@crlp-jerseyldo
Finding a way for legislative drafters to produce computer-readable versions of the logical structure of the legislation that we draft. Part of the Legislative Drafting Office in Jersey (original, Channel Islands) https://crlp-jerseyldo.github.io
Our report (statesassembly.je/getmedia/ade... or osf.io/m4che) is out on our last 3 years of work -
* Logic visualiser
* definitions tool
* AI
* non-tech drafting guidance
* Docassemble mock-up
Plus background on legislative drafting, RaC, ADM & more.
Has a 4-page summary (or 1-page at osf.io/5ne3c)
If you are interested in the latest re §Blawx v2, check out this video I submitted as part of the G7 GovAI Grand Challenge today. The demo shows the version on which I'm currently doing QA.
youtu.be/2cnSEnwI9Nc?...
#LegalTech #RulesAsCode #GovTech #RegTech #ComputationalLaw #LawSky
LLMs "increasingly… role of being transformers for back-end symbolic data stores (knowledge graphs)… become a natural language bridge for querying the stores, and once the results are produced, they also become a similar bridge for converting the results of such queries into natural language output”
Interesting post on Kurt Cagle’s Substack “The Ontologist” open.substack.com/pub/ontologi.... Gives equivalent of our “AI sandwich” (osf.io/8v5bd) for how people now use LLMs with knowledge graphs - LLM translates human’s English question for KG, then translates KG's answer into English for human.
Other talks by-
✅Andy Neale “Open Legislative Data Services”, from NZ Parliamentary Counsel's Office
✅Sarah Sutherland, with interesting take on limits of #RulesAsCode
✅AustLII on their experiments in using RAG on their huge body of legal data
✅Lexum & CanLII, incl on AI-assisted search on CanLII
Our @mattwadd.bsky.social presented “Visualising legislative logic” (slides osf.io/uk2vy/files/...) - demo of interactive logic mapping tool (github.com/smucclaw/l4-... & jl4.legalese.com?id=8831700c-...) using L4 language for coding law. More at crlp-jerseyldo.github.io/work/an-ide-...
Very useful & interesting couple of days at LVI2025, Law via the Internet conf www.lvi2025.org/program/ - "Shaping the Future of Legal Accessibility: Improving access to law through legal info, tech & AI” in Sydney at AustLII (Australasian Legal Information Institute www.austlii.edu.au/about.html)
Very encouraging to see "Public sector automated decision-making" will be one of new projects at Law Commission (E&W)
lawcom.gov.uk/news/law-com...
We published Margaux McQuilton's pre-print report on ADM osf.io/a7jwc
We see logic-driven systems taking human decision-makers to the right questions
Just spotted that that link was to the map of a simpler version of the “farmer must feed an animal”, which doesn't have the condition that the farmer is not exempt. If you want to try a map with that negative condition added in as an extra twist, go to jl4.legalese.com?id=8831700c-...
The demo example in the video is at jl4.legalese.com?id=8b65fc3b-..., where you can play with it (or make your own if you're that way inclined).
Some more explanation in our latest Substack post substack.com/home/post/p-... and on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/posts/matthe...
We've made a demo video of how legislative drafters can produce simple if-then versions of drafts, for automatic conversion to L4. Legalese's visualiser (jl4.legalese.com) automatically turns the L4 into an interactive map of the logical structure of the draft provision. See youtu.be/_VZ4_FY_Nqo
Setting off to London tomorrow for the Statute Law Society's conference on the Renton report's 50th anniversary - www.statutelawsociety.co.uk/conference
Meanwhile here is our note on Renton's specially prescient comment about computing (before PCs, WWW, AI) open.substack.com/pub/digitall...
This is a really good interview with the fabulous Matt Lynch on Lawmaker - start with imagination not code, he says. modparl.substack.com/p/lawmaker
A teatime treat for you guys. Yet more weeknotes from @anyaso.bsky.social and I:
ukparliament.github.io/ontologies/m...
