[2011] Improving access to legislation - Dejan Gjorgjevikj
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e-Democracy Conference 2011 presentation titled 'Improving access to legislation' by Prof. Dr. Dejan Gjorgjevikj, Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University | Twitter: @gjorgjevikj
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[2011] Improving access to legislation - Dejan Gjorgjevikj
- 1. Improving Access to Legislation Prof. Dejan Gjorgjevikj, PhD Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University - Skopje
- 2. Access to Legislation 1 ICT and access to legislation 2 IT and the legislative process in Macedonia 3 Consolidated versions of laws 4 Improving access to legislation 5 Integrated IT system for legislation
- 3. Access to Legislation The right of access to legislation is one of the basic human rights and fundamental freedoms Access to law • The aspect of the end user – For professionals (“law practitioners”) – For the general public • The aspect of law-making process – Access to laws and regulations in power – Access to laws and regulations in preparation • openness, transparency, inclusiveness/stake-holder participation • The aspect of “how easy” can an ordinary citizen determine what the law permits or prohibits
- 4. ICT and Access to Legislation • ICT in legislation preparation/promulgation process • ICT in using/accessing legislation • Internet and social networks – Public Opinion Analysis – Initiating Public Debates • Accessing legislation – Elevated user expectations on the easy of access – Use of advanced legislation databases – Consolidated versions of laws – Easy access to related (interlinked) regulation – Easy access to legislation of other countries / EU legislation in a specified area
- 5. Legislative Process in Republic of Macedonia Parliament Adopting Amending Proposing President Government Signing Secretariat Ministry Commission Ministry Commission Publishing Drafting (Official Gazette of RM) Promulgating
- 6. Access to Legislation in Republic of Macedonia Parliament E-Parliament www.sobranie.mk Parliamentary procedure President Government e-Cabinet Publishing ENER (Official Gazette of RM) Laws in preparation slvesnik.com.mk RIA, commenting Official Gazettes Legislation DB NGO PELP
- 7. Consolidated versions of laws • What is “a consolidated version” of law? – integral form the principal text of the law + – all subsequent amendments and supplements + – relevant decisions of the Constitutional Court • in the last three years, over 70% of the laws adopted were laws amending and supplementing existing laws • in the nomotechnique that is in use in Macedonia it is usual to change, add or delete one or several words in the provisions • reading a law and establishing what its current text can be quite commendable achievement even for the most skilled and experienced lawyer
- 8. Automation of consolidation • Experience form other European countries shows that the consolidated versions of laws are among the mostly accessed documents in the legislation databases • How to improve consolidation? • Automation of consolidation of the text of laws – Can be accomplished only if there are more strict rules are followed during its creation – Drafting is done in controlled environment following a predefined template – All consecutive amending and supplementing is “captured” in a controlled environment over the previous actual version of the text
- 9. Automated consolidation In order for an automated consolidation to be possible several prerequisites have to be met: • Using an appropriate data format for storing legislative texts • Capturing data at source • Enforce using of templates for drafting
- 10. Data Format for Storing Legislative Texts Some of the advantages of using the XML standard for description of legal documents are: • directly supports different languages/alphabets and multilingual documents; • a possibility of keeping and automatic extraction of all metadata in the document in a structured form; • possibilities for manipulating logically marked-up parts of the document; • imposing structure of the document that must be followed; • imposing predefined formats and transparency when converting different elements used in the text (dates, time, numbers,…); • a possibility for referencing parts of other XML documents; • easy, fully automatic transformation of the document in other form in accordance with appropriate rules. • standards (FORMEX, METALEX)
- 11. Capturing Data at Source Imposing a stricter structure of regulations and adequate mark-up of their content by capturing data at source provides: • help for the drafters while creating the regulations by following the structure and form of the final regulation since the very beginning of their writing; • reduction of errors in the content and final format at publication; • production of documents that are consistently formatted, regardless of their origin; • possibility to introduce validation of data since the very beginning of the process of creation of regulations; • elimination of the need for re-keying or conversion of data, enabling increased efficiency of the support services; • savings - both in preparation and in adoption of laws (ministries/parliament) and in publication (official gazette); • precise tracking of all of the modifications, suggestions and versions of the laws in all of the stages of their creation.
