[okfn-za] Openbylaws.org.za: SA's by-laws made easy to read and share

Tue Oct 15 08:54:24 UTC 2013

Thanks Adi. I've developed a grammar and a parser and some rules of thumb for man-handling the PDF into the AN format, targeted specifically at the sometimes quirky format used by the by-laws and the Western Cape gazette.

My primary target right now is the general citizen. Knowing the laws of your country (or city) is key to being a part of it, understanding and exercising your rights, and effecting change. I aim to take this beyond by-laws and cover all of SA's legislation.

I really want to see, for example, the Mail & Guardian provide a link when they mention "section 32(a)(i) of the Foo Act of 2009". I think it's sad that news sites link to youtube for Miley Cyrus doing her twerking thing, but have nowhere to link to for the laws that govern us. And I don't think linking to a PDF is good enough :)

Imagine if citizens could read and discuss the laws in their native language, on whatever device they have access to: textbook, feature phone, smart phone, laptop. Once we have separated the structure and content of legislation from its presentation, we can do lots of interesting things: machine translation, publication in multiple formats, analysis, comparison, cross-linking, etc.

The City of Cape Town does a great job of making most of their by-laws available, usually in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa. Others areas have much further to go.

Regarding what's still to be done: I've put up a spreadsheet at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AoEsPfVCfH-PdGtVVTlxWnFHMWxxQ3E0MUVhbnhLZVE&usp=sharing based on what is available from http://web1.capetown.gov.za/websearch/search/search.aspx?lib=acm/comsup/Weblib&docName=Bylaw.

Cheers,
Greg
On 15 October 2013 at 5:51:22 AM, Adi Eyal (adi at burgercom.co.za) wrote:

Hi Greg

Well done on the good work. Converting to Akoma Ntoso seems like quite some work. Do you do it by hand or do you use an authoring tool? I came across at4am.org which is an amendment tool for laws used in the European parliament.  Not sure if it is useful.

With regards to openbylaws.org.za, do you have a list of bylaws still to be xml-ed? I'm happy to take a shot at contributing if you could talk me through it (or write a quick howto guide).

Finally, apart from being a good thing,  how do you see this being  used? I like the idea of hyperlinking to a section. I'm guessing that's the main value.

Well done again for the initiative.

Adi

On 14 Oct 2013 1:54 PM, "Greg Kempe" <gregkempe at gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,

I've been working on a side project to help make South Africa's by-laws easier to read and share.

  http://openbylaws.org.za/

I have started with Cape Town and have 14 of about 35 by-laws available. I've take the PDF forms of the by-laws and transformed them into HTML. You can easily share links to sections, get an overview of the laws from the table of contents, and view inline term definitions.

In addition, the documents themselves are available in XML (using the Akoma Ntoso schema) under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

I'd love your input! Thoughts, suggestions, contributions welcome.

If you or someone you know often needs access to South Africa's by-laws, please get in touch and let me know what's missing.

Thanks,
Greg

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