The information on this website is
deprecated, please refer to
http://www.metalex.eu for the current version of MetaLex, developed within the MetaLex CEN
Workshop
The original MetaLex framework was launched in 2002. This website is dedicated to the version 1.3 of this framework. Work in
this context has discontinued. A complete
redesign of MetaLex, including good design practices from the (Italian) Norme in Rete and (pan-African) Akoma Ntoso XML standards, has been
submitted as a proposal for a CEN/ISSS standard. This version is discussed at the CEN Workshop Website.
MetaLex is an open format and a generic and extensible framework for the XML and RDF encoding of the structure and contents of legal documents. It aims to be jurisdiction and language-neutral, and is based on modern publishing concepts like XSLT-based transformation pipelines and emerging Semantic Web standards like RDF and OWL.
The problems MetaLex addresses are shared by many e-Government initiatives in the world. Increasing legal convergence between governments in the European Union, and the growing importance of traffic of people, services, goods, and money over borders of jurisdictions has led to an increased interest for foreign legislation. Publication of legislation, and the development of tools for working with legislation, is however very much a jurisdiction-specific enterprise. What is needed is a jurisdiction-independent XML standard that can be used for exchange, but also as a platform for development of manipulation and search tools.
the MetaLex examples from the examples section have been loaded into the repository and can be queried either through the SPARQL/SeRQL endpoint of Sesame, or through a web-interface.
Continue Reading October 22nd, 2007
MetaLex XML and the Legal Knowledge Interchange format (LKIF) are XML standard proposals dealing with two complementary aspects of electronic legislation: the documents themselves as a carrier, and an institutional reality they represent. A new paper gives an overview and update on the current status of both initiatives.
Continue Reading October 16th, 2007
There will be a Workshop on Legislative XML on december 15, 2007 in Leiden, the Netherlands, in conjunction with the JURIX conference.
Continue Reading October 14th, 2007
Following i.a. the UK and Ireland, the Dutch have decided to pull the plug on e-voting, making this an opportune moment to bring a special issue of The Bridge on voting technologies to the attention of the general audience.
Continue Reading October 2nd, 2007
The teaching materials used in the Legislative XML Summer School (LeX) European University Institute, San Domenico di Fiesole, Florence (Italy) are now available online.
Continue Reading October 2nd, 2007
The LeX school is an intensive, 6-day program aimed at providing knowledge of the most significant ICT standards emerging for legislation, an understanding of their impact in the different phases of the legislative process, awareness of the tools based on legislative standards, and the ability to participate in the preparation and use of standard-compliant documents throughout the participate in law-making process.
Continue Reading July 16th, 2007
The official first CEN workshop agreement was published on the CEN website as CWA 15710. The new CEN MetaLex prenorm differs significantly from the current MetaLex 1.3 schema, and is from this moment on the official MetaLex version. Go to the workshop website for more information.
June 26th, 2007
A new version of Legal Atlas is available. This version has a number of extra functionalities above the version 0.11a. It is highly recommended to always use the latest version.
Continue Reading March 30th, 2007
The Estrella project delivered the first specification of the Legal Knowledge Interchange Format (LKIF). LKIF uses Metalex as a standard for sources of law.
Continue Reading February 15th, 2007
Read the CEN Workshop Agreement adopted on 6 december 2006.
Continue Reading February 15th, 2007
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