All the latest news from the cutting edge of the procedural pedantic web.
But don't let that put you off. If you think they're a hard read, try writing the blasted things
AustLII will host the 2025 Law Via Internet Conference lvi2025.org & meeting of the Free Access to Law Movement falm.info. Call for Papers: lvi2025.org/callforpapers/ Registration: secure.austlii.edu.au/cgi-egate/re.... We look forward to welcoming you to Sydney.
This just finished - it was a very good introduction to the many different projects using OpenFisca all across the globe. The Association sounds very well thought out too - taking care to preserve the open source approach.
Matti Schneider présente à la tribune les statuts de la nouvelle association
Les dorures de la grande salle à manger du ministère
Aujourd’hui : lancement officiel de l’association @openfisca.bsky.social au Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères, dans la salle où sont nées l’UIT et l’Union européenne.
🔸Demos of logic maps & other visualisations - work with SMU Centre for Digital Law
🔸Unique IDs for legislation paras (h/t Hamish Fraser) in Word & web, for pop-ups linking words to definitions (incl in Interpretation Law)
🔸Using "may", "may not" & "may only"
#RulesAsCode
substack.com/@digitallegi...
We're working with SMU Centre for Digital Law on using their L4 to code legislation in a way that is human-readable & gives visualisations. For demos & info so far see-
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtq_...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq6m...
osf.io/jauqb
More later at crlp-jerseyldo.github.io/work/an-ide-...
Interested in formalising/digitising logical structures in legislation (& other law)? Here's a gold-mine - collected abstracts of Guido Governatori's work 1995-2024
- defeasible deontic logic
- explainable AI in law
- Prolog & other logic-driven computer systems…
www.governatori.net/papers/2024/...
New blog on use & coding of "may".
Lessons from formal logic & computing -
* improving legislative drafters' use of "may",
* & making logical structure of “may” computer-readable.
Thanks to Keshav Soni & team at Law School Policy Review, Bengaluru, India
lawschoolpolicyreview.com/2025/02/05/i...
Data is never ‘collected’, it is only *generated*.
This isn’t merely a pedantic semantic gripe; by misrepresenting ‘data’ as something that exists in nature & has only to be scooped up, evasion of accountability for data harms has already begun
Data doesn’t exist until someone constructs it
Our kanban practice suffered a slight wobble and our flow went out the window. On the bright side, two lots of notes in two days is quite the treat. More jottings from @anyaso.bsky.social and I, packed with things Young @robert-brook.com is unlikely to ever say
ukparliament.github.io/ontologies/m...
Two 2024 articles on #RulesAsCode-
Translating Law & Code in Government: Algorithmic Decisions & Their Legal Effects in Canada - Zajko journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
RaC & rule of law: ensuring effective judicial review of administration by software - Kennedy scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=b...
Thank you Jason Morris (@lexpedite.bsky.social) for generously sharing your insights on different ways of categorising #rulesascode languages, covering the computational paradigm, target markets, features and licensing at our last RaC Guild townhall. Find it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC65...
This Rules as Code Guild is an excellent way of keeping up with what is happening in this corner of computational law. There are videos of previous presentations to catch up with.
AustLII do all the usual LII (Legal Information Institute) things, but they also produced DataLex datalex.org with its yScript language & yLegis preprocessor austlii.community/wiki/DataLex . If you haven't yet tried their example apps, do give them a go datalex.org/app/?rulebas...
User guide with key linking, tagging, collaboration, versioning and annotation features here: docref.org/docref/userg...
The Policy2Code Demo Day at #BenCon2024 showcased 12 teams presenting experiments using generative AI to transform benefits policies into assistive chatbots, eligibility screeners, standardized logic and code & more!
digitalgovernmenthub.org/publications...
#RulesAsCode #govtech #civictech #AI
#RulesAsCode starter pack, reply if you're doing this and not on it!
bsky.app/starter-pack...