- 12. Using Templates for Drafting Basically, there are 3 main approaches for accomplishing this: 1. Generic solution 2. Generic configurable XML editor 3. Specialised application for legislative drafting
- 13. Generic Solution A document template for standard word processor or an add-on for a commercial word processor. • Using a predefined template while creating the document • Forwarding the document to a validation server • Receiving a validation report that clearly indicates the inconsistencies in the structure of the document and points out what should be corrected Advantage: convenience and familiarity of most users with standard word processors Disadvantage: validation of the document as an additional separate step
- 14. Generic Configurable XML Editor Generic configurable XML editor, configured for legislative drafting Advantage: use of a ready-made (commercial or freeware) XML editor that outputs the document in XML format directly Disadvantage: the need to configure the generic editor and completely new (not so much user-friendly) writing environment
- 15. Specialized Application for Legislative Drafting Specialized application for legislative drafting, which imposes proper organization and structure of the document Advantage: real-time validation of the content and direct export in the required format (XML), as well as direct guidance and assistance for the user in the process of drafting, no additional steps (validation, export) are required, maximum adaptation of the writing environment to the task Disadvantage: developing and maintaining such a specialized application (suggested approach)
- 16. Integrated IT System for Legislation (1) Closer integration of the existing internal IT systems of the ministries/Government, the Assembly and the database of effective regulations of the PE Official Gazette. Such a system should facilitate: • creation of both simple and complex texts, enabling the users to follow a pre-defined template for the type of regulation that is being prepared; • use of metadata from the previous stages, adding new and updating the metadata values according to a prescribed scheme; • access to the electronic versions of published laws for the drafters of new regulations or amendments and supplements to existing regulations, which should be fully supported by the system; • automatic real-time validation of the content; • Support for tables, charts and pictures and full WYSIWYG view of the document through a user-friendly interface;
- 17. Integrated IT System for Legislation (2) • interface that will allow easy access to the basic structural elements of the regulation while creating its text, that will allow easy and transparent conversion of the document into a publication (automatic conversion to another format like PDF, XML, HTML, for example); • transparent work with multi-lingual documents; • link to the Programme for Adoption of the Acquis Communautaire (NPAA) and the Government annual work programme; • link to the EUROVOC categorization of legislation; • versioning and tracking the changes in documents; • adequate level of security which will guarantee that the documents sent to the users are authentic; • easy access to information about the stage a certain regulation in preparation is and the institution in which it is currently being processed as well as easy monitoring of compliance with the deadlines for each regulation that is being prepared;
- 18. Integrated IT System for Legislation (3) • a possibility for the user to make direct changes in the currently valid text of a regulation the amendments of which he/she starts to prepare, by deleting or marking the parts that should be excluded in the new version, replacement of the parts that should be changed and adding new parts in the text of the regulation, allowing for automatic creation of the document on amendments and supplements, as well as the final version of the consolidated text of the regulation; • To support communication of electronic documents to all institutions involved in the process of preparation, proposal and adoption of legislation without losing of the content of the metadata attached to the regulation; • to rely on the existing internal systems in the institutions that are already in use as much as possible.
- 19. Expected Benefits • Closing the legislative procedure circle • Does not exclude or require replacement of the existing internal systems • Imposes stricter rules and standardization for the format of the legislative documents and metadata attached to them • Basis for automatic consolidation
- 22. 1 2 3 4 5
Editor's Notes
- I have recently been involved in an OSCE project about Improving the access to legislation in Republic of Macedonia as an expert for IT. The main target group for this project ware governmental institutions involved in law making process and in process of publishing of legislation. I would like to express my gratitude to the organizers for inviting me to this conference to present part of the findings of the analysis carried out by this project and the recommendations for improving the access to legislation.
