For example, is there a ‘laws dot gov’ kinda URL I can go to and type “importing raccoons to Northern Ireland to create a self-sustaining population” into the search bar?

Or maybe something like a multi-volume book series I can check at the library to see if “raccoon husbandry; N. Ireland” is mentioned?

Maybe an AI chatbot on the local council’s website that I can ask “is it legal to raise baby raccoons by feeding them from miniature wheelie bins to teach them where food comes from and how to open the lids”?

I’m not about to do anything [potentially] illegal, I’m just curious.

Cheers! 🦝

      • gustofwind@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        lawyers use Google before anything else. If you’re wondering if what you’re doing is illegal you probably can just look it up and find a decent enough answer

    • dgdft@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      You’re not wrong that most statutory legislation is freely and readily available, but determining if an act is illegal in a practical sense requires looking at case law too.

      Depending on what domain we’re talking about, technical legislation also often references paywalled documents. E.g., I work in biomed R&D, and the FDA regulations for medical devices are tied to pay-to-play ISO standards.

      • gustofwind@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        yeah nothing should be paywalled and westlaw/lexis/bloomberg/all of them should be a public service in fact

        This is actually something I think ai will basically solve. Well, not the law as a public service part but the general access to reliable legal information part. I’ve seen the westlaw and lexis lawyer bots and they’re pretty good, a non lawyer could easily rely on it because lawyers already do.

        I can’t imagine it takes more than 5 years before we see tailored compliance bots in various fields. AI mediated society is already here

  • zxqwas@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    I know there is a website either government or privately maintained with a reasonably recent law text.

    I’m sure the library could lend me a copy of the laws if I asked.

    • Darkenfolk@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      3 months ago

      Or:

      “they forgot to make this illegal? Really?diabolical laughter” “Are you ready? from ‘friends on the other side’ starts playing”

  • Tuukka R@piefed.eeEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    I would be surprised if there was a country that don’t have their all laws set in the paper form.

    But, regarding Finland: You’re thinking of http://finlex.fi/ .

    There’s for example this gem, telling about how you should take care of the hops trellis the law requires you to maintain! :)
    (Please don’t tell anyone, but I do not actually have a hops trellis! I’m breaking the law.)
    It’s also helpful if you want to know how to let your pigs to run in an acorn forest. Or if your bees escape and land inside someone else’s tree.

    Also, the beginning words of our Criminal Code are a bit, well, outdated? Here goes: https://www.finlex.fi/en/legislation/1889/39-001?language=swe&highlightId=798156&highlightParams={"type"%3A"BASIC"%2C"search"%3A"rikoslaki"}

    (I’m linking the Swedish-language versions because I believe a machine translator does a better job translating to European languages from Swedish than from Finnish)

    • Hjalmar@feddit.nu
      0·
      3 months ago

      This is amazing. Somewhere in the back of my head I knew that you still had the old Criminal Code left, but never had I read it. Here in Sweden we have since swapped that one for a hopefully less outdated law. Here is a English translation for those interested:

      We Alexander the Third, by the Grace of God, Emperor and Autocrat of all Russia, Tsar of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland, etc., etc., etc., do hereby solemnly declare: At the submissive request of the Estates of Finland, We hereby ratify the following penal code for the Grand Duchy of Finland, concerning the introduction of which, as also concerning the execution of punishment, a special decree is issued:

      (That’s a machine translation, I couldn’t be bothered to do it myself. But I must say I’m impressed of how well it handled the very old school Swedish)

      Also, regarding the other law, byggningabalken or Rakennuskaari, we apparently removed the really funny section about the mandatory ownership of a hops trellis in 1860 here in Swede. To bad really. But the rest of that law still applies here. Also, on behalf of the Finnish state I would like to charge you a fine of one riksdal for not maintaining your hops trellis the last year.

      And finally, in regards to OPs question, in Sweden we have the official government site https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-och-lagar/ and then https://lagen.nu/ which is a bit more user friendly

      • Hjalmar@feddit.nu
        0·
        3 months ago

        I fumbles into a rabbit hole. Both of those laws are from 1736, which I have heard before. But apparently, the trade code from that year is also still in effect. It isn’t nearly as funny (although I didn’t check the Finnish version that thoroughly, so there might be some gems there that I missed) but there are some highlights:

        Chapter 14 is titled “About Mercenary” (at least that’s how I interpret “Om legohjon”) but the chapter is left completely empty. They chapter is completely removed in the Finnish version.

        Also, there is chapter 3 about what one shall do to receive the right to trade and become a part of the burgher class. Removed in Finland

        Finally, you may not use boats, shipyards or aircraft in a pledge (is that correct English?). This is revised in the Finnish version, and the same prohibition doesn’t exist there. This is chapter 10 § 7 for those interested

    • Successful_Try543@feddit.org
      0·
      3 months ago

      I would be surprised if there was a country that don’t have their all laws set in the paper form.

