6 ms·

This is nice, but it would be great to see some more features from VCS applied to laws, e.g. git blame and git log.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bjourne 2y ago
It exists. The "commits" to the legal code is published in a government gazette: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_gazette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_gazette The current laws are just the tip of the main branch. In theory you could run a git blame and find out exactly which update inserted which specific words into the code. There is even branches in case of state succession, like the breakup of the USSR.
- throw310822 2y ago
  > The "commits" to the legal code is published in a government gazette ... The current laws are just the tip of the main branch Unfortunately I think those commits are the laws (depending on the country, of course, speaking for the cases I know). There isn't, except in a few cases, a notion of documents those commits are applied to -the commits are applied to previous commits. It doesn't make a difference functionally, but makes the system incredibly messy, hard to maintain and to navigate.
  - kuschku 2y ago
    That's the primary difference between common law and civil law countries. In Germany for example, there are regular laws (if you need to know what's legal and what not, these are the ones you read) and change laws (Änderungsgesetze), which usually read like "Law XYZ, Paragraph 5a, Sentence 3 is changed to read as follows: '...', Sentence 7 is appended with '...', Sentence 8 is removed" So at any time, you've got a clear set of laws that apply.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      That’s now what he’s talking about. He is talking about a history of the edits laws in the process of becoming law.
      - eru 2y ago
        There are both interesting aspects. I wonder whether you could represent both at the same time in a single git repository.
    - bloppe 2y ago
      I've never understood a strong distinction between common law and civil law. Seems like the only difference is that common law is supposed to involve stronger deference to judicial precedent, although clearly it's not absolute.
      - eru 2y ago
        There are two main sets of differences: The conceptual differences, and the differences in content. You are right that the conceptual differences are murkier in practice than in theory: Even in civil law countries, judges tend to defer to precedent, even though they aren't strictly bound by it. And in common law countries, if you are a judge and you don't like a precedent (even a precedent set by a higher court), you can 'just' find enough differences between the case in front of you and the precedents you don't like, and argue away the differences with the precedents you do like. Content-wise, there's a big difference in how eg German law sees contracts and how English law sees them. But you could (more or less) embed the English definition of contract in a civil law system, just as much as you could embed the German definition in a common law system. In practice the main difference between English vs German contracts is in the legal boilerplate and fine print. You can think of the boilerplace text like a 'polyfill' or compatibility layer that gets you closer to what you actually want to implement in the main text of your contract.
      - arlort 2y ago
        As far as I understand it's because in practice there is no one using pure common or pure civil law Pure common law would be the complete absence of a separate legislature. Everything would be just layers of judicial decisions Pure civil law systems would have judges always ruling exclusively on the case in front of them based exclusively on the text of the laws. But in practice especially at the higher level of the courts and especially in matters of constitutionality or higher laws you have a certain deference to precedence
  - bloppe 2y ago
    In the US, the commits (aka bills aka statutes) are the source of truth, but they're regularly compiled and codified into the US code [1] which is analogous to the tip of main. The code is a concise, organized, holistic representation of the statutes, but when people actually get into legal disputes, they have to go back to the original statutes to litigate it. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Code https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Code
    - eru 2y ago
      Funny enough in git a 'commit' actually refers to the full state of the data in the repository (and zero or more pointers to parent commits). When we do 'git show' we typically look the diff to the parent commit. But in git that's derived data. The 'snapshot' of your files is the fundamental point of view in git, and they are the source of truth (in some sense). As you they, they make the diffs the source of truth in the US. I think that's how Subversion used to work. I don't know if that's still true, though. The git model makes diffs between arbitrary commits about equally expensive to produce, no matter how far away in the commit graph they are from each other (if they are even connected at all). It also makes complicated merges conceptually simpler.
- YmiYugy 2y ago
  Yeah, but at least in Germany they are a textual description of a diff, not something I can use in a standard diff viewer.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

It exists. The "commits" to the legal code is published in a government gazette: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_gazette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_gazette The current laws are just the tip of the main branch. In theory you could run a git blame and find out exactly which update inserted which specific words into the code. There is even branches in case of state succession, like the breakup of the USSR.

throw310822 2y ago
> The "commits" to the legal code is published in a government gazette ... The current laws are just the tip of the main branch Unfortunately I think those commits are the laws (depending on the country, of course, speaking for the cases I know). There isn't, except in a few cases, a notion of documents those commits are applied to -the commits are applied to previous commits. It doesn't make a difference functionally, but makes the system incredibly messy, hard to maintain and to navigate.
- kuschku 2y ago
  That's the primary difference between common law and civil law countries. In Germany for example, there are regular laws (if you need to know what's legal and what not, these are the ones you read) and change laws (Änderungsgesetze), which usually read like "Law XYZ, Paragraph 5a, Sentence 3 is changed to read as follows: '...', Sentence 7 is appended with '...', Sentence 8 is removed" So at any time, you've got a clear set of laws that apply.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    That’s now what he’s talking about. He is talking about a history of the edits laws in the process of becoming law.
    - eru 2y ago
      There are both interesting aspects. I wonder whether you could represent both at the same time in a single git repository.
  - bloppe 2y ago
    I've never understood a strong distinction between common law and civil law. Seems like the only difference is that common law is supposed to involve stronger deference to judicial precedent, although clearly it's not absolute.
    - eru 2y ago
      There are two main sets of differences: The conceptual differences, and the differences in content. You are right that the conceptual differences are murkier in practice than in theory: Even in civil law countries, judges tend to defer to precedent, even though they aren't strictly bound by it. And in common law countries, if you are a judge and you don't like a precedent (even a precedent set by a higher court), you can 'just' find enough differences between the case in front of you and the precedents you don't like, and argue away the differences with the precedents you do like. Content-wise, there's a big difference in how eg German law sees contracts and how English law sees them. But you could (more or less) embed the English definition of contract in a civil law system, just as much as you could embed the German definition in a common law system. In practice the main difference between English vs German contracts is in the legal boilerplate and fine print. You can think of the boilerplace text like a 'polyfill' or compatibility layer that gets you closer to what you actually want to implement in the main text of your contract.
    - arlort 2y ago
      As far as I understand it's because in practice there is no one using pure common or pure civil law Pure common law would be the complete absence of a separate legislature. Everything would be just layers of judicial decisions Pure civil law systems would have judges always ruling exclusively on the case in front of them based exclusively on the text of the laws. But in practice especially at the higher level of the courts and especially in matters of constitutionality or higher laws you have a certain deference to precedence
- bloppe 2y ago
  In the US, the commits (aka bills aka statutes) are the source of truth, but they're regularly compiled and codified into the US code [1] which is analogous to the tip of main. The code is a concise, organized, holistic representation of the statutes, but when people actually get into legal disputes, they have to go back to the original statutes to litigate it. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Code https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Code
  - eru 2y ago
    Funny enough in git a 'commit' actually refers to the full state of the data in the repository (and zero or more pointers to parent commits). When we do 'git show' we typically look the diff to the parent commit. But in git that's derived data. The 'snapshot' of your files is the fundamental point of view in git, and they are the source of truth (in some sense). As you they, they make the diffs the source of truth in the US. I think that's how Subversion used to work. I don't know if that's still true, though. The git model makes diffs between arbitrary commits about equally expensive to produce, no matter how far away in the commit graph they are from each other (if they are even connected at all). It also makes complicated merges conceptually simpler.
YmiYugy 2y ago
Yeah, but at least in Germany they are a textual description of a diff, not something I can use in a standard diff viewer.