4 ms·

In Italy (and I guess in many other places) laws are effectively commits, not documents/ files. The actual law is often implicit in the result of the successive

by Udik 6y ago

In Italy (and I guess in many other places) laws are effectively commits, not documents/ files. The actual law is often implicit in the result of the successive modifications each new law applies to the existing ones. Which is terrible from a usability perspective- it's like working with lists of patches instead of files. I think software engineers- thanks to much faster iteration cycles and having clarity and order as their only concern- have developed solutions and practices that absolutely can and should be applied also to the management of the law.

gwright 6y ago
I think you are just describing the difference between a bill (what is debated and discussed during the legislative process), and the compendium of statutes (or regulations, etc.) that is updated via the legislative process. My understanding is that there are always administrative departments responsible for updating and publishing the statutes based on the bills that have been passed. This is effectively applying a patch approved by the legislative process to the repository of statutes. If you try to dig into a mainstream news story about legislative actions to the actual bill text you'll quickly find that for all but the simplest actions the bill text is useless for understanding the effect of the bill. The problem is that you need the surrounding context of the statute or regulation that is being amended in order to understand. At least for my state and the US federal legislative systems, the web based UI for understanding all this is abysmal. The cynic in me thinks that legislators don't even understand the true nature of their own legislation. They are making voting decisions based on staff summaries, verbal discussions, media reports, constituent sentiment analysis, etc.
- Udik 6y ago
  > that there are always administrative departments responsible for updating and publishing the statutes based on the bills that have been passed I don't think that's the case in Italy. A bill often takes the takes the form of sequences such as "in the bill n. 1234/05 at the subparagraph 2, the word X is replaced with the word Y." There isn't, to my knowledge, a notion of "document" which the patch is applied to. You can, of course, derive the documents from the successive patches, and laws on new matters contain an entire document as a "first commit". But in software engineering it's the documents/ files you care about, patches and commits only exist as a support for change management.
  - gwright 6y ago
    That is interesting. Thanks for elaborating.
  - dmurray 6y ago
    Doesn't anyone take the job of publishing the derived documents, with all the changes made? This seems like it should be done by some government department, but if it's not, still a lucrative opportunity for the private sector (surely every lawyer would buy a copy /subscribe to your service).
zepn 6y ago
This is my (basic, lay) understanding of how changes to UK law happen, as well. For example, here is a collection of "Statement of changes in Immigration Rules: 1994 to 2020": https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-rules-statement-of-changes https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-rules-... If you click on the latest document, "accessible" version, you'll find paragraphs such as the following: Changes to the Introduction Intro1. In paragraph 6.2, after the definition of “English language course”, insert: “ “EU national” in Appendix T5 (Temporary Worker) International Agreement Worker means a person who is a national of: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, or Sweden; and who is not also a British citizen.”. Changes to Part 7 7.1. For the second paragraph 276BB1(vi)(d), substitute: “(e) the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development or the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has determined should qualify for relocation under the ex-gratia redundancy / resignation package, including confirmation that they served ‘on frontline duties outside the wire in Helmand’.”. Anyone interpreting this law (i.e. lawyers) does not have the "latest" version to hand; they have to stack successive changes. There are other complications, which I can't recall, but I dearly wish someone would do this for UK law.
- gwright 6y ago
  Fascinating. Is there nothing in the UK like the US Code? https://www.govregs.com/uscode https://www.govregs.com/uscode

by Udik 6y ago

gwright 6y ago

I think you are just describing the difference between a bill (what is debated and discussed during the legislative process), and the compendium of statutes (or regulations, etc.) that is updated via the legislative process. My understanding is that there are always administrative departments responsible for updating and publishing the statutes based on the bills that have been passed. This is effectively applying a patch approved by the legislative process to the repository of statutes. If you try to dig into a mainstream news story about legislative actions to the actual bill text you'll quickly find that for all but the simplest actions the bill text is useless for understanding the effect of the bill. The problem is that you need the surrounding context of the statute or regulation that is being amended in order to understand. At least for my state and the US federal legislative systems, the web based UI for understanding all this is abysmal. The cynic in me thinks that legislators don't even understand the true nature of their own legislation. They are making voting decisions based on staff summaries, verbal discussions, media reports, constituent sentiment analysis, etc.

Udik 6y ago
> that there are always administrative departments responsible for updating and publishing the statutes based on the bills that have been passed I don't think that's the case in Italy. A bill often takes the takes the form of sequences such as "in the bill n. 1234/05 at the subparagraph 2, the word X is replaced with the word Y." There isn't, to my knowledge, a notion of "document" which the patch is applied to. You can, of course, derive the documents from the successive patches, and laws on new matters contain an entire document as a "first commit". But in software engineering it's the documents/ files you care about, patches and commits only exist as a support for change management.
- gwright 6y ago
  That is interesting. Thanks for elaborating.
- dmurray 6y ago
  Doesn't anyone take the job of publishing the derived documents, with all the changes made? This seems like it should be done by some government department, but if it's not, still a lucrative opportunity for the private sector (surely every lawyer would buy a copy /subscribe to your service).

zepn 6y ago

This is my (basic, lay) understanding of how changes to UK law happen, as well. For example, here is a collection of "Statement of changes in Immigration Rules: 1994 to 2020": https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-rules-statement-of-changes https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-rules-... If you click on the latest document, "accessible" version, you'll find paragraphs such as the following: Changes to the Introduction Intro1. In paragraph 6.2, after the definition of “English language course”, insert: “ “EU national” in Appendix T5 (Temporary Worker) International Agreement Worker means a person who is a national of: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, or Sweden; and who is not also a British citizen.”. Changes to Part 7 7.1. For the second paragraph 276BB1(vi)(d), substitute: “(e) the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development or the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has determined should qualify for relocation under the ex-gratia redundancy / resignation package, including confirmation that they served ‘on frontline duties outside the wire in Helmand’.”. Anyone interpreting this law (i.e. lawyers) does not have the "latest" version to hand; they have to stack successive changes. There are other complications, which I can't recall, but I dearly wish someone would do this for UK law.

gwright 6y ago
Fascinating. Is there nothing in the UK like the US Code? https://www.govregs.com/uscode https://www.govregs.com/uscode