      The anglosaxon school of law is more case-based than build on written law like e.g. in continental Europe.

    • nocturne@piefed.socialEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      In high school I worked at the police station for one summer. There was a huge book that had a ton of laws in it. I remember me and the other kid who worked there would read through it.

  • captaindeank@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    In the US, no. This is why lawyers get paid so much money to research and analyze whether their clients’ activities may or may not be legal. For many areas of the law, relevant statutes, regulations, and agency interpretations are publicly available and may be compiled and discussed at a high level in a treatise. However, a specific question or set of facts (such as raccoon husbandry in a specific location) would require research or analysis beyond what a treatise might describe. And treatises are expensive, full of legal jargon, and usually not publicly available. Welcome to the Law!

    • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      Isn’t that partly because the US has like 52 sets of law (50 states, DC, Fed) and maybe more (County/Parish, etc)?

      • compostgoblin@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        Yep. But when two laws are in conflict, the higher law wins. So state laws supersede local laws, and federal laws beat state laws. Of course, there is also weirdness where the higher body might just choose not to argue with the lower body over conflicting laws, like with cannabis legalization.

        • 「黃家駒 Wong Ka Kui」 | (aka: 鳳凰院 凶真 Hououin Kyouma)@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          3 months ago

          higher body might just choose not to argue with the lower body over conflicting laws, like with cannabis legalization

          Reminder that marijuana is still federally illegal.

          If you are a non-citizen, you could get deported for posession of marijuana, even if your state “legalized” it, because it would still be a crime under federal laws.

          So, pro tip: gain citizenship first, then, after you’ve been sworn in and got the citizenship papers, then you can safely smoke weed…

          (Yes, people do get placed into deportation proceedings for possession weed, especially under this current shitty administration)

          • compostgoblin@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            0·
            3 months ago

            Oh yeah, definitely! Even in legal states, if you’re on federal property (like National Forests), possession is still a crime. Gotta be careful with stuff like that

            I meant that they aren’t arguing over it as in the DOJ isn’t suing states over having legalized it. Although if I recall correctly, the Obama admin DEA did conduct raids on medicinal dispensaries in states where it was legal

            It gets weird and messy fast

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
    0·
    3 months ago

    So generally the national laws are well documented as to what’s a crime and what’s not. Often there’s a website.

    Civil vs. Common law jurisdiction matters a fair bit. (As a gross simplification), in a civil law country that text is supposed to be the be-all end-all, judges are supposed to interpret cases based on whether the text of the law was followed or not and use their own discretion on whether past decisions should influence an active case. In common law jurisdictions, precedence from past cases matter a lot, and those decisions are cited by lawyers to say why it should be the same judgment or reasons why this case is different than previous to judge differently.

    Then you have sub-national (state, province, prefecture) laws. Those will be well defined but their free availability from an official source online may vary.

    Local by-laws will also depend on the location, they have less money so it may not be readily available digitally.

    Some governments delegate rulemaking in specific areas, industries or fields to an internal ministry/department, to a professional body (engineers, doctors, lawyers etc.), or an organization (HOA, non profits). They are usually authorized by the law to set, modify, and enforce rules in that specialized area, with a maximum penalty they are permitted to give out for infractions.

    So there’s no book of all rules everywhere that can be searched that apply to a specific area.

  • BootLoop@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    3 months ago

    I know Canada has the Canadian Criminal Code. My friend had a copy for college and I leafed through it once to read some laws about weapons. It’s all in one big book so it is relatively accessible to find stuff but it obviously doesn’t cover traffic law, provincial, or municipal laws.

  • AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    From the wiki article on Public.Resource.Org:

    Malamud called for increased awareness that Westlaw was a commercial broker of the United States Federal Reporter, Federal Supplement, and Federal Appendix. While Westlaw had been adding value to the content by indexing it with their proprietary West American Digest System and accompanying summaries, the purchase of their products was the only way to access much of the public domain material they hosted.

  • 6nk06@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    3 months ago

    France, here is what I found:

    Code civil and code pénal. I’m not a lawyer but code civil should be for small stuff where you have to agree on something or pay a fine, and code pénal for big stuff like killings and shit and you can go to prison.

    There is also a “code de la route” which is another bonus on how to behave in the road.

    But it’s France and I’m sure there are a billion other papers like those, but those 3 (civil, pénal, and route) are the most famous.

    Edit: there was supposedly a project to put the laws in source form, and maybe a DSL for the tax law, here is is an example: https://www.data.gouv.fr/reuses/les-lois-francaises-versionnees-avec-github/, and taxes https://mlanguage.