- Recommendation for integrated IT system for legislation
- The right of access to legislation is one of the basic rights that must be guaranteed by every country that respects the rule of law. Today, however, the access to adopted laws and regulations means much more than their publication before they enter into force and simple printing and dissemination of official journals/gazettes in a traditional paper form. The right of access to legislation has gained new dimensions and the conceptual framework of this right has widened and deepened.Not only for so called “law practitioners” but also to more general public. The democratic nature of the law-making process is based on the respect of the principles of openness, transparency, inclusiveness/stake-holder participation and access in all stages of preparation, consideration, adoption, monitoring and evaluation of the efficiency of implementation of the legislation. The access to legislation, as one of the basic features of the “democratic law-making”, means free access in all of the stages of adoption of the legislation – from draft legislation and throughout the whole process of its consideration and adoption, up to and including the stages of its monitoring and evaluation. The principle of legal certainty, which is one of the foundations of the state based on the rule of law, requires that the “citizens must be able, without unreasonable efforts, to determine what the law permits or prohibits; legal provisions must therefore be clear, intelligible and not subject to overly frequent and unpredictable changes”.
- Over the past 20 years information and communications technologies had found wide use in the legislation preparation process. Also the use of the published legislation has moved towards more wide use of digital documents and legislation databases. Some countries are even abandoning printing the legislation in power on paper and are elevating the digital version of the laws as official, legally bounding and authentic. The usage of computers and internet is nowadays widespread and even for the average public user (citizen) accessing a digital version of a law or regulation is becoming more common.The widespread and the penetration of the internet and social networks also makes them an interesting media for conducting public opinion analysis or even initiating public debatesAccessing legislation-Nobody wants to wade through number of books / gazettes to locate particular part of a regulation he/she is interested in----The users are expecting easy access to equivalent / related legislation in other countries
- Although every member of parliament or 10000 voters can also propose a law, the primary promoter of laws in Macedonia is the Government (over 97% of the adopted laws were proposed by the government). Most of the laws (as well as amending and supplementing existing laws) originates (is drafted) in the governmental bodies mainly the responsible ministries.The government proposes the laws for adaption by the parliament. The parliament assembly (internal procedure) can ament the proposed law, take a vote and eventually adopt. The adopted laws, after being signed by the president, are published in the Official Gazette of Republic of Macedonia. The Official Gazette is a public enterprise responsible for the publishing of all passed laws (and other secondary legislation).
- DMS – Document Management SystemsENER – national electronic register of regulations (covers only business oriented laws)PELP – Private Enterprise Legislation Providers / ConsultantsMP – member of parliamentThe e-Cabinet system of the Government, which is operational since 2006, is a complete BPMS (Business Process Management System) for the government thatenables electronic processing and monitoring of the processes for preparation of laws in the Government, managing the government sessions, and so on.ENER was established with the purpose of providing the citizens, business community and all other interested parties with information about all proposals for new or for amendment of the existing laws in the stage of their preparation and enabling submission of their comments and proposals directly to the responsible institutions in an electronic form. The lack of resources (funds, IT equipment, human resources) is among the main reasons due to which the ENER is not fully developed and is not a complete database of all existing and proposed legislation.The e-Parliament system, introduced in the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia in September 2009, supports not only the whole legislative process, but the other working processes of the Assembly as well. It enables management of: the legislative procedure (preparation or receipt of proposals for laws, initiation of the procedure and referral of the proposals in the regular – I, II, III reading, shortened or urgent procedure for adoption of laws), electronic archiving of materials, sessions of the committees (preparation, work at sessions and adoption of opinions and decisions of the committees), Assembly’s plenary sessions, the work of the President of the Assembly and the General Secretary of the Assembly, the work of the MPs and MPs groups, submission of MPs questions, publication of information about the work of the Assembly on the internet portal of the Assembly, as well as monitoring of the efficiency and effectiveness of the work of Assembly’s support services.The web page of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia, as a medium for information of the public, provides an exceptional level of transparency of the work of the Assembly. Namely, the process can be followed starting from the received proposals of laws submitted by the Government, which in addition to the compulsory elements prescribed by the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure , in most of the cases also contain other accompanying materials, such as the fiscal impact assessment forms and in the relevant cases, the statement on harmonization of the law with the EU law, through the publicly accessible agendas for the sessions of the Assembly and the sessions of its working bodies (committees), the amended proposals of laws in the course of the second reading, shorthand notes, and the audio and video records of the debates at plenary sessions of the Assembly, to information about voting of the Assembly in various stages of the process. The web page of the Assembly also provides information about the public debates which are occasionally organized for certain proposals of laws “of broader public interest”. The automatic publication of all of this information on the web page of the Assembly is supported by the e-Parliament system. In addition, an important source of information for the citizens about the work of the Assembly is also the Assembly’s TV Channel – a service of the Assembly for broadcasting of Assembly’s activities.Official and legally binding texts of adopted laws and other regulations in Macedonia are only those published in the paper edition of the “Official Gazette of the Republic of Macedonia”. The PE Official Gazette offers free of charge internet access to the electronic edition of the “Official Gazette of the Republic of Macedonia” for the period between 1945 and 2010 through its web page. The electronic database of the PE Official Gazette has additional functionalities and is much more convenient for use and search of the regulations than the paper edition. In addition to the texts of the regulations, there are a number of functionalities available, such as: 1) rich collection of additional metadata for each piece of legislation, such as title, type and source of the regulation, area and sub-area, key words, status of the regulation (effective or not), references (links) to the Constitutional Court decisions, laws related to the regulation and other amending acts, dates of adoption, publication, entry into force, postponement of application, etc. 2) a possibility for user configuration of automatic notifications on amendments and/or supplements of a chosen piece of legislation or a group of regulations in a chosen area/sub-area, 3) a possibility for making an e-collection of legislation by the user, 4) easy following of the amendments and/or supplements of the laws and link to the secondary legislation and related legislation, 5) search of legislation, grouped in 22 areas and over 64 sub-areas, based on several parameters. PELP – Comercial Private Enterprise Legislation Providers / Consultants
- Although there is no official definition in Macedonia about what a consolidated text of a law is, there is a widespread understanding that the consolidated text of a law contains in an integral form the principal text of the law and all of its subsequent amendments and supplements. In Macedonia, all relevant decisions of the Constitutional Court are also integrated in the consolidated texts of laws. The preparation of consolidated texts of laws, the primary aim of which is to arrive to one integrated, currently valid, comprehensible and readable text of the laws and thus, to a facilitated access to them for the users, is especially important for Macedonia in which the intensive production of laws in the past twenty years has been accompanied by even more intensive process of amending and supplementing them. As an illustration, in the last three years, over 70% of the laws adopted by the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia have been laws amending and supplementing the existing laws.In the nomotechniquein use in Macedonia it is usual to change, add or delete one or several words in the provisions, which is confusing for the common users and does not mean anything, unless they see those changed, deleted or new words in an integrated form and interpret them in the context of the original provision. (not change the whole sentence or article)The intensive amendments and supplements at the level of a specific law, such as for example the Law on Civil Servants, lead to a point when even reading the law and establishing what its current text is could be regarded as a quite commendable achievement for the most skilled and experienced lawyer, if he/she has the principal text of the law, all of its 19 amendments and supplements, the Constitutional Court decisions and the amendments to the Law on the Government which make interventions in particular provisions of the Law in front of him/her.
- The existence of consolidated versions of laws is one of the key factors for improvement of quality of access to legislation, both for individuals and legal entities and for the institutions which apply the law. According to some statistics, the consolidated texts of laws are among the most popular documents in the electronic collections of legislation. The Macedonian Assembly does not adopt on a regular basis legally binding consolidated texts of laws, but it occasionally authorises its Legislative Committee under a specific law which amends and/or supplements an existing law to determine a consolidated text of the law, provided this is proposed by the promoter of the law or when the law has been amended and supplemented several times or if the amending law brings extensive amendments and supplements. Therefore, the determined consolidated text of the law are quasi-official, but legally not binding and are for information purposes only. The consolidation of laws is on a case-by-case basis and consideration the frequency of amending and/or supplementing the laws mentioned earlier, the number of consolidated texts of laws determined by the Legislative Committee is far below the needed number. No time frame for consolidation is given, and considering the human resources in the Legislative Committee and the number of laws passed every month it is obvious this can not be accomplished in a timely manner.------------Most of the parties are mostly interested in the current (valid) form of the regulation, and not in the history of its amendments and supplements. Yet, it should not be overlooked that there are types of users (legislators, judges, attorneys) who might have a special interest not only in the current version of the law, but also in the version of the law which was in effect at a particular moment in the past, but again in a consolidated form.
