Developing and maintaining durable specifications for law or regulation based services

Abstract

The Netherlands has enacted many laws. The responsibility for the execution of associated services and enforcement of this legislation is assigned to a substantial number of governmental bodies. Where possible, the associated services are performed digitally. The interaction between citizens/businesses and government as often implicitly described in legislation is the basis for the durable specifications of these services. One of the organisations in charge of developing and delivering these services is the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration (DTCA). DTCA is facing several challenges in developing and maintaining durable specifications for these services. This paper proposes to combine FBM with the case based semantics of rules for durable specifications. The need was established to extend the work of Hohfeld with a clear distinction between legal relations and legal acts, add time travel and the strong connection between the expected and actual cases with the laws and regulation.