei procedimenti amministrativi, al perseguimento contestuale del servizio al singolo cittadino e della tutela degli interessi pubblici e collettivi.

ETA exampleETA example Regional Statute 43/2003, article 1, comma 1 (ETA)

Regional Statute 52/1999, article 1, comma 2 (Root Law)

1. In article 1, comma 2, of Regional Statute October 14, 1999, n. 52 (Norme sulle concessioni, le autorizzazioni e le denunce d'inizio delle attivita' edilizie [...]), after the words "procedimenti amministrativi," are inserted the following: "al soddisfacimento dei bisogni sociali ed".







ETA exampleETA example Regional Statute 43/2003, article 1, comma 1 (ETA)

Regional Statute 52/1999, article 1, comma 2 (Root Law, modified)

2. La presente legge e' finalizzata all'applicazione dei principi di efficienza e di trasparenza nei procedimenti amministrativi, al soddisfacimento dei bisogni sociali ed al perseguimento contestuale del servizio al singolo cittadino e della tutela degli interessi pubblici e collettivi.





UML ModellingUML ModellingUML ModellingUML Modelling

Modelling Legislative Acts A UML Class Diagram including:

● Structure of the Text;● Amendment Dispositions;

Instantiating Class Diagram for each legislative act Generating one Object Diagram (UML 2.0) for each

analysed act

Processing algorithms for: Search of partitions and amendment dispositions; ETA application to Root Models; Verification of instatiated structures;




Package NIR Law

type, number date...

Articles Partitions

Titolo Articolo Comma...

Text Elements Corpo Rubrica...

StructureStructure




Associated to the partitions of the Novella

RepealsInsertions Substitutions

Text strings or entire partitions

References to Law partitions

ETAETA




Change Class

Allow tracking of applied amendments

Included in: Legge (Law) Class Text Elements Partitions

Coordinated Coordinated modelmodel




Adopted Adopted Information Extraction toolsInformation Extraction tools

Adopted Adopted Information Extraction toolsInformation Extraction tools

LexEdit XXI A tool by ITTIG and CELI s.r.l. for XML structural

marking and checking of a legislative text;

Sophia 2.1 A general-purpose FSA linguistic parser

developed by CELI s.r.l., used for automatic recognition and XML marking of ETAs;




Document ProcessingDocument Processing

RootLaw

ETA

RootModel

XMLLEXXI

XMLLEXXI

XMLSophia

ETAModel

CoordinatedModel

StructureModel




Model generationModel generation

Rootmodel

CoordinatedModel 1

ETAModel 2

CoordinatedModel 2

ETAModel 3

CoordinatedModel 3

... ... ...

T0

T1

T3

T2

ETAModel 1





Introduction


LexLooter plug-in


Introduction


LexLooter plug-in





LexLooterLexLooterLexLooterLexLooter Main Features

Plug-in for Eclipse 3.0 framework; OO Design; Integrates UML2 Eclipse library;

Functionalities Implementation of the proposed methodology

● Parsing of XML documents produced by LexEdit XXI and Sophia 2.1

● Instatiating UML model of the analyzed act Verification of the applied amendments Generation of the Coordinated Text Analysis of the text currently in force




RootLaw

ETA

RootModel

LEXXIXML

LEXXIXML

SophiaXML

ETAModel

CoordinatedModel

StructureModel

Example of Coordinated ModelExample of Coordinated Model




Coordinated Text Coordinated Text GenerationGeneration

Coordinated model is converted in HTML using XSL (eXtensible Stylesheet Language) Transformation;




Coordinated Text Coordinated Text GenerationGeneration




Text in force AnalysisText in force Analysis

RootModel

ETAModel 1

CoordinatedModel 1

ETAModel 2

CoordinatedModel 2




Novella

Express Textual Amendments

Marked by Sophia Applied by LexLooter

Str. Repeal Str. Subst. Str. Ins. Str. Repeal Str. Subst. Str. Ins.

Part.Repeal Part. Subst. Part.Ins. Part.Repeal Part. Subst. Part.Ins.

L.R. 13/2002

8 8

0 2 0 0 2 0

2 2 2 2 2 2

L.R. 43/2003

34 31

0 7 4 0 7 2

7 13 3 7 13 2

Overall

42 39

0 9 4 0 9 2

9 15 5 9 15 4

LexLooter successfully applied 39 of 42 ETAs marked by Sophia (93%)

Application Example:Application Example:Tuscany Statute 52/1999Tuscany Statute 52/1999




Unmodelled amendmentsUnmodelled amendments Presence of typing errors (2) prevent correct

matching with text extraction regex;

Missing structural XML markup of the text added by an amendment (1)

partition (e.g. a comma) replaced by more partitions (more commas);

text added by an amendment appears quoted in the novella and cannot be marked by LexEdit

Text normalisation currently implemented (blank removing, quotes reduction, …);

Regex refinement and better LexEdit integration will allow structural markup of added partitions;




Unmarked amendments are also taken into account;

Sophia only marks “well formed” amendments according to modern drafting rules

LexLooter can estimate the number of unmarked amendments using suitable regex matching in the text outside Sophia markups

Suitable warnings notify the number of estimated unmarked amendments or incorrect marking, as well as of unmodelled elements