- Having in mind the number of laws produced, the percentage of laws amending and supplementing existing laws and the human resources allocated to consolidation it is evident that this task (producing a consolidated version of the law after its amending and supplementing) can not be accomplished the way it is performed now – purely manually. The full automation of consolidation of texts is almost impossible, even if there are very precise rules for drafting of the amendments and supplements and if such rules are strictly complied with without providing capturing the data at source.Full automation of the process of consolidation would be realistic only in a system in which the original legal act is created following precise rules, it is precisely marked-up using specialised software and the amendments and supplements are produced over the text of the original act utilising appropriate software. In such a system, the text of the consolidated version of the regulation would be produced directly, based on the original text which is modified, while the text of the amendments, in accordance with certain drafting rules, would be generated automatically by the system.
- Archiving of an electronic version of any publication means, above all, choosing an appropriate storage format that will not depend on the platform, format or encoding and will allow for easy transition to future systems and technologies. Having this in mind, the Publications Office of the EU, since the 1980s, has decided to base its electronic archive on the SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) format which was replaced by the more current and flexible XML standard (which originates from the SGML) 20 years later. The idea for using logical mark-up of the content of legal documents is not a new one. Some countries use the logical mark-up since the stage of the very beginning of drafting new legislative acts. The adopted specifications for mark-up of the content of documents and their archiving in accordance with the XML standard in the Publications Office of the EU are in force since 1 May 2004. One of the benefits from introducing the new standard was the more transparent manipulation of secondary legislation documents in the 9 new official languages of the Union.The XML format allows, if the regulation is properly presented as an XML document following an appropriate scheme, parts of the document to be marked as changed, replaced, deleted or added, with precise data on the time frame in which each of the modifications was implemented and the source of the intervention (other legal act, decision of the constitutional court, expiration of the period of validity, and alike). The XML format also allows keeping the regulation and all of its amendments in a single document. Out of such a document, in addition to the consolidated text of the currently valid regulation, the various “historical” versions of the document, that is, the previous versions of the regulation that were valid in a specified period in the past can be, if desired, easily and fully automatically generated. This way, a law, for example, would be presented as a single entity (file) which contains all necessary information, regardless of the number and volume of interventions in it, so that all historical versions of that law, that is, the integral text of the law in any point of time after its initial adoption can be automatically generated. The same format allows, if needed, to generate the individual interventions (laws/decisions on amendment, supplement or repeal of parts of the law) or even a version in which the parts which were added/deleted in the new version of the law (compared to the previous one) would be clearly marked. The XML standard as a basis for storing the content of a regulation, utilising appropriate schemas and standards, such as Metalex and Formex, represents an excellent basis for implementation of a system that would facilitate automation of the process of consolidation of laws.
- Imposing a stricter structure of regulations and adequate mark-up of their content at the very beginning of their creation would open considerable new opportunities for improvement and automation of modification tracking, regardless of whether they are made by new laws after their initial adoption or by amendments during the parliamentary procedure for their adoption. Introduction of a stricter control at the very beginning of the creation of regulations, which instead in a freely formatted text document lacking any imposed internal logical structure and additional metadata, would be written according to precise rules and in a proper format, allows a number of benefits, such as: - simplification of the publication process of finally accepted regulations, by providing help to the drafters while creating the regulations to follow the structure and form of the final regulation (with all parts typical for the given type of regulations) since the very beginning of their writing; …- precise tracking of all of the modifications, suggestions and versions of the laws in all of the stages of their creation (preparation, consideration in government, public debate, adoption procedure in parliament).
- Generic solution, in the form of a document template for standard word processor or an add-on for a commercial word processor. A tool that enables checking of a forwarded document and generating a report that clearly indicates the inconsistencies in the structure of the document and points out what should be corrected. The advantage of this approach is the convenience and familiarity of most users with standard word processors, while the main disadvantage is the validation of the document as an additional separate step. The experience of the United Kingdom where a template for preparation of secondary legislation and an appropriate tool for validation were introduced in 2003 has shown that in two years following the introduction over 90% of the secondary legislation has been created using the template, which has resulted in significant improvement of the quality, as well as savings.
