[dead]
Spanish legislation as a Git repo
191–200 of 246 posts
Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo
#192That's how it should be everywhere!
Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo
#193I built a pipeline that converts all Spanish state legislation into version-controlled Markdown. Each law is a file, each reform is a real git commit with the historical date. 8,642 laws, 27,866 commits. The idea: legislation is just patches on patches on patches. Git already solves this. Instead of reading "strike paragraph 3 and replace with...", you get an actual diff. The repo is the product. Browse any law, git…
Too bad that author, and committer are individuals and not lists. It would be good to see who wrote them and how the voting went as well.
Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo
#194I built a pipeline that converts all Spanish state legislation into version-controlled Markdown. Each law is a file, each reform is a real git commit with the historical date. 8,642 laws, 27,866 commits. The idea: legislation is just patches on patches on patches. Git already solves this. Instead of reading "strike paragraph 3 and replace with...", you get an actual diff. The repo is the product. Browse any law, git…
Very cool project. How are you thinking about indexing and discoverability? Git gives you the change history, but navigating the corpus itself seems like the harder problem: Finding related laws, understanding hierarchical relationships between statutes...
Have you considered embedding semantic hierarchical structure directly in the markdown? Something like https://github.com/wikibonsai/semtree ? It lets you build a navigable tree across markdown files using indented [[wikilinks]] as the organizational spine. Could be a natural fit for legislation that already has an inherent taxonomy (constitutional → organic → ordinary, or by subject area).
Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo
#195In 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.
Previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46177022
Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo
#196I built a pipeline that converts all Spanish state legislation into version-controlled Markdown. Each law is a file, each reform is a real git commit with the historical date. 8,642 laws, 27,866 commits. The idea: legislation is just patches on patches on patches. Git already solves this. Instead of reading "strike paragraph 3 and replace with...", you get an actual diff. The repo is the product. Browse any law, git…
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.
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.
Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo
#197I built a pipeline that converts all Spanish state legislation into version-controlled Markdown. Each law is a file, each reform is a real git commit with the historical date. 8,642 laws, 27,866 commits. The idea: legislation is just patches on patches on patches. Git already solves this. Instead of reading "strike paragraph 3 and replace with...", you get an actual diff. The repo is the product. Browse any law, git…
I’ve thought of this of many times! But you’re missing the most important part: every reform should be a PR. With discussions and all. That would be the purest form of voting. And all decisions to reach the current state of a law would ve registered and available for everyone to read. Democracy 2.0.
Dreaming costs nothing.
Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo
#198I built a pipeline that converts all Spanish state legislation into version-controlled Markdown. Each law is a file, each reform is a real git commit with the historical date. 8,642 laws, 27,866 commits. The idea: legislation is just patches on patches on patches. Git already solves this. Instead of reading "strike paragraph 3 and replace with...", you get an actual diff. The repo is the product. Browse any law, git…
This is brilliant. I had thought about this for a long while, you see laws that are just "go to law 132 and amend paragraph 4, then go to law 24 and amend paragraph 9". Basically "laws" are recorded as diffs, and then it's up to the reader to put up the final product in their heads. They should be doing it this way!
To be fair, the BOE website often offers the consolidated version for many important laws, which includes further amendments by other laws in one text.
Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo
#199OP here. Thank you for the incredible response — I did not expect this.
Many of you asked if the code is shared. It is now: https://github.com/legalize-dev
The pipeline is multi-country by design. France already works as a second country (Légifrance data). Adding a new country means implementing 4 Python interfaces for your national gazette. The rest (markdown, git, web, API) is generic.
I wrote a guide for contributors who want to add their country: https://github.com/legalize-dev/legalize-pipeline/blob/main/...
From this thread alone, people asked about Germany, Portugal, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, and Brazil. If you know your country's open data source for legislation, a PR is the best way to help.
I'll be honest — I don't know how much time I'll be able to dedicate to this, but I'd love to build something big. Legislation is massive and scaling to more countries takes real infrastructure. I'm setting up an Open Collective to fund hosting and development: https://opencollective.com/legalize
Live site with browsable laws + diffs: https://legalize.dev
Everything is still very precarious, time to time.
Thank you
Re: Spanish legislation as a Git repo
#200The fact that the oldest current law in the list is about places where nuns are allowed to be buried is quite amusing, in some sort of way.