brussels openlaws country cases

Openlaws.eu co-funded by the European Union

openlaws

country case study comparison

Professor Chris Marsden

Openlaws final conference

8 March 2016

co-funded by the European Union

Partners

• University of Amsterdam

• Salzburg University of Applied Sciences

• University of Sussex

• London School of Economics

• Alpenite srl

• BY WASS GmbH

2


Mapping Open Law

Mapping of stakeholders,

• processes in legal information

production and consumption

• levels of regulatory instruments

• flows of content, rights, value.

3


Production of country case studies

Examining legal publishing systems,

• social use of legal publishing – audience and authorship models

• developments towards open access – at micro-legal and macro-societal levels

Case studies:

institutions' free access to law, – cases, legislation, regulatory instruments

– academic-expert analysis

– EU, UK, Netherlands, Austria

4


Analysis of social, legal and market

requirements

Specifying main stakeholders/working practices

• consumption, creation, exploitation of legal data.

Mapping stakeholders’ strategies and operations

• key use cases: re-use/consumption of legal data

Maps data flows from legal/social/ market rules

• identifies potential flows of value in same context.

• E.g. transformation from private to public

• link between open and closed business models.

5


Country case studies

• Case studies: EU, UK, Austria, Netherlands

• Review of existing information systems – legal databases already in use

– produce a specification of requirements of the system

• Informed by key informant interviews – form a working assumption,

– supported by literature review, insights of workshops.

6


Soft Systems Methodology (SSM)

framework

• identify key components of the problem

• provide key specifications for system build

• combination of

– desk research,

– in-depth interviews,

– focus groups


Publication of draft case studies & final

comparative report

• dissemination and feedback mechanisms

• both on-line – (e.g. via open access websites, promotion

via social media and comment promotion)

• offline (via workshops and conferences)

• to create a close expert panel – constructive critique for iterations of reports

• final version published conclusion of project.


CAMPO

Adaptation of socio-legal framework

• Context– Environment of community/organisation/market

• Actors– Publishers, official document providers, users

• Methodology– Including both open and closed access

• Practices– Including user experience, litigation/regulation

• Outcomes– Including market, regulatory reform


CAMPO Description Added value

Context Initial part of the case study outlines the overall

context in which the community

emerges/operates - type of legal informatics

technology Systematic catalogue of

cases/actors/issuesActors What type of community is observed (primary

groups, market actors, user groups etc.)

Methods Investigation method: Details of procedures to

map the case study and the techniques used to

perform analysis (research design details +

actual methods)

Catalogue of

methodological

approaches to

investigate different

communities

Practices Dynamics of interaction: Illustration of dynamics

observed in each case study

Detailed insights on

interplay

Outcomes Summary of integration at EC level Conclusions, limits of

analysis for member

states


Comparative political economy

analysis

• Stakeholders,

• legal content, and

• services

• Environment in which open access models

flourish?– institutions,

– policies and

– legal community

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Six cross-cutting challenges

• Legal publishing profession

– Socio-economics & path dependence

• Court system

– Judicial independence & digitisation

• Copyright

• Government data

• Human rights

• Austerity economics

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Challenge to legal publishing profession

• Not the first profession to be digitised

– Medical publishing similar structure

– Two giant multinational publishers resulting

• Professions wary of disintermediation

– Doctors and lawyers self-regulatory

• Prices for academic/professional comment

– Information given to publishers freely,

repackaged and resold with interest

– Amazing business model for publishers!

13


Challenge to court system

• IT for courts: judgments word processed

– Paperless court rooms mean IT on tablets

• Court systems looking to reduce

costs/delays

– ODR/intermediation/adjudication

– Use of video/audio/digital forensic evidence

– Open access to law extension of reforms?

– Note UK court system e-judiciary €800m plan

14


Challenge to copyright

• Judges’ copyrights – independent judiciary

– Bill of Rights 1689

• Government copyright on ‘own’ legislation• Statute of Monopolies 1603!

• Martin Luther 1517 ‘Ninety-five theses’

– Note the previous printing revolution

• Copyleft movement very strong in Europe

– Prosumers innovating in areas where

governments and markets are not?

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co-funded by the European Union16


Challenge to government data

• Open Data revolution since mid-2000s

– Open Knowledge Foundation and Open Data

Institute very active in this area

• Open access to legislation on OKFN

scoreboard

– Netherlands and UK high scorers

– Austria RIS:app highly successful

• Next step: case law

– Example set by EU law EurLEX

17


Challenge to basic human rights

• Article 6, European Convention on HR

• “Ignorance of the law is no excuse”

• Provision of legal education to general

public substituted by legal profession

– Proxy for public?

• Equality of arms aided by digital law?

– Continued need for experts to help plaintiffs

– Even if wills, property, basic contract can be

automated

18


Challenge to austerity: economics

• Costs of public IT provision under-

estimated

• In this case, crowd-sourcing effective

• Very significant achievements by LIIs

• Openlaws builds on this success

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Conclusion: solutions must meet 6

challenges

• Interdisciplinary approach

– Challenge is legal, technical, social, economic

• International approach

– Lawyers’ work increasing across jurisdictions

• Interdependent approach

– Solution is not step change but across 6

areas

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Licensing & copyright regulatory EU

• Short term: promote release of legislation,

case law as open data

• Mid term:

– Harmonize copyright & database rights in

official documents across EU

– Strengthen PSI Directive to oblige public

access to caselaw, legislative record

• Study data protection issues linked LOD

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