Improving legal quality—a knowledge engineering approach

Many legislation drafting departments at the different ministries have their own quality insurance techniques. Furthermore in many cases the Ministry of Justice has a special role because it is usually responsible for the overall legal quality of a country. Despite all the effort that has been spent on improving legal quality using traditional measurements, such as co‐reading (peer reviewing etc.) many anomalies can still be found in recently drafted legislation. The situation is even worse in situations when existing legislation is adapted. This paper will show how a systematic approach that has its origins in knowledge engineering can help to improve legal quality. This approach was developed in the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration (DTCA) (in Dutch: Belastingdienst) and offers both a method and supporting tools that support a systematic translation of (new) legislation into the administrations' processes. This method—called the POWER‐method—not only helps to improve the quality of (new) legislation. It also supports codification of the legal knowledge into procedures, computer programs and other designs. One of the advantages thereof is the reduction of the time‐to‐market of the implementation of legislation and its increased transparency (which will lead to reduced maintenance costs). Focus will be placed on legal quality improvement and knowledge representation techniques that are used to enable this will be explained. In contrast to other knowledge modeling approaches, the POWER‐approach is focused on modeling legal sources rather than expert knowledge. Expert knowledge of course is indispensable to find the correct interpretations and also for efficiency reasons. Starting with representing the (legal) experts' knowledge (using scenarios) helps to find the adequate scope (the legal sources to be analyzed). Confronting the expert with differences between the models built out of the experts' knowledge and the conceptual models constructed of the other knowledge sources (specifically the law) causes the legal experts to see things in a different light and has often led to changes in the law.     

The development of political science in Lithuania: Years of the breakthrough

Abstract. The development of political science was closely connected to the democratic changes and the restoration of statehood at the end of the 1980s in Lithuania. This paper examines the historical and contemporary social and academic roots of political science in the country. The other issue investigated in detail is the institutionalisation of political studies, which required the development of new academic curricula. Major vehicles for the institutionalization of political science were the decentralisation of academic activities and the establishment of new institutions, such as the Institute of Political Science and International Relations (University of Vilnius) and the Lithuanian Political Science Association, and intensive cooperation withWestern universities and funding organizations. Nonetheless, the growth and efficiency of political studies and research depend very much on their successful integration into the environment of the existing universities. The research output of Lithuanian political science is characterised by a widening of research interests and the further introduction of statistical and computer methods of investigation, with problems of Lithuania's foreign and security policy and issues of democratisation as topics of continuing popularity.     

Organized Grour>Government Relations in Norway: On the Structured Selection of Participants, Problems, Solutions, and Choice Opportunities *

This article reviews the nature of direct interest organizational participation in government in Norway. Organizational involvement, while high, varies markedly across different kinds of associations and issues. Activities are concentrated in the two organizational forms of the committee and remiss systems. The analysis of the linkage patterns with the ministries suggests that corporatism is a somewhat inadequate concept for describing the Norwegian system in general.