statute-trees 0.0.20

Law mostly consists of tree-like nodes. This package supports a common tree format for Philippine Codifications, Statutes, and Documents, using a uniform node structure (i.e., leaves of a tree) identified by a given material path.

Statute Trees

Prerequisite

To add a new statute-pattern that will get recognized, update the statute-patterns library. This enables the Rule mechanism, a pre-requisite to utilizing the StatuteBase pydantic model. Trees are a crucial cog in the corpus-x library.

Rules

Rules are tree-based. This library facilitates the creation of codifications, statutes, and documents in the form of trees.

trees=CodeUnit(
        item='Modern Child and Youth Welfare Code',
        caption=None,
        content=None,
        id='1.',
        history=None,
        units=[
            CodeUnit(
                item='Title I',
                caption='General Principles',
                content=None,
                id='1.1.',
                history=None,
                units=[
                    CodeUnit(
                        item='Article 1',
                        caption='Declaration of Policy.',
                        content=None,
                        id='1.1.1.',
                        history=None,
                        units=[
                            CodeUnit(
                                item='Paragraph 1',
                                caption=None,
                                content='The Child is one of the most important assets of the nation. Every effort should be exerted to promote his welfare and enhance his opportunities for a useful and happy life.',
                                id='1.1.1.1.',
                                history=None,
                                units=[]
                            ),
                            CodeUnit(
                                item='Paragraph 2',
                                caption=None,
                                content='The child is not a mere creature of the State. Hence, his individual traits and aptitudes should be cultivated to the utmost insofar as they do not conflict with the general welfare.',
                                id='1.1.1.2.',
                                history=None,
                                units=[]
                            ),
                        ]
                    )
                ]
            )
        ]
    ... # sample excludes the rest of the tree
)

Categories

We'll concern ourselves with 3 distinct categorizations of trees as they apply to Philippine law:

1. Codification Trees
2. Statute Trees
3. Document Trees

Each of these trees rely on a similar Node structure consisting of the following fields:

class Node:
    item: str
    caption: str
    content: str

If we imagine this to be the root of the tree, it can branch out using a units key like so:

>>> data = [
        {
            "item": "Preliminary Title",
            "units": [
                {
                    "item": "Chapter 1",
                    "caption": "Effect and Application of Laws",
                    "units": [
                        {
                            "item": "Article 1",
                            "content": 'This Act shall be known as the "Civil Code of the Philippines." (n)\n',
                        },
                        {
                            "item": "Article 2",
                            "content": "Laws shall take effect after fifteen days following the completion of their publication either in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation in the Philippines, unless it is otherwise provided. (1a)\n",
                        },
                    ],
                }
            ],
        }
    ]

Since each branch needs to be validated, i.e. have the correct type of information per field. We utilize Pydantic for each of the main categories.