Prohibition: prohibition as forbearance sugar

In one sentence: prohibition is a duty with a forbearance goal: “not to do action A in a window” reads as “maintain the absence of A”, and an established fact A inside the window gives the prohibition itself VIOLATED. The author takes it when the act’s vocabulary says “is prohibited” / “is not allowed”: the form matches the source’s vocabulary, and the semantics match maintaining the absence of the action.

OverviewBoundariesCorpus formsPitfalls

1. When to take it and when not to

Instead	Selection rule
prohibition vs constraint	A prohibition has an addressee, a window, and a PENDING/ACTIVE/VIOLATED/EXPIRED lifecycle; a constraint has a verdict with no addressee and no window. Someone to refrain, and a time to do it in — prohibition; a composition check — constraint
prohibition vs duty … goal maintenance with an absence condition	Do not duplicate: a prohibition already reads as maintaining the absence of the action. A paired duty next to it gives a second VIOLATED for the same breach — the positions answer carries two breaches instead of one
prohibition vs then not action	Bare negation gives support f with no addressee, window, or cycle; a prohibition gives a position with a lifecycle. “Do not do” with an addressee and a deadline — prohibition; stating “not complied with” — negation (see the negation page)
prohibition vs the other party’s liberty	Structurally only forbearance and liberty over the same action conflict: the pair is considered for one subject and overlapping windows; priority gives the loser DEFEATED, without it — UNRESOLVED_NORMATIVE_CONFLICT

Grammar: prohibition and forbearance (EBNF verbatim from the language grammar)

Show syntax reference

The prohibition form — the addressee, the beneficiary, the action, and the window:

Grammar

prohibition_conclusion  = "prohibition", [ identifier ], "{",
                            { prohibition_item },
                          "}" ;
prohibition_item        = "bearer", expression, ";"
                        | "beneficiary", expression, ";"
                        | "action", expression, ";"
                        | "window", interval_expression, ";"
                        | "violation_policy", reference, ";"
                        | metadata_item ;

The semantic base of the form — the forbearance goal (“to maintain the absence of the action”):

Grammar

forbearance_goal        = "forbearance", "{",
                            "action", expression, ";",
                            "window", interval_expression, ";",
                            { goal_item },
                          "}" ;

Position statuses and lifecycle live on the lifecycle page; windows as intervals and their computation — on the deadline-calendar page; window syntax is not duplicated here.

2. Minimal example

Package examples/no-subcontract/: a contractor under a signed agreement brings in no subcontractors in March 2026.

Arxo Law

rule SubcontractingRule strict {
    for s: Supplier;
    for c: Customer;
    when contract_signed(s, c);
    then prohibition NoSubcontracting {
        bearer s;
        beneficiary c;
        action subcontracts(s);
        window [@2026-03-01, @2026-03-31];
    };
}

Case facts 01: contract_signed(alpha, omega) + subcontracts(alpha). Query: evaluate positions() at legal_time @2026-03-15.

The engine’s actual answer:

Output

law test research.prohibition.no_subcontract: мир research.prohibition.no_subcontract
  ok   [research.prohibition.no_subcontract#authored] tests/01-action-violates.lawtest / urn:query:research-prohibition-01
  ok   [research.prohibition.no_subcontract#authored] tests/02-quiet-complies.lawtest / urn:query:research-prohibition-02
итого: 2 проверено, 2 прошли, 0 не прошли, 0 не исполнены; код 0

law engine check — check OK, no warnings. Case 01 gives position(NoSubcontracting, VIOLATED) — an established action fact inside the window breaches the prohibition directly.

Sensitivity: deleting the subcontracts fact changes the observation from VIOLATED to ACTIVE with the same not VIOLATED (file tests/02-quiet-complies.lawtest) — inside the window with no established action the prohibition is active, not breached (a breach needs an established counterexample). The nearest wrong model is “silence is compliance”: after the window without completeness the answer would be UNDETERMINED, not SATISFIED (SATISFIED requires a monitoring certificate, a closure policy over the whole window, or adjudication).

