7 ms·

Laws intent are often clarified in courts through judgments. If you can overlay the judgements on top of the corresponding law, at correct points in time, I th

by artirdx 6mo ago

Laws intent are often clarified in courts through judgments. If you can overlay the judgements on top of the corresponding law, at correct points in time, I think that will have value. It might, for example, show which laws were referenced the most and which needed to be clarified the most. It might give insights into what legal language constructs stood the test of time and which had to be repeatedly clarified.

pseingatl 6mo ago
Rarely in a civil law jurisdiction, essential in common-law jurisdictions.
da_chicken 6mo ago
That's true, but it might not be as important here. Spain is not a country with a Common Law legal system entirely like the US or the UK. They have a civil law system where prior court judgement does not form a strictly binding precedent. Prior judgements can be important, but case law is not really a thing.
- tephra 6mo ago
  I wonder how true this is, we have the same system in Sweden, that court judgement are not legally binding precedent for lower courts. But in practice lower courts will follow the rulings made by the high court. Is it not the same in Spain at all?
  - philistine 6mo ago
    It's the same in Spain, which makes OPs proposal kind of useless. The big distinction between a civil and a common law system is the fundamentals. A country's civil code is properly defined, while a common law's system is based on previous cases you have to dig through to find the basics.
    - markdown 6mo ago
      > while a common law's system is based on previous cases you have to dig through to find the basics In other words, you have to hire a lawyer. They really built a great system for themselves, didn't they?
  - amszmidt 6mo ago
    Would be nice if someone did it with Swedens laws too!
    - mrimskog 6mo ago
      I built it with Claude Code last summer :) Check it out: https://github.com/se-lex/sfs https://github.com/se-lex/sfs It’s generated by this CLI: https://github.com/se-lex/sfs-processor https://github.com/se-lex/sfs-processor (md with temporal tags, html or Git commits as output format)
dotancohen 6mo ago
Laws are often cascaded as well. Specifically in this case, Spain is subdivided into Comunidades Autonomas - each have their own elected parliament. And inside those are cities with their own local laws. So while this project does track laws, is there any facility to determine which laws from which bodies are relevant to a specific activity in a specific location?
- embedding-shape 6mo ago
  > And inside those are cities with their own local laws. No, cities don't have their own laws, but the autonomous communities do have some influence in some laws and regulations (not all), like the amount of income tax you have to pay and so on. But cities within the autonomous communities don't have their own laws.
  - donalhunt 6mo ago
    No by(e)-laws in Spain? Certainly a thing in the UK, Ireland and I believe US and Canada. Is that a common law thing?
    - embedding-shape 6mo ago
      "By-laws" is typically the name of the rules/"laws" inside of a company or organization, I'm not familiar with that word in the context of "nation-wide criminal/civil laws". Regardless, cities do not have their own "local laws" in the way your comment made it seem. We have national laws, and minor differences in various autonomous communities, since they have some legislative power to control their own industry, commerce, education and some more stuff.
      - ninalanyon 6mo ago
        > "By-laws" is typically the name of the rules/"laws" inside of a company I suspect that this should be qualified by "in the US"
SOLAR_FIELDS 6mo ago
Perhaps reference it in the commit trailer?
artirdx 6mo ago
Another thought. Assuming such a dataset (laws+ judgement) could be built, an argument can be made to Parliament to draft new laws that take into account all those judgments and then mark those judgments and old laws in a way that they can no longer be referenced (archived?). This might simplify future cases leading to lower legal costs. And who knows maybe a way could be found to create smart contracts (smart oracles? smart judges?) and those could lead to instant judgements.

by artirdx 6mo ago

pseingatl 6mo ago

Rarely in a civil law jurisdiction, essential in common-law jurisdictions.

da_chicken 6mo ago

That's true, but it might not be as important here. Spain is not a country with a Common Law legal system entirely like the US or the UK. They have a civil law system where prior court judgement does not form a strictly binding precedent. Prior judgements can be important, but case law is not really a thing.

tephra 6mo ago
I wonder how true this is, we have the same system in Sweden, that court judgement are not legally binding precedent for lower courts. But in practice lower courts will follow the rulings made by the high court. Is it not the same in Spain at all?
- philistine 6mo ago
  It's the same in Spain, which makes OPs proposal kind of useless. The big distinction between a civil and a common law system is the fundamentals. A country's civil code is properly defined, while a common law's system is based on previous cases you have to dig through to find the basics.
  - markdown 6mo ago
    > while a common law's system is based on previous cases you have to dig through to find the basics In other words, you have to hire a lawyer. They really built a great system for themselves, didn't they?
- amszmidt 6mo ago
  Would be nice if someone did it with Swedens laws too!
  - mrimskog 6mo ago
    I built it with Claude Code last summer :) Check it out: https://github.com/se-lex/sfs https://github.com/se-lex/sfs It’s generated by this CLI: https://github.com/se-lex/sfs-processor https://github.com/se-lex/sfs-processor (md with temporal tags, html or Git commits as output format)

dotancohen 6mo ago

Laws are often cascaded as well. Specifically in this case, Spain is subdivided into Comunidades Autonomas - each have their own elected parliament. And inside those are cities with their own local laws. So while this project does track laws, is there any facility to determine which laws from which bodies are relevant to a specific activity in a specific location?

embedding-shape 6mo ago
> And inside those are cities with their own local laws. No, cities don't have their own laws, but the autonomous communities do have some influence in some laws and regulations (not all), like the amount of income tax you have to pay and so on. But cities within the autonomous communities don't have their own laws.
- donalhunt 6mo ago
  No by(e)-laws in Spain? Certainly a thing in the UK, Ireland and I believe US and Canada. Is that a common law thing?
  - embedding-shape 6mo ago
    "By-laws" is typically the name of the rules/"laws" inside of a company or organization, I'm not familiar with that word in the context of "nation-wide criminal/civil laws". Regardless, cities do not have their own "local laws" in the way your comment made it seem. We have national laws, and minor differences in various autonomous communities, since they have some legislative power to control their own industry, commerce, education and some more stuff.
    - ninalanyon 6mo ago
      > "By-laws" is typically the name of the rules/"laws" inside of a company I suspect that this should be qualified by "in the US"

SOLAR_FIELDS 6mo ago

Perhaps reference it in the commit trailer?

artirdx 6mo ago

Another thought. Assuming such a dataset (laws+ judgement) could be built, an argument can be made to Parliament to draft new laws that take into account all those judgments and then mark those judgments and old laws in a way that they can no longer be referenced (archived?). This might simplify future cases leading to lower legal costs. And who knows maybe a way could be found to create smart contracts (smart oracles? smart judges?) and those could lead to instant judgements.