Rights Layer Specification

Use Case: Healthcare (Right of Medical Practice)

Status: Draft v0.1.0 — This section is informative.

Scenario

Dr. Sato holds a national physician licence granted under the medical practitioners statute. In Rights Layer terms the licence grant is a Source of kind qualification, issued by the national medical licensing authority (an Authority), and it grounds a single Right: the right of medical practice. This Right has no specific tangible Object; its Object is a category of activity — the practice of medicine — which the model expressly allows.

This use case is the clearest illustration of two design positions. First, kinds live in Actions, not Rights: there is no “surgery right” distinct from an “examination right”; there is one Right with two Actions, examine and operate. Second, Eligibilities are per-Action, one requirement each. examine has a single Eligibility: the licence is in force and not suspended or revoked. operate has three: the licence is in force; the procedure takes place at a facility equipped and accredited for the category of surgery; and the physician holds a specialty credential covering the procedure. What used to be thought of as “the circumstances of the operation” is simply another ordinary Eligibility, answered from outside the layer by the issuer best placed to answer it.

Each Eligibility receives at most one Boolean Eligibility Response: the licensing authority answers the licence requirement against the medical licence register; the surgical facility’s credentials committee answers the accredited-facility requirement; the specialty certification body answers the credential requirement. How each of them evaluates — register lookup, committee review, certificate checking — is outside Rights Layer; only the verifiable Boolean answers enter the model. Because all three Responses for operate are true, a Decision for operate is established. The examine Eligibility is left unanswered in the example, so no Decision exists for examine — unanswered is not a third value; the Response simply does not exist.

The example carries a full exercise chain for a scheduled operation: an ExerciseRequested Event, three EligibilityResponseIssued Events, the established Decision with its DecisionEstablished Event, the Exercise, and ExerciseStarted / ExerciseEnded Exercise Events.

Mapping

Rights Layer concept	Domain instance
Subject	Dr. Sato, a licensed physician
Object	Medical practice (category of activity; no tangible object)
Right	The right of medical practice
Source	Qualification: national physician licence under the medical practitioners statute
Authority	National medical licensing authority (grantor); the facility’s credentials committee and the specialty certification body (Response issuers)
Action	examine; operate
Eligibility (examine)	Licence in force, not suspended or revoked (one requirement)
Eligibility (operate)	Three Eligibilities, one requirement each: licence in force; procedure at a facility accredited for the surgery category; specialty credential covering the procedure
Eligibility Response (1:1)	Licence: true by the licensing authority (register attestation); facility: true by the facility’s credentials committee; credential: true by the certification body. How each evaluates is outside the layer.
Evidence / Evidence Source	Licence record from the medical licence register; specialty certificate from the certification register — referenced by the Responses as auxiliary material
Decision	Established for operate because all three Responses are verifiable and true; not established for examine, whose Eligibility is unanswered
Exercise / Exercise Event	The operation, performed after the Decision was established; requested, started, ended
Event	RightGranted at licensure; disciplinary suspension would be a later Event

Chain Instantiation

flowchart TD
    S["Source<br/>Qualification:<br/>national physician licence"] --> R["Right<br/>Right of medical practice<br/>(held by Dr. Sato)"]
    R --> A1["Action<br/>examine"]
    R --> A2["Action<br/>operate"]
    A1 --> EL0["Eligibility<br/>licence in force<br/>(unanswered: no Decision)"]
    A2 --> EL1["Eligibility<br/>licence in force"]
    A2 --> EL2["Eligibility<br/>accredited surgical facility"]
    A2 --> EL3["Eligibility<br/>specialty credential"]
    EL1 --> ER1["Response: true<br/>issuer: licensing authority"]
    EL2 --> ER2["Response: true<br/>issuer: credentials committee"]
    EL3 --> ER3["Response: true<br/>issuer: certification body"]
    ER1 --> D["Decision<br/>established: all Responses true"]
    ER2 --> D
    ER3 --> D
    D --> EX["Exercise<br/>surgical procedure performed"]
    EX --> EE["Exercise Event<br/>requested / started / ended"]

What Rights Layer Does Not Model

• The medical licence register and the specialty certification register remain the systems of record; Rights Layer references their records and never restates their content.
• Evaluation methods are outside the layer. How the credentials committee satisfies itself that the facility is accredited, or how the certification body checks the credential, is each issuer’s business; only the verifiable Boolean Responses enter the model.
• Context-like material is not modeled. Facility, time, and purpose of a concrete act of practice are gathered and assessed outside the layer by the issuers; the core has no Context entity.
• A Decision carries no institutional effect. It records that every Eligibility of operate was answered true; scheduling, clinical authorization, and hospital governance remain institutional matters.
• Medical law and professional regulation — scope-of-practice rules, disciplinary procedure, malpractice liability — are out of scope. Their effects surface only as Sources, Eligibility requirements, and Events.
• Clinical judgment, patient consent, and medical records are domain concerns outside the layer. Consent regimes can be expressed by profiles, but the core does not model them.
• How a facility authenticates the physician or verifies a Response in practice is an authenticity mechanism of the adopting systems.

Example

Machine-readable expression: healthcare.json

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