Linked Data for Czech Legislation

Linked Data for Czech Legislation
Martin Nečaský, Ph.D.
necasky@xrg.cz
Matematicko-fyzikální fakulta Univerzity Karlovy
http://www.xrg.cz
http://www.opendata.cz

Our projects in Nutshell
 The goal of our effort is to enable intelligent browsing and querying
a set of semi-structured documents from some domain.
 legislative documents
 project documentation
 medical documentation
 basic prerequisite – documents have some common characteristics
 The project consists of following steps
 extract useful structured data from semi-structured documents with
NLP techniques
 transform extracted data to Linked Data so that the data can be easily
(= quickly and cheaply) interconnected with other related data and
with the original documents
 provide tools for browsing and querying the created data + documents
space

Roles
ufal.mff.cuni.cz ksi.mff.cuni.cz

Outline
 What is Linked Data?
 current Web
 publishing data on Web
 Linked Data principles
 Linked Data for legislative documents
 basic ideas
 what we have done and what we want to do
 sample data and queries

Web of Documents
Current Web (of Documents) provides lot of
data about Prague. Problems
• Data about Prague is encoded in
documents distributed across the Web
• Documents are intended for humans not
for computers
• Documents about Prague or related things
are not linked
 Computers are not able to process data
about Prague published on the Web http://monitor.statnipokladna.cz
Prague budget
http://registry.czso.cz
Basic info about Prague
http://www.praha.eu
Prague public contracts
http://www.czso.cz
Demography of Prague
http://www.risy.cz
EU funded projects in Prague

Web of Documents
Try to search for this information on the
current Web
• Top 100 suppliers of Prague with
headquarters outside of Prague region.
• Money spent in Prague for new public
playgrounds in the last 5 years per one
child.
• Public playgrounds in Prague funded by EU.
http://monitor.statnipokladna.cz
Prague budget
http://registry.czso.cz
Basic info about Prague
http://www.praha.eu
Prague public contracts
http://www.czso.cz
Demography of Prague
http://www.risy.cz
EU funded projects in Prague

Architecture of Web of Documents
Unified global space of documents
Built on top of several simple principles:
1. HTML as a format for publishing
documents
2. URLs as unique global identifiers of
documents
3. HTTP for localization and accessing
documents by their URLs
4. hyperlinks between documents
There are two kinds of applications
working in this space of documents:
• web browsers (localizing and
browsing documents through
hyperlinks)
• search engines (indexing and full text
searching of documents)
Database
A
HTML
Database
B
HTML
Database
D
HTML
Database
C
HTML
Web browser
Search engine
HTTP
HTTP

What about publishing data?
 The next step should be publishing data instead of
documents
 Raw (open) data about things published on the Web which
can be processed by machines (applications, domain-
specific search engines)
 See public administration efforts in the area of publishing
open data:
• http://data.gov.uk
• http://1.usa.gov/193lKN6
 We can publish data on the current Web!
 basic way: data files with their own URLs in different
formats (CSV, XLS, DBF, XML, etc.)
 advanced way: Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)

Web can publish data! APIs
Different APIs provide machine
readable data for further processing
in so called mash-up applications.
Also built on several simple principles:
• XML/JSON as formats for publishing
data
• HTTP URIs as global unique
identifiers of APIs and their
operations
• HTTP protocol for transferring data
between APIs and applications
Database
A
Database
B
Database
D
Database
C
Mash-up App
Mash-up App
HTTP
Proprietary
Data API A
HTTP
HTTP HTTP
Proprietary
Data API C
Proprietary
Data API D
Proprietary
Data API B

 Current principles and technologies do not lead to
Web of Data!
 publishing data about things not based on the principles
which have already been invented for documents
Problems with data on current Web
Web of Documents Current Web IS NOT Web of Data!
HTML as a format for publishing documents many formats for publishing data (XML,
JSON, CSV, XLS, ...)
URLs as unique global identifiers of
documents
no unique global identifiers of things
HTTP for localization and accessing
HTTP for localization of APIs and accessing
them (REST) [but not for localization of
things and accessing their data]
hyperlinks between documents none of current formats enables to link
related things

Linked Data
 data published on the Web according to 4
simple principles (introduced by sir T. B. Lee)
1. Use URIs as names for things
2. Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those
names.
3. When someone looks up a URI, provide useful
information, using the standards (RDF, SPARQL)
4. Include links to other URIs so that they can
discover more things.

