MINELRES: OSCE ODIHR Legislative Web-site
MINELRES moderator
[email protected]
Thu May 23 16:55:34 2002
Original sender: Denis Petit <[email protected]>
Please find enclosed a information notice on LEGISLATIONLINE, an
OSCE/ODIHR online legislative database providing access to domestic
and international legislation in the OSCE region on issues relating to
the protection of human rights and the furtherance of the rule of law
(OSCE so-called Human Dimension). For instance we have currently
citizenship legislation for 52 countries, election legislation for 38
countries and anti-trafficking (of human beings) legislation for 28
countries. Texts are displayed in English, but also in Russian,
French, German, Italian and Spanish.
By sending an e-mail to [email protected] (with
mention "news" under subject), you will receive regular - and for free
- update on the new features and data processed on Legislationline
along with information on the legislative developments within the OSCE
region.
We hope that this database will be useful to you and your partners.
All your comments, corrections, additions are most welcome.
(very soon online: compendium of international instruments in Russian)
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
LEGISLATIONLINE
www.legislationline.org
Warsaw, June 2002
Legislationline, run by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions
and Human Rights (ODIHR) is a free-of-charge online database providing
international and domestic legislation in areas of law involved in the
protection of human rights and the rule of law.
The decision to set up a legislative database was taken in March 2000
under the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe. It is clear however
that Legislationline can be useful to law makers everywhere. The
project, launched in October 2000, has received a voluntary
contribution from the Austrian and Norwegian governments. It is now is
being expanded with the financial support of the European Commission.
FOR WHOM?
Legislationline aims to support legislative reforms and to this end,
to assist legislators. It is intended to address the very needs of
those in government and parliamentary offices who are drafting laws
and other legal documents and are not being assisted through the
conventional channels of international and bilateral legal assistance.
It is not about providing an ad hoc support with a "perishable" output
(by providing one-off pieces of legislation modelled upon a particular
legal system, that of the expert who drafted the text), but to offer a
long-standing input, which is to be continuously updated, improved and
adapted to take into account how the needs and legislative agendas
develop with time.
Furthermore, Legislationline is also of interest to other potential
users that may be influential in pushing or generating input for legal
reforms: legal practitioners, NGOs, academics, students, journalists,
human rights activists, etc.
WHAT AREAS OF LAW ARE ADDRESSED?
Legislationline is to contain domestic legislation as well as
international instruments and documents in areas of law involved in
the following subject matters:
Non-governmental Organizations
Citizenship
State of Emergency
Elections
Gender
Fair Trial
Independence of the Judiciary
Migration
Minorities
Police
Prison service
Roma and Sinti
Trafficking in Human Beings
At this stage, data are available only for the topics highlighted in
bold characters. Legislation for the other topics will be added over
the coming two years.
WHY ANOTHER LEGAL DATABASE?
Legislators and government officials need information to draft new
laws or amend existing laws. Usually their only source of inspiration
is local: they draft laws or provisions in the light of existing
legislation. Because of the scarcity of the information available on
foreign legislation there is little reliance on other countries'
legislation. This can be a major obstacle to legal reforms, especially
in areas of law where there is no precedent or in States where the
precedents are not in line with international human rights standards.
Yet, although the internet is increasingly used at preparatory stages
of the legislative process and despite the exponential rise in the
amount of data available from the internet, most of these resources
are not accomodated to the needs of law makers. Existing sites focus
either:
- on the international human rights instruments but do not display
domestic legislation involved in these issues; or
- on domestic legislation but either for one particular country, or
using complex searchable or browseable indexes and mainly addressing
commercial law, enterprise law, law relating to business sectors or
employment law (their audience is mainly legal firms and enterprises;
most of them are for-profit and require specific subscription
agreements; finally, the vast majority of these sites have no
comparative approach and are focused on US legislation, doctrine and
case-law).
It is extremely difficult to find online databases that cross over
disciplines and jurisdictions and are tailored to the needs of the
legislator.
HOW?
Legislationline is designed and constructed as a "library without
walls" providing access to a vast amount of materials that would
otherwise be very difficult to locate, obtain and consult.
Legislationline is not a search engine, which scans the Internet for
relevant information on law, but a self-contained databank
accommodated to the needs of law drafters with only a basic knowledge
of the Internet.
Furthermore, it is more than a list of laws as each piece of domestic
and international legislation is broken down into component parts that
can be accessed through separate entries. This approach enables users
:
- to save time by retrieving only the very provisions they need to
look at (considering that they are unlikely to use foreign legal
materials as a source of inspiration unless the time spent accessing
the information and extracting the relevant provisions diminishes to
minutes);
- to get an overview of how the same issues are addressed in different
countries.
This approach goes beyond standard database methodology by providing
tools for exposing trends and patterns and identifying the range of
variation and deviation in legislation throughout the OSCE region.
Moreover, it offers a set of legislative options from the perspective
of domestic and international human rights legislation, rather than of
conventional areas of law (criminal law, civil law, labour law, etc).
This aims at facilitating the work of law makers by smoothing away the
differences between legal systems, processes and terminology.
Moreover, each web page is endowed with links to either specific
documents (reports, legal opinions, law review, etc) searchable
domestic databases or non-governmental and governmental websites
featuring background information. In addition, the homepage features a
news section with links to press releases or the cited documents or
judgments. This section is updated on a regular basis. Upon request
(e-mail to [email protected] with "news" in subject)
users may sign up to the Legislationline mailing list, which allows
them to receive every week and free of charge a notice outlining the
new features and data on Legislationline along with succinct
references to the most recent domestic and international legal
developments.
WHEN?
The site was first open to the public in May 2001 as a pilot version.
Its format and navigational system have been upgraded in 2002 and
users may now enjoy new features, more links and more data.
Up to now, citizenship, election and anti-trafficking legislation for
no fewer than 52, 38 and 30 OSCE participating States respectively
have been processed. Domestic laws and international documents on
"gender" issues, "Roma and Sinti", the "state of emergency" and the
"independence of the judiciary" are now being compiled.
For more details:
[email protected]
Fax : +48-22-520 06 03
Denis Petit
OSCE/ODIHR
Legal expert
Co-ordinator for "Legislationline"
Tel: +48-22-5200 600 ext. 5110
Mob: +48-607-167 437
E-mail: [email protected]
Dominika Skubida
OSCE/ODIHR
Assistant
Tel: +48-22-5200 600 ext. 5100
e-mail: [email protected]
Caroline Carlsson
OSCE/ODIHR
Assistant
Tel: +48-22.5200 600 ext. 4126
e-mail: [email protected]
Temuri Imnaishvili
OSCE/ODIHR
Web-Developer
e-mail: [email protected]