Legislation as Linked Open Data: Lessons from MetaLex XML

Ignorantia legis neminem excusat: ignorance of the law excuses no one. Legislation is arguably the most important resource that a government ought to make available as linked open data, and we are entitled to the highest possible quality of provenance metadata about it. The MetaLex framework sets high standards for publication of legislation and metadata about legislation. This article re ects on the MetaLex standardization proces, to identify the most important lessons that can be learned from MetaLex about legislation-as-linked-open-data, aiming to determine what intelligent systems developers should know about legislation, and what they should expect from their government.