Linked Data vs. Documents
Web of Documents Linked Data = Web of Data!
HTML as a format for publishing documents RDF as a format for publishing data about
things
URLs as unique global identifiers of
documents
HTTP URIs (URLs) as unique global
identifiers of things
HTTP for localization and accessing
HTTP for localization and accessing things
by their HTTP URIs
hyperlinks between documents links between related entities

Things as first-class citizens
Public contract
OSM/MZ/044/09
City of Prague
Prague council Prague budget
Prague demography
EU funded project
CZ.2.16/2.1.00/22189
Public contract
MAN/23/07/007316/2010Public contract
DIL/23/07/007302/2010

HTTP URIs for Things
czso.cz (Czech Statistical Office)
http://registry.cszo.cz/
prague
http://www.czso.cz/
prague
http://www.czso.cz/
prague/stats/demog
mfcr.cz (Ministry of Finance of CZ)
http://www.mfcr.cz/
prague
http://www.mfcr.cz/
prague/budget
praha.eu (Prague)
http://www.praha.eu/
contract/007316
city
council
contract/006870
contract/007302
risy.cz (Regional Information Service in CZ)
http://www.risy.cz/
location/prague
http://www.risy.cz/
project/412457
http://www.risy.cz/
contract/007302

Data about Things in RDF
Client
HTTP REQUEST
PlaygroundRevitalization
Authority: Prague
Delivery date: 31.8.2011
Price: 28 444 000 CZK
...
contract/007302
contract/007302
Playground
Revitalization
contract/007302/price
28444000 CZK
dcterms:title
pc:contractingAuthority
pc:agreedPrice
gr:hasCurrencygr:hasCurrencyValue
31.8.2011
pc:estimated
EndDate
council

Data about Things in RDF
Client
HTTP REQUEST
PlaygroundRevitalization
Supplier: PKS INPOS
Delivery date: 31.8.2011
Price: 28 444 000 CZK
...
contract/007302
<http://www.praha.eu/contract/007302>
rdf:type pc:Contract ;
dcterms:title "Playground Revitalization" ;
pc:estimatedEndDate "31.8.2011" ;
pc:agreedPrice <http://www.praha.eu/contract/007302/price> ;
pc:contractingAuthority <http://www.praha.eu/council> .
<http://www.praha.eu/contract/007302/price>
rdf:type gr:PriceSpecification ;
gr:hasCurrency "CZK" ;
gr:hasCurrencyValue "28444000" .

Vocabularies
 published RDF data would be hardly interpretable
when each publisher would use proprietary types
 types of properties (= predicates) and types of things
(= classes)
 therefore, standardized (or at least widely used)
predicates should have priority before
proprietary ones
 e.g. Dublin Core, Good Relations, FOAF, schema.org, ...
 predicates are defined in so called vocabularies
(or ontologies)
 note: ontology is a special case of vocabulary, it
contains more detailed reasoning rules which is out of
scope of this lecture

Vocabularies
 classes and predicates
 semantic relationships between classes and predicates in one
vocabulary or more different vocabularies
 subtyping (sub-class of, sub-property of)
 semantic equivalence (equivalent class, equivalent property) – when
two different vocabularies define classes/properties with the same
semantics
 vocabularies expressed in RDF using RDF Schema, OWL vocabularies
 each class and predicate has own HTTP URI
 mechanism of XML namespaces and prefixes is usually used
 class URI is used to denote the type of a thing:
<http://www.praha.eu/contract/007302> rdf:type pc:Contract .
 predicate URI is used to denote the predicate in a triple:
<http://www.praha.eu/contract/007302> dcterms:title "..." .

Linking URIs of Related Things
http://www.risy.cz/
project/412457
http://www.czso.cz/
prague/stats/demog
http://www.mfcr.cz/
prague/budget
praha.eu (Prague)
contract/007316
city
council
contract/006870
contract/007302
n1:budget
n2:demography
n3:beneficiary
n3:realizedBy
prague
http://www.czso.cz/
prague
http://www.mfcr.cz/
prague
http://www.risy.cz/
location/prague
http://www.risy.cz/
contract/007302

Linking URIs of Same Things
prague
http://www.czso.cz/
prague
http://www.mfcr.cz/
prague
praha.eu (Prague)
city
council
contract/007302
http://www.risy.cz/
contract/007302
owl:sameAs
owl:sameAs
http://www.risy.cz/
project/412457
http://www.czso.cz/
prague/stats/demog
http://www.mfcr.cz/
prague/budget
http://www.risy.cz/
location/prague

Related vs. Same Things
 Situation: Publisher A publishes some data about a
thing T under URI U
 you want to publish something
new about T  create your
own URI V for T, publish new
data under V and link V to U
with owl:sameAs
 you want to say that your
things are related to T but you
do not publish anything new
for T  do not create own
HTTP URI for T and do not copy
data about T from A, only link
your things to U
You A
V
... ...
...
U
...
...
...
...
You A
...
U
...
...
...
...

