Commencement dates

[Edith V]

Dear all

While we at Laws.Africa are storing commencement information for legislation in our SQL database, we want to start including it in our AKN output as well. I've done a bit of research and thought I'd check in with you all before going further. Some questions and an example snippet follow.

If anyone has answers to any of the questions, thoughts/feedback on the xml, and/or any examples or advice to offer, they'd be highly appreciated.

1. Have I understood correctly that period is the (only) attribute to use for this, and that it must point to a temporalGroup containing a timeInterval with a start date, and that this must referTo a TLCConcept to do with 'being in force' / 'having (had?) commenced'?
2. If yes, is there a preferred TLCConcept href to use for 'being in force'?
3. Is there any other way of expressing commencement / coming into force, one that doesn't ultimately point to a TLCConcept? Could one, for example, use an attribute other than period in the body to point at an eventRef in the lifecycle block?

<akomaNtoso ...>
...
   <temporalData source="#Laws-Africa">
     <temporalGroup eId="period1">
       <timeInterval start="#commencement-1" refersTo="#in-force"/>
     </temporalGroup>
     <temporalGroup eId="period2">
       <timeInterval start="#commencement-2" refersTo="#in-force"/>
     </temporalGroup>
   </temporalData>
   <lifecycle source="#Laws-Africa">
     <eventRef eId="commencement-1" date="1996-10-01" source="#commencement-1-source"/>
     <eventRef eId="commencement-2" date="2000-03-01" source="#commencement-2-source"/>
   </lifecycle>
   <references source="#this">
     <TLCOrganization eId="Laws-Africa" href="https://edit.laws.africa" showAs="Laws.Africa"/>
     <TLCConcept eId="in-force" href="/ontology/in_force" showAs="in force"/>
     <TLCReference eId="commencement-1-source" href="#section_3" showAs="Section 3 – Short title and commencement"/>
     <TLCReference eId="commencement-2-source" href="/na/act/gn/1999/121" showAs="Commencement of section 2(1) of the Tender Board of Namibia Act, 1996"/>
   </references>
…
   <section eId="section_1" period="#period1">
     <num>1.</num>
     <heading>Section 1 heading</heading>
     <content>
       <p>Content of section 1.</p>
     </content>
   </section>
   <section eId="section_2">
     <num>2.</num>
     <heading>Section 2 heading</heading>
     <subsection eId="section_2__subsection_1" period="#period2">
       <num>(1)</num>
       <content>
         <p>This subsection commenced on the later date given by notice.</p>
       </content>
     </subsection>
     <subsection eId="section_2__subsection_2" period="#period1">
       <num>(2)</num>
       <content>
         <p>This one came into force on the earlier date given in section 3.</p>
       </content>
     </subsection>
     <subsection eId="section_2__subsection_3">
       <num>(3)</num>
       <content>
         <p>This one hasn't commenced yet.</p>
       </content>
     </subsection>
   </section>
...
</akomaNtoso>

Yours in open access to legal information

Edith V

Legislative informatician
Laws.Africa