Spanish legislation as a Git repo (github.com)

Article summary

A GitHub repository has been created to store Spanish legislation in Markdown format, with each law as a file and each reform as a commit. The repository contains 8,642 laws and 27,866 commits, and is updated using data from the Spanish government's official gazette. The project aims to make it easier to track changes to laws over time. The repository is part of a larger project called Legalize, which aims to create similar repositories for legislation from multiple countries.

Main themes

• Legislation as code
• Version control for laws
• Open data
• Government transparency
• Legal technology

What commenters say

• The project is a useful tool for tracking changes to laws over time and could be used for automated research and visualization of the evolution of law.
• The commit history may not be in proper chronological order due to the way GitHub sorts commits, which could make it difficult to understand the history of a particular law.
• In a civil law system like Spain's, court judgments do not set binding precedent, but may still be influential, and incorporating them into the repository could add value.
• The project could be extended to include local laws and regulations, which can vary significantly from one region to another.
• The use of version control for laws could simplify the process of drafting new laws and reduce legal costs by taking into account previous judgments and laws.
• The privatization of government publications, such as the Bundesanzeiger in Germany, can limit access to laws and create copyright issues.
• The concept of laws being 'public' is called into question when access is restricted by copyright or other means.
• The project could be replicated in other countries, such as Portugal, where laws are also complex and difficult to navigate.