Primary Data vs. Secondary Data
prague
http://www.czso.cz/
prague
http://www.czso.cz/
prague/stats/demog
http://www.mfcr.cz/
prague
http://www.mfcr.cz/
prague/budget
praha.eu (Prague)
contract/007316
city
council
contract/006870
contract/007302
http://www.risy.cz/
location/prague
http://www.risy.cz/
project/412457
http://www.risy.cz/
contract/007302

Linked Data for (Czech) Legislation

Linked Data in Czech Legislation
Acts and
Regulations
Court
Decisions
Public
authorities
Agendas of
Public
Authorities
Rights and
obligations
Life
situations
definedetermine
regulate
execute
Acts and
Regulations
Proposals
results from

Structural Layer of Legislative Documents
 structural parts of acts and regulations
 references between
 court decisions and parts of acts and regulations
 court decisions (legal case retrospection)
 amendments
 what we have done
 vocabulary of legislative documents
 metadata and structure of acts, regulations and decrees
represented as Linked Data
• metadata about each version of each act, regulation and decree
since 1945
• structured content of versions of all acts, regulations and decrees
valid in 2011, 2012
 extraction of references and retrospection  NLP

Public
Contracts Act
Public Contracts
Act Version
07/2006
Public Contracts
Act Version
07/2012
Public Contracts
Act Version
01/2015
Public Contracts
Act Version
06/2007
Similarly, we represent
paragraphs, sections, etc. of each
version of each law. However, we
have a problem to get consolidated
documents.
DECISION
XYZ
DECISION
ABC
refers

CASE
6 C 135/2007
DECISION
6 C 135/2007-44
CASE
21 Co 472/2008
DECISION
21 Co 472/2008-62
made for
DECISION
6 C 135/2007-141
CASE
21 Co 458/2011
DECISION
21 Co 458/2011-173
CASE
26 Cdo 2523/2012
based on
extraordinary
appeal against
DECISION
26 Cdo 2523/2012
Acts
Other
Decisions
Metropolitan
Court in Prague
District Court
Prague 9
Supreme Court

 browsing data
 http://linked.opendata.cz/resource/legislation/cz/
act/2006/137-2006
• instance of lex:Act representing Public Procurement Act

 querying data (SPARQL)
 http://linked.opendata.cz/sparql

Which acts amended the Act about political parties of Czech Republic?
PREFIX lex: <http://purl.org/lex#>
PREFIX frbr: <http://purl.org/vocab/frbr/core#>
PREFIX dcterms: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/>
SELECT ?amendmentTitle ?amendmentValidity
WHERE {
?version frbr:realizationOf
<http://linked.opendata.cz/resource/legislation/cz/act/1991/424-1991> .
?change lex:changedOriginal ?version .
?amendment lex:definesChange ?change ;
dcterms:title ?amendmentTitle ;
dcterms:valid ?amendmentValidity .
}

One of well-known hidden
amendments. It increased
the payments of state to
political parties from 500k to
900k for one parliament
member.

Which another acts were amended together with Act about political parties of Czech
Republic?
SELECT ?anotherActTitle ?anotherVersionValidity
WHERE {
?version frbr:realizationOf
<http://linked.opendata.cz/resource/legislation/cz/act/1991/424-1991> .
?change lex:changedOriginal ?version .
lex:definesChange ?anotherChange .
FILTER (?change != ?anotherChange)
?anotherChange lex:changeResult ?anotherVersion .
?anotherVersion frbr:realizationOf ?anotherAct ;
dcterms:valid ?anotherVersionValidity .
?anotherAct dcterms:title ?anotherActTitle .
}

How many changes have been done in Czech legislation per year?
SELECT (COUNT(?amendment) as ?changeCnt) (year(?validity) AS ?year)
WHERE {
dcterms:valid ?validity .
}
GROUP BY year(?validity)
ORDER BY DESC(year(?validity))

Semantic Layer of Legislative Documents
 rights, obligations and subjects defined by
legislation
 their occurrences in court decisions
 currently we start experiments with extracting
these concepts and relationships between
them from documents with acts  NLP
 based on syntactic parsing
 we do not have RDF representation yet

Semantic Layer of Legislative Documents

Linked Data for Czech Legislation

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