Criteria for "National Laws" dataset: machine readable content?

[herrmann]

I have some questions about the minimum criteria for the “National Laws” dataset. The methodology says:

National Laws: This data category requires all national laws and statutes available to be available online, although it is not a requirement that information on legislative behaviour e.g. voting records is available. To satisfy this category, the following minimum criteria must be met:

• Content of the law / statutes
• If applicable, all relevant amendments to the law
• Date of last amendments
• Data should be updated at least quarterly

But it says nothing about whether or not the content of the laws must me structured and machine readable (e.g. having each section broken down into elements in XML, such as in the MetaLex, Akoma Ntoso, LexML and Legislation.gov.uk projects), or if having just the metadata machine readable and the content as unstructured text is enough.

Another question is about the bulk download availability. Does this apply just to the metadata, or is it necessary to include all the content of the laws as well?

I think this should be clarified before the review process begins.

[dannylammerhirt]

Thank you @herrmann for this excellent pointer.

Our dataset definition refers to the legal text itself, meaning that textual data needs to be presented in a structured form (such as XML). Similarly, the content of legal texts (textual data) needs to be available in bulk. I documented your case as a user story for our next edition, and made a note for our reviewers too.

Thanks again for the pointer!
Danny

[herrmann]

Now that the official gazette of the Union in Brazil has opened up its data, a new question has been on my mind. The content of laws is not structured XML, but in HTML, which could also be considered structured for holding text. Would this qualify as machine readable for the next GODI?

I wonder how many countries’ laws do pass the criteria discussed there on this topic for machine readability. Not many, I would imagine.