Unmarked AmendmentsUnmarked AmendmentsUnmarked AmendmentsUnmarked Amendments




Next DevelopmentsNext DevelopmentsNext DevelopmentsNext Developments

Extending Sophia marking rules in order “bad formed” amendments to appear in the UML diagram;

Implementation of a verification algorithm to validate the modelled amendments

Correctness attributes in Change Class to be instantiated in case of “well formed” or “bad formed” amendments(to be notified with suitable warning messages)





Introduction


LexLooter plug-in


Introduction


LexLooter plug-in





ConclusionsConclusions The LexLooter prototype has shown its potential

as a tool supporting the recognition of a legislative text liable to express textual amendments;

as a tool supporting the validation and verification of a legislative text;

Further improvements include: Definition of OCL structural constraints for the validation

of the structure of model, according to legislative drafting; UML Interaction

● Omondo EclipseUML / GMF

Experimentation on an extended corpus of legislative acts is also a priority.




Future WorkFuture WorkFuture WorkFuture Work Interfacing with NirEditor

and adaptation of metadata (DTD NiR)

Evolution of the adopted UML model Inclusion of further structural and textual information

● Article differentiated being-in-force

Non-standard structures● Conditioned amendments

Extension of the methodology to other documentation

Administrative acts




Open Issues (1)Open Issues (1)Open Issues (1)Open Issues (1)

As in other projects, the main goal of this work is to intercept the semantics of a text by adopting textual linguistic analysis techniques.

The textual linguistic postulates three main levels constituting the communicative act:

textual inter-textual extra-textual





We call it the “pre-situational and static model”

The model represents a text which does not take into account factual situations however which interacts in the determining (in continuous evolution) of the meaning of the text itself.

We link the “pre-situational model” to a “normativistic model” which represents the general and abstract legal rule.

Instead the “situational model”, is the model obtained after the positioning of the utterance in the factual situation.

We link the “situational model” to the “interpretative model”.

This model represents the interpreted norm.

In this work the implemented model is built within textual and inter-textual levels without considering the extra-

textual one.





We consider the first institute saturated within textual and inter-textual levels and the second one as a result of the interaction between textual, inter-textual and extra-textual levels.

● In Italian jurisprudence, the difference between enforcement and effectiveness is often exemplified by the war criminal code: in peace time the code is certainly enforced but not effective. The effectiveness will depend upon wartime declaration, but also from real situations not calculable by a representative model of the legislative system being extraneous to the system itself. The war criminal code considers, in fact, cases of “automatic” effectiveness (application) of war criminal law connected to some events, without the needs of a bill, order or other and, in particular, the war declaration which effects, for general rule, the application of the war criminal code (art. 3 c.p.m.g.)

On one hand, the enforcement is implemented by a model built only in the textual and inter-textual level, on the other, the effectiveness to be intercepted demands the covering of the extra-textual level.

In the following, we exemplify this through the difference between enforcement and effectiveness




Open Issues (4)Open Issues (4)Open Issues (4)Open Issues (4) The building of the “situational/interpretative model” demands the

representation of events and the dynamic interaction between the events and the text.

We believe UML, a notation potentially able to represent also extra-textual level for the implementation of more efficient “interpretative models” for the evaluation of the normative product which can be adopted not only by the legislator, but also by lawyers who apply and interpret the law.

Modelling such events and situations needs different UML notations w.r.t. the static diagrams adopted to represent textual and inter-textual levels.

UML notations for the description of dynamic aspects (i.e. sequence, activity diagrams) should be adopted to model extra-textual level and its interaction with the text.

We hope that the proposed issue receives the critical attention from the computer/law community to be developed or demolished.




Thank you for your attention!




CNR


CNR









Pietro MercataliPietro MercataliFrancesco Romano Francesco Romano

Pietro MercataliPietro MercataliFrancesco Romano Francesco Romano



Luciano BoschiLuciano BoschiEmilio Spinicci Emilio Spinicci Luciano BoschiLuciano BoschiEmilio Spinicci Emilio Spinicci






Additional Slides




IntroductionIntroduction

Expertise of DSI and ITTIG

Experience on information extraction&modelling of technical documentation

● Patents, Software Requirements Specifications;

Experience in analysing legislative texts using structural and semantic information extraction techniques

● Structural XML marking: NormeInRete (NIR) project, NIR DTDs;

● Semantic analysis of Express Textual Amendments;




Detection of Sophia unmarked or incorrectly marked amendments

Possible wrong tags Assessment of unmarked

amendments

Warnings Warnings after Sophia XML Analysisafter Sophia XML Analysis

Warnings Warnings after Sophia XML Analysisafter Sophia XML Analysis




Modelling notificationsModelling notifications

Further warnings may be produced at the end of the UML modelling phase

typing errors missing structural markup of added text




Unmodelled amendmentsUnmodelled amendments

Text “Normalisation” currently implemented: emphasized characters (è, é e') quotes (e.g.: “ ” '', ` ´ ' ) removing unnecessary XML tags for the generation of

the coordinated text(e.g.: references tag <rif…> […] </rif>)

blank removing

Next implementation: Refinement of regular expressions for text extraction Integration with LexEdit for the markup of added text




Next DevelopmentsNext DevelopmentsNext DevelopmentsNext Developments

Example of coordinated model with verified amendment correctness:

Documents

Automatic Translation from Textual Representations of Laws to Formal Models through UML