- Generic configurable XML editor, configured for legislative drafting. The advantage of this approach is the use of a ready-made (commercial or freeware) XML editor that outputs the document in XML format directly (and no extra converter for export is needed), while the main disadvantage is the completely new (not so much user-friendly) writing environment.This approach was applied in Sweden with a limited success.
- Specialised application for legislative drafting, which imposes proper organisation and structure of the text, offers most benefits, such as: enables real-time validation of the content and direct export in the required format (XML), as well as direct guidance and assistance for the user in the process of drafting. The advantages of this approach are that no additional steps are required (validation, export), maximum adaptation of the writing environment to the task and the help and guidance it can provide for the user while drafting legislation. The main disadvantage is the need to develop and maintain such a specialised application.Italy has applied the third approach (NiR Editor), which is also applied in an adjusted form in Denmark.
- In order to improve the whole process of preparation, adoption and publication of legislation in the Republic of Macedonia, there is a need for closer integration of the existing internal IT systems of the ministries/Government, the Assembly and the database of effective regulations of the PE Official Gazette. To accomplish this an integrated system that will accommodate capturing data at source is suggested. The integrated system is supposed (is expected) to improve the efficiency of the whole legislative procedure and would provide the basis for easier integration with the European systems for legislation. It would increase transparency towards the public in the operation of the bodies that adopt legislation and the content of the legislation under preparation.
- ---- (opt.)Such a system, designed to cover the whole legislative process, from the initial drafting of regulations to their publication, must support a series of activities taken in the various stages of the process both at technical and political level and to include several steps and various staff. Staff from various institutions would work on: creation, drafting, deleting, changing, improvement of the text, contacting, gathering opinions, consultations with interested stake-holders, etc. Various people with different experience and knowledge might have to work on the text of a regulation. Such system should be based on techniques which are easy to use and learn, since the aim of the system is to be used by various types of users with various knowledge backgrounds. All actors in the process and the prospective users of the system should be involved in the design and specification of such a system. The main interface of the system towards the users that participate in the development of legislation should be in the form of software for text manipulation that will be is easy to use. This means that the users should be offered an interface to the system through an application they are already familiar with and use it on a daily basis or an interface very similar to such an application.
- Such a system would close the legislative procedure circle ministries/government -> Assembly -> publication/archiving (PE Official Gazette). The application of such a system would enable the civil servant responsible for preparation of amendments to a given regulation to download an authentic digital copy of the regulation (in an appropriate format suitable for further changing and tracking of the changes) from the PE Official Gazette system, as well as other supplemental documents relevant for the preparation of the amendments from other sources, that would accompany the document in the process of its preparation. The system will also enable insertion of the required changes in the document of the regulation and communicating it to other instances that should intervene or give their opinion on the proposal. The supplemental documents that could be referenced and be easily accessible (as links) to all participants in the process of adoption of the regulation would include laws and other regulations in effect or in process of adoption, related laws or regulations from other countries or European recommendations, other documents, analyses, opinions, and alike.The introduction of such a system would avoid the manual and inconsistent updating of ENER and would allow for fully automatic updating of ENER, as well as a real time inventory of all regulations in preparation. Once the content of the law is finalized, that is, all of the changes during the process of preparation and formulation of the proposal of law in the Government or all of the interventions based on amendments in the Assembly are integrated, the created document would enable automatic production of the law to be adopted by the Assembly and published. In case of a law amending or supplementing an existing law, upon its finalization, the content of the law amending and supplementing a law to be adopted by the Assembly would be automatically generated, as well as the consolidated text of the law containing the already inserted changes of the law. Such a system does not exclude or require replacement of the existing internal systems in the institutions involved in the legislative process. It would represent only an integration of the existing internal systems and imposing stricter rules for the format of the legislative documents in the process of their creation by using certain templates that would be supported by an appropriate software tool, as well as standardization of documents and metadata attached to them that would be communicated through the system. Such integration would enable an integrated view of the legislative process and following of the implications when amending, supplementing or adopting new legislation.