Abe Voelker of the Wisconsin Court System has posted GitLaw: GitHub for Laws and Legal Documents – a Tourniquet for American Liberty, at his blog.
In this post, Mr. Voelker advocates creating a version-control and version-tracking system for U.S. federal legislation using Git version tracking software.
Mr. Voelker also endorses the creation of “a new markup language for legal doc[ument]s that would work similar[ly] to Markdown.” As a possible model he cites Fountain, “a markup syntax for screenplays.” He rejects RDF and XML formats for legislation because they are “not very readable.”
Mr. Voelker observes that sharing a common legislative format at the local, state, national, and international levels would yield benefits.
Mr. Voelker argues that using a Git-based standard format for personal legal documents, such as wills and powers of attorney, would benefit consumers by improving security for those documents, and by allowing consumers to use standard forms and avoid hiring lawyers to advise on legal document preparation.
Mr. Voelker also speculates that use of Git-based legal document standards might help consumers feel more comfortable with the law, and might “inspir[e] a move to more plain English legal wording.”
Most of these issues appear to have been discussed recently, or are the subject of current projects and meetings, but none of that discussion or activity is cited or linked to in Mr. Voelker’s post. I’ve described those discussions and activities in this post.
In the comments to that post, please feel free to identify other relevant discussions, activities, or resources that I’ve overlooked.
HT @hackernewsbot.
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