Presentation made at the Seminat on open legislation in Bucharest, Romania - 26.02.2013

1. Open access to legislation in Romania
Bogdan Manolea
Seminar on Open Legislative Data in Romania
26 February 2013 - București

2. Why?
Nemo censetur ignorare legem
Ignorance of the law excuses no
one
Nimeni nu se poate prevala de
necunoasterea legii

3. Jan 2002

Guide to use Romanian legal resources on the
Internet
− 2 public legislation databases

Superlex – Ministry of Justice – access only to the text
of the law as published in the Official Monitor (but not
complete)

Chamber of Deputies (mainly meta-data of the laws)
− 6 private legislation databases

Only 2 of them still exist today

Official Monitor offers only access to the
summary of legislation

4. Jan 2013

3 public legislation databases
− Ministry of Justice – Legislatie.just.ro without
searching functionalities, only initial text of the
laws (not updated in 2013)
− Chamber of Deputies (not complete)
− Legislative Council (good meta-data)

Many private legislation databases
− Some of them offer free access to the initial text of
the laws

Official Monitor offers only access to the
summary of legislation +10 days free access

5. European context

In 2003, the EU adopted the Directive on the
re-use of public sector information (PSI
Directive)
common legislative framework regulating how public
sector bodies should make their information
available for re-use in order to remove barriers
such as discriminatory practices, monopoly
markets and a lack of transparency.

Mixed results in member countries

Implemented in Romania by law 109/2007
− No sanctions, not functioning in practice

6. What is open data
Open data is data that can be freely used,
reused and redistributed by anyone - subject
only, at most, to the requirement to attribute
and sharealike.
Source: Open Data Handbook

7. What is open data
Open data is data that can be freely used,
reused and redistributed by anyone - subject
only, at most, to the requirement to attribute
and sharealike.
Source: Open Data Handbook

8. What do you mean by “freely”?

Social freedom (Access to the Data as a
whole, preferably via the Internet)

Technical freedom (Absence of Technological
Restriction)

Legal freedom (right to redistribute, re-use and
mix)

No discrimination (e.g. not for commercial use)

9. What is public data?
Data produced by public bodies that are not
subject to restrictions of privacy, confidentiality,
security or other legal restrictions

10. New European context

In December 2011, the Commission presented
an Open Data Package:
− A Communication on Open Data

Target :
− the formulation and implementation of open public data policies
in all Member States by early 2013.
− 1/3 of all available structured government data in the Member
States searchable through the pan-European data-portal by
2015.
− New Commission rules on re-use of the
documents it holds
− A proposal for a revision of the Directive

11. Why?

Boosting a new economy
− Economic gains from opening up this resource
could amount to €40 billion a year in the EU.

Transparency

Data journalism

External contributions
− Specialized citizens
− Local knowledge

12. International context - OGP

Open Government Partnership - an
international framework supported by USA
and other states.

46 countries (including Romania) have
adopted the Declaration and submitted an
Action Plan
“We commit to increasing our efforts to systematically collect and
publish data on government spending and performance for
essential public services and activities. We commit to pro-
actively provide high-value information, including raw
data, in a timely manner, in formats that the public can easily
locate, understand and use, and in formats that facilitate
reuse.”

13. Romanian commitments in OGP
2012:

Designating a person in each institution to
deal with open data

Identifying available data sets for each
institution susceptible for opening

Publication by each institution on its webpage
(…)

14. About the project LegiLibere

Project of The Sponge - Media Innovation Lab

Creating a portal with public information (first
legislation)
- in an open format
- with automated updated legislation data
- database &source code free for re-use
Pre-alpha testing at Legilibere.ro and Hambar109.ro

Finalist of Restart Romania 2012

15. N-lex project

Project of the Ministry of Justice

3.6 Million EUR

Objectives:
− Electronic application to ensure free access to
legislation for citizens and other entities to the
national legislative database
− Interconnected with the European portal N-lex
− Training of the IT staff of the Ministry of Justice on
managing the application

16. Conclusions

We have currently no open access to Romanian
legislation
But we have a high opportunity
in legislation as open data:

Raw data available in several public electronic
databases
− Extremely easy to open from a technical point of
view
− Very low costs additional costs to make this data
available

High social & business value

Businesses already developing in this sector

17. Mulțumesc !!!
Seminar on Open Legislative Data in Romania
26 February 2013 - București