On the Introduction of ECLI Standard in the Italian Judicial Documentary System
T. Agnoloni, L. Bacci, E. Francesconi
ITTIG-CNR – Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques Italian National Research Council
Rome, 13-14 October 2014
Overview
Identification and role of the Italian national ECLI coordinator
Specifications of theECLI components under national responsibility
Metadata mapping towards ECLI Dublin Core specifications
Tools for ECLI implementation(case law reference parsing)
ECLI main pillar of the European e-Justice Portal
ECLI - The national level
European Case Law Identifier (ECLI)is a metadata convention and structure for identifying case-law
Member Statesare encouraged to introduce ECLI for case-law identification
Each Member State must appoint a governmental or judicial organization as thenational ECLI-coordinator. It is responsible for:
(a) the list of courts and tribunals that can have a code;
Italian National ECLI Coordinator
TheMinistry of Justice - DGSIAis acting as Italian National ECLI Coordinator
ITTIG-CNRacts as technical support providing:
National ECLI specifications
Tools to facilitate the implementation of ECLI - Italian version
ECLI components under national responsibility
ECLI : [CountryCode] : [CourtCode] : [Year] : [OrdinalNumber]
ECLI components under national responsibility
ECLI : [CountryCode] : [CourtCode] : [Year] : [OrdinalNumber]
[CourtCode] (max 7 characters)
1 Code of courts with national jurisdiction competence
CASS Corte Suprema di Cassazione (Supreme Court) COST Corte Costituzionale (Constitutional Court)
CSM Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura (High Council of the Judiciary) ...
2 Code of courts with local jurisdiction competence court name (3 chars) + geographical code (provincial or cadastral (municipal) code) (max 4 chars)
TRB Ordinary tribunal
TRD Ordinary tribunal – Separate section CPP Court of Appeal
...
Examples:
Tribunal of Milan TRBMI
Trib. of Milan, Separate Sect. of Rho TRDH264
[CourtCode] (max 7 characters)
1 Code of courts with national jurisdiction competence
CASS Corte Suprema di Cassazione (Supreme Court) COST Corte Costituzionale (Constitutional Court)
CSM Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura (High Council of the Judiciary) ...
2 Code of courts with local jurisdiction competence court name (3 chars) + geographical code (provincial or cadastral (municipal) code) (max 4 chars)
TRB Ordinary tribunal
TRD Ordinary tribunal – Separate section CPP Court of Appeal
...
Examples:
Tribunal of Milan TRBMI
Trib. of Milan, Separate Sect. of Rho TRDH264
[OrdinalNumber] (max 25 characters)
<OrdinalNumber> = <measure><details> [<disambiguation-code>]
<measure>: judgements (S), ordinances (O), interlocutory ordinances (I), decrees (D)
<details>: measure or proceeding number and possibly the matter (called “Ruolo di Cancelleria”)
<disambiguation-code>: code for disambiguation within a dossier (DDMM)
ECLI examples for Italian case law
Judgement n. 12/2008 of the Court of Milan on Labour Law
ECLI:IT:TRBMI:2008:S12LA
Judgement n. 1569/2008 of the Court of Cassation, Civil Law Section I
ECLI:IT:CASS:2008:S1569AC
Ordinance of the Court of Milan, 25 January 2013, R.G.A.C. (civil litigation) n. 123 of 2009 (year of creation of the dossier)
ECLI:IT:TRBMI:2013:O123.2009AC
ECLI examples for Italian case law
Judgement n. 12/2008 of the Court of Milan on Labour Law
ECLI:IT:TRBMI:2008:S12LA
Judgement n. 1569/2008 of the Court of Cassation, Civil Law Section I
ECLI:IT:CASS:2008:S1569AC
Ordinance of the Court of Milan, 25 January 2013, R.G.A.C. (civil litigation) n. 123 of 2009 (year of creation of the dossier)
ECLI:IT:TRBMI:2013:O123.2009AC
ECLI examples for Italian case law
Judgement n. 12/2008 of the Court of Milan on Labour Law
ECLI:IT:TRBMI:2008:S12LA
Judgement n. 1569/2008 of the Court of Cassation, Civil Law Section I
ECLI:IT:CASS:2008:S1569AC
Ordinance of the Court of Milan, 25 January 2013, R.G.A.C.
(civil litigation) n. 123 of 2009 (year of creation of the dossier)
ECLI:IT:TRBMI:2013:O123.2009AC
Metadata for Case Law within the ECLI initiative
ECLI Metatata- based on the Dublin Core metadata standard - to promote understandability and findability of case law
each courtexposes a minimal set of mandatory DC metadata ECLI search interface(multilingual, multi-jurisdiction)
optional metadata: additional information on subject, content and related documents for each decision
Italian prototype implementation: mapping and publication of metadata of theCorte Suprema di Cassazionecriminal and civil case law
Metadata for Case Law within the ECLI initiative
ECLI Metatata- based on the Dublin Core metadata standard - to promote understandability and findability of case law
< e c l i : document>
< e c l i : m e t a d a t a >
< e c l i : i d e n t i f i e r l a n g =" i t " f o r m a t =" t e x t / h t m l " t y p e ="s u m m a r i s e d ">
h t t p : / / . . .
</ e c l i : i d e n t i f i e r >
< e c l i : i s V e r s i o n O f v a l u e ="ECLI : IT : XX : 2 0 1 2 : XXXX">
< e c l i : c o u n t r y >IT </ e c l i : c o u n t r y >
< e c l i : c o u r t >XX</ e c l i : c o u r t >
</ e c l i : i s V e r s i o n O f >
< e c l i : c r e a t o r l a n g =" i t "> O r g a n i s a t i o n Y</ e c l i : c r e a t o r >
. . .
</ e c l i : m e t a d a t a >
< e c l i : document>
ECLI for automatic and stable hyperlinks
Potential loss of validity of document hyperlinks
Intensive maintenance activity
Stable hyperlinks can be obtained by adopting a document naming conventionlike ECLI
Automatic text parsingable to detect referencesand
Variability in Legal Citations: Judicial citations
The automatic detection of case law reference is achallenging task lack of consolidated best practices for judicial citations authorities, numerical references and dates are expressed in many different ways
citation components can be implicit or missing.
Examples of different ways to addressItalian Court of Cassation(High Court)decisions
Cass. n. 2597 del 7/2/2006 Cass. n. 13085 del 2008 Cass. 1197 del 20/1/2006 Cass. 19/10/2007, n. 2200 Cass. SU 4.11.2004 n 21095 Cass. 15712/02, 2059/00. Cass. 21.12.2002 n. 18223, 3.9.96 n. 8053.
Variability in Legal Citations: Judicial citations
The automatic detection of case law reference is achallenging task lack of consolidated best practices for judicial citations authorities, numerical references and dates are expressed in many different ways
citation components can be implicit or missing.
Examples of different ways to addressItalian Court of Cassation(High Court)decisions
Cass. n. 2597 del 7/2/2006 Cass. n. 13085 del 2008 Cass. 1197 del 20/1/2006 Cass. 19/10/2007, n. 2200
Parsing approach
AJudicial Reference Parserhas been developed by ITTIG-CNR It is conceived on a parsing strategy based on:
triggering words rules
start conditions
Parsing approach
Automatic
parsing
Parsing approach
Automatic
parsing
Italian ECLI implementation pilot cases
Supreme Court of Cassation
Tribunal of Milan
Thanks!
{agnoloni,bacci,francesconi}@ittig.cnr.it