Second package examples/no-doping/ — the same device in a sports regulation: a registered athlete, a banned substance, a 01.07–15.08.2026 competition window. A case with a use fact — VIOLATED, without — ACTIVE. Run — 2/2, check OK.

3. Example across domains

• Law (constitution): package tr.constitution — Constitution of Türkiye, then prohibition RefrainFromAbuseOfRights under art. 14 (see corpus-forms.md): window [1982-11-09, infinity) — the breach is observed by the prohibition itself.
• Law (labour): package kz.corpus.labour_code — Labour Code of Kazakhstan — a prohibition with an open window window [since, infinity) for a premise-bound date: the typical “prohibited while…” form.
• Sport (teaching case): examples/no-doping/ — a doping ban with a competition window.
• Religion/standard: no prohibitions in this form met in the inspected fragments; the Warlpiri kinship taboos are written as constraints, not prohibitions (see the constraint page) — precisely because a taboo has no addressee with a window. The selection rule holds by addressee and window, not by domain.

4. How the engine answers

Table — actual runs of this directory’s examples (query evaluate positions(), observation position(Template, STATUS)):

Facts over the ground	Moment	Observation	Why
action subcontracts	inside the window	position(NoSubcontracting, VIOLATED)	an established action fact in the window breaches the prohibition
none	inside the window	position(NoSubcontracting, ACTIVE), not VIOLATED	no counterexample; the deadline has not passed
action uses_banned	inside the window	position(NoDoping, VIOLATED)	the same semantics in a sports regulation
none	inside the window	position(NoDoping, ACTIVE), not VIOLATED	the prohibition is active, no breach
none	after the window	position(NoSubcontracting, UNDETERMINED)	no completeness — silence is not compliance

• Forbearance is maintaining the absence of the action: before the window — PENDING, after the window without completeness — UNDETERMINED, not SATISFIED.
• normative_status is an aggregate over all case positions: with several norms it answers UNDETERMINED even when the addressed observation is exact; in this directory’s cases there is one norm.
• The “as of” moment is the case’s decision_time when named, otherwise legal_time; in this directory’s tests both dates coincide.

Prohibition windows: forms and the price of a boundary

The most common corpus form is the open window window [since, infinity) for a premise-bound date since (sample — the labour code above). Window boundaries are literals, rule variables, infinity/-infinity, or terms: a term-built window (e.g. add_calendar_period(appointed, 60 calendar_day) from the Vienna Convention) requires a deadline policy, otherwise MISSING_POLICY. A bare name as a boundary (window [moment, infinity)) is rejection LDC-E2115: a boundary is a value, not a domain constant.

In the record a prohibition is a modality: "duty" node with goal.kind: "forbearance": form visible in the record, not in the theory. An explicit @id before the modality sets the template StableId <namespace>#<name>; any other annotation there is LDC-E0201, an id colliding with another node is LDC-E1338.

5. Common mistakes

1. Duplicating a prohibition with a paired maintenance duty with an absence condition: two VIOLATED for one breach (see pitfalls.md).
2. A dated boundary in window instead of the rule’s effective: “no norm yet” vs “the deadline has not started” — different answers (see pitfalls.md).
3. Expecting SATISFIED after a quiet window: without a completeness certificate — UNDETERMINED (see pitfalls.md).
4. A condition reading the rule premise: a tautological goal is always SATISFIED — warning LDC-E1371 (see pitfalls.md).
5. Liberty over the same action with no priority: UNRESOLVED_NORMATIVE_CONFLICT instead of a win (see pitfalls.md).

6. References

• The language specification defines modalities, forbearance, claim and prohibition forms, the lifecycle, conflict, and defeat; this page states how to use them.
• Tutorials: /tutorials/writing-tests/ (test observations).
• Details: corpus-forms.md, pitfalls.md, boundaries.md.