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OpenLaws.eu -
access to EU
law compared
to UKProf. Chris Marsden
#BILETA15
9 April 2015
Expanding open innovation to law
Introducing mass-customization to law
Proposing a comprehensive European
“Big Open Legal Data” (BOLD) Vision 2020 for incremental implementation,
built on top of existing EU and national systems and content
(e.g. EUR-Lex, e-Justice System, e-Codex).
Chris Marsden (Sussex)
2
Developing BOLD ICT PlatformLaunch of:
a. dedicated legal EU social networks.
b. a hub for open access legal journals.
Promote
open data,
open access publications, and
open standards
(e.g. ELI, ECLI) in the legal field. Contribute to Open Innovation Strategy/Policy
Group (OISPG)
Chris Marsden (Sussex)
3
Stages in development of
open access
(Dunleavy/Margetts 2010 et seq) Government reforms http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1643850
New Public Management 1980s-1990s
1. Privatization
1. Licensing off datasets at cost-plus profit
2. Competition
1. Permitting private sector into provisioning
3. Managerialism + consultancy
1. Agencies in place of ministries
E.g. Met Office; Ordnance Survey as profit centres
Digital Era Governance 2001-
Mass adoption of Internet by public
1998-2002
Taxation moves to managing/filing online
HMRC achieves remarkable savings
Social security base moves online
Despite digital divide which is mythical
Mobile Internet ensures most poor connected
Government massive IT projects – disastrous
National health IT Spine + NHS Connect worst
DEG2.0 from 2006/10
Broadband enabled ‘consumers’
Ubiquitous by 2006, ‘superfast’ (sic) by 2014
Reviews of doctors, dentists, MPs…
Parliamentary expenses fiasco
Data.gov.uk launches January 2010
http://data.gov.uk/
Open Government Licence
DVLA moves to paperless tax discs
HMRC moves to inline-only self assessment
DEG3.0? Coalition owns ‘open’
Gordon Brown promises £25m to TBL in 2010 General Election – promise but no cheque
Austerity coalition jumps at open data
Francis Maude – old-time NPMer
transforms into open data evangelist
NPM is not dead?
Ministry of Justice no open access proposals
Treasury proposals to transform courts IT £350m
HMCTS open access reforms?
Legislation.gov.uk
Flagship programme for National Archives/OPSI
Best legislation open API in the world
Rated No.1 by OKFN open government
Designed from the start to be open
Much better than EurLEX horrible API
http://leibniz-internship-report.herokuapp.com/eu-
legal-data-survey/eu
But not as good as Legifrance – case law!
Case Law: BAILII & ICLR Case law released to 2 not-for-profits
ICLR founded 1865 – charity since 1971
BAILII founded 1995: c.400,000 documents http://www.bailii.org/bailii/stats.html
CanLII and AustLII the biggest LIIs CANLII law society funded
1,000,000+ documents
100,000,000 page views (2013) http://www.slideshare.net/freemoth/canlii-
finalslides?qid=80f6c96c-01d8-4748-abb3-1a1c4b948e99&v=default&b=&from_search=1
Open Data Institute 2011#Goodlaw
radical crowd-sourced legislative approach
Open Data fashionable amongst G8 countries etc
Implementation more patchy than general
BAILII and Supreme Court reforms;
Society for Computers and Law trying hard
Computers and Law is open – it can be done
But we really need a pan-European approach
Developing big online legal data
Free Access to Law movement (FALM) online case law via BAILII in the UK
Legal Information Institutes (AustLII, Cornell etc.)
#GoodLaw online statutes expanded rapidly, crowdsourcing ideas for #goodlaw
Online legal education and research BILETA since 1985
Electronic Law Journals project at Warwick
EJLT – now Script-ed + IJoC at USC many US law journals
Journal of Open Access to Law (JOAL) est. 2014!
publishing books via Creative Commons: Marsden 2010Chris Marsden (Sussex)
11
Greenleaf (2011, 2012) identifies 6
historic phases to achieve FALM 1. Example set by the LII (Cornell) and LexuM in early 90s
2. AustLII’s 1995 formulation: obligations of official publishers
3. 2002 Declaration on Free Access to Law
4. ‘Guiding Principles’ for States formulated by 2008 expert
meeting convened by Hague Conference on Private
International Law
5. ‘Law.Gov principles’ developed by Public Resources.org
in 2010; and
6. draft Uniform Electronic Legal Materials Act
recommended in 2011
1. US National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State
LawsChris Marsden (Sussex)
12
Team – note Andres Guadamuz
CC licence expertInstitution Name
UVAmsterdam Prof. Radboud G.F. Winkels
Prof. Mireille van Eechoud LAPSI2.0
Sussex Prof. Chris Marsden
Dr Andres Guadamuz CC4.0
London School ofEconomics
Dr. Paolo Dini
Dr. Shenja van der Graaf BXL
Dr. Antonella Passani ROMA
ALPENITE -developers
Giulio Marcon
Gianluigi Alberici
SUAS Prof. Thomas Heistracher
DI (FH) Thomas Lampoltshammer
BYWASS Dr. Clemens Wass, MBL, MBA
Chris Marsden (Sussex)
13
Report No.
D1.2.1 – EU
Case StudyVersion 1.0 DRAFT FOR
COMMENT NOT
ATTRIBUTION
Mapping Open Law
Mapping of stakeholders,
processes in legal information
production and consumption
levels of regulatory instruments
flows of content, rights, value.
Chris Marsden (Sussex)
15
4 Case Studies
Assessing barriers to adoption of open access to legislation, case law, commentary
Developed over 18 months
EU
Netherlands
UK
Austria
Final synthesis report on BOLD
EU first draft case study
European institutions' provision of free
access to European Union law,
cases, legislation, regulation, academic-
expert analysis.
Month 4, contingent; will be revised.
Key functionalities of existing legal
publishing system are summarized and
described.
Case studies:
key socio-economic & legal aspects
Illustrate main functionalities, structure &
operation.
analysis of social, legal and market
requirements.
informed by key informant interviews.
supported by literature review of existing
information systems legal databases (M6),
workshops (including LASPSI2 workshop)
Stakeholders interviewedExperts from:
Academia,
Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPB), trading funds,
private entrepreneurs,
corporations,
standards bodies,
non-governmental organizations and
government policy officials with both domestic and international responsibilities.
Soft Systems Methodology
(SSM) framework
identify the key components of the problem
provide key specifications for system to be built,
combination of desk research,
in-depth interviews, and
focus groups.
Rich multimedia flowcharts and other illustrative material will be used in further drafts to describe problem in context of SSM approach
to facilitate discussion between user and development communities.
Publication of draft case studies &
final comparative report
dissemination and feedback mechanisms
both on-line
(e.g. via open access websites, promotion via social
media and comment promotion)
offline (via workshops and conferences)
to create a close expert panel
constructive critique for future iterations of reports,
final version published M24 conclusion of project.
CAMPOAdaptation of standard socio-legal framework
Context
Environment of community/organisation/market
Actors
Publishers, official document providers, users
Methodology
Including both open and closed access
Practices
Including user experience, litigation/regulation
Outcomes
Including market, regulatory reform
CAMPO Description Added value
Context Initial part of the case study outlines the
overall context in which the community
emerges/operates - type of legal informatics technology Systematic catalogue
of cases/actors/issuesActors What type of community is observed
(primary groups, market actors, user groups etc.)
Methods Investigation method: Details of procedures
to map the case study and the techniques
used to perform analysis (research design details + actual methods)
Catalogue of
methodological
approaches to
investigate different communities
Practices Dynamics of interaction: Illustration of dynamics observed in each case study
Detailed insights on interplay
Outcomes Summary of integration at EC level Conclusions, limits of
analysis for member states
CAMPO Description
Context Programme of observation with legal community and developers.
Actors Office of Official Publications; EurLEX unit
Various regulator websites DG Justice
Multinational legal publishers (member state based –analysis in
country case studies)
No Legal Information Institute for EU, start-up (EuroLII) in process.
Commentary provided by Brussels affiliates of international law firms + European law academics based in national universities
Methods Significant methodology challenges to researching this
‘community’, if European law can be said to have created a
single community, as opposed to enabling several communities at
national level with European coordination or at least input.
Relatively little academic empirical study of European legal
informatics, until recently.
Ethical implications similar problems as national legal communities.
Practices Research conclusions must be provisional and transient.
Outcomes Further research needed to solve methodology problems for exploring environment.
European legal data born open:
1958 Official Journal policy
Resources devoted to multi-lingual and multi-national publication.
development – and now redevelopment – of EUR-Lex and efforts to integrate with national databases via N-Lex and now EUCases.
boosted by the stronger political commitment to open data in Commissioner Kroes’ Digital Agenda and the European Council October 2013 conclusions which contain a strong endorsement of open data, linked to the revised Public Sector Information (PSI) Directive.
This is shared by other major legal systems and governments’ wider commitments to open data, for instance the June ’13 G8 Open Data Charter.
European legal informatics space seems
unique in at least seven respects
compared to our three country case
studies.
1. Unprecedented multilingual
economic and political area
4 original languages (French, German, Dutch,
Italian)
precedent setting ‘Supreme Court’ worked in French.
The decision to make access to documentation
freely available at production and then no charge
context of no developed market actors
to challenge ‘super-nationalised’ state provision of
legal information and case law reportage.
2. The essential role of European law in
creating the ‘acquis communitaire’
Political decision to make law widely available at below marginal cost
To critical mass of advocates at national levels
no serious resistance beyond budgetary questions.
comparison with bi-lingual European Court of Human Rights presentation of case law,
rather than national court systems.
Note linguistic diversity of EU and severe budgetary constraints of the ECHR system.
3. European law was pushing
on an open policy door
expansion occurred at the same time as
a massive expansion in European
institutional competences and budget.
boom-bust cycle of many national legal
reporting environments
far longer and more crisis-ridden history
not an EU feature of resistance to wider
access to law.
4. EU law expanded rapidly
concurrently with legal informatics
Throughout the 1980s and onwards,
development of EU law and legal databases
has been a largely happy marriage
though with various standards-based and
institutional strains
inevitable in system growing at rapid rate.
5. European precedent for
national law
leading to recognition of its power to influence national legislation
not only in its legal effect
salutary example of free access to the over-arching law in so many national legal fields.
European law is an example to national legislatures, courts and commentators.
The use of judgments as precedent setting has parallels with the ECHR system and also national common law systems with Supreme Courts, such as England and the United States.
6. European court decisions
and legislative reforms now
affect 28 nations
Importance of effective communication of changes is evident (arguably more powerfully)
United States Supreme Court decisions have ‘ripple’ effects at
state, municipal and regional levels in United States.
Examples in the field of information law include the ‘Right to be Forgotten’ (sic) case of Google v. Spain (2014) , and Digital Rights Ire-land (2014) ,
which were the subjects of enormous immediate commentary at European and national levels.
7. Commentary: Law firms in
Brussels and Luxembourg
enormously well resourced
compared to national level in all but the
largest jurisdictions.
case commentary is frequently rapidly
and comprehensively supplied freely
‘loss leader’ to attract both national and
non-European clients
to use the services of these highly
competent and highly marketed law firms.
Federal exception that proves
the national rule
Is European legal data so open to reuse and access: ‘exception that proves the rule’?
national systems hampered by legacies of closed and restrictively licensed underfunded systems.
This will be a major research theme in national case studies.
European legal information not as widely reused and repurposed as US federal law, best of breed example to emulate where
possible?
