Spanish legislation as a Git repo • Hacker News Board

Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo

#141

Post by OrangePilled » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 3:41 PM UTC

embedding-shape wrote: post #122

downsplat wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called euthanasia. You can ask the medical system for an assisted suicide if your life situation is extra painful with no hope for recovery. This case got heaps of media popularity because the christian right wing latched on it, and the father tried as hard as he could to impede the euthanasia. Ultimately got told that the lady unequivocally wants it and qualifies, and he can't override that.

> Ultimately got told that the lady unequivocally wants it and qualifies, and he can't override that. Not just once, but five times by different courts, finalized by the European Court of Human Rights! > Her request had been approved on July 18, 2024, by the Catalonia Guarantee and Evaluation Commission. The commission found that she met all legal requirements, as she had a “nonrecoverable clinical situation,” causin…

Your enthusiasm is remarkable.

Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo

#142

Post by dinkumthinkum » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 3:43 PM UTC

cyrusradfar wrote: post #37

I think this is great. Only limit of git is I can't imagine "git blame" works. It would be nice to know who voted for and against each patch. Git isn't structured for collaborative commits.

Is this really a problem we have now, though? This information is publicly available. If everyone here is so excited about LLMs then why would this even be needed? Anthropic can just give us the answer to every question. We don't need nerds that know what git is. :)

Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo

#143

Post by amszmidt » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 3:43 PM UTC

tephra wrote: post #69

da_chicken wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

Would be nice if someone did it with Swedens laws too!

Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo

#144

Post by asveikau » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 3:57 PM UTC

allan_s wrote: post #107

_ache_ wrote: post #104

In France, not only our law are versioned. It's formally proved too! https://catala-lang.org/ *Edit*: Woah ! The French crew is here. We are at least 5 quoting a variation of https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/ > for versioning.

I find it ironic to have it named "catalan(g)" on a post about spanish law.

Even better. The Catalan word for Catalan is català. So catala-lang.org fits that too.

Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo

#145

Post by icpmoles » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

dorianmariecom wrote: post #19

for france there is https://www.lafabriquedelaloi.fr/

For older edits there is https://github.com/steeve/france.code-civil

Unfortunately Git is based on Unix timestamps so everything pre-1970 has the wrong date.

Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo

#146

Post by boredatoms » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 4:01 PM UTC

Is there something like this for the US?

Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo

#147

Post by sh-cho » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

Good Idea!

Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo

#148

Post by bentcorner » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 4:08 PM UTC

whattheheckheck wrote: post #85

comboy wrote: post #66

Add CI to check if new laws don't contradict with any existing ones.

Can you imagine rebases with merge conflicts?

This could in theory already happen without any tech, but I suspect since the government is pretty monolithic, any changes in a specific law are all being done by the same set of people.

You might not have merge conflicts but I imagine you could end up with conflicting guidance from two separate pieces of law (e.g., law A says you must wear green on St. Patrick's day, law B outlaws green pajamas).

Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo

#149

Post by 3eb7988a1663 » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 4:11 PM UTC

hirako2000 wrote: post #38

cyrusradfar wrote: post #37

I think this is great. Only limit of git is I can't imagine "git blame" works. It would be nice to know who voted for and against each patch. Git isn't structured for collaborative commits.

That could actually be a git commit log with date, votes and other metadata. But getting the entire country's law into git is already an impressive feat.

If we are spitballing, I think there should be an actual file associated with the text so you can see the vote. A file makes it trivial to grep for "Senator X".

Not git, but Congress actually does have quite a bit of data digitized. A random example[0] -they even provide XML. The Congress data is going to give you all bills - many of which do not pass, so a different mission than this project.

[0] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/4818

Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo

#150

Post by bentcorner » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 4:13 PM UTC

ivanjermakov wrote: post #28

I'm surprised the world is not running a system where laws are formally encoded using some DSL that would allow making decision (guilty/not guilty) using formal logic. Perhaps there is not much interest from law making/enforcing parties for this either.

I don't think this is where the problem lies. If you kill someone with intent, it's murder. But the whole system needs to prove that you killed someone with intent beyond a reasonable doubt, and a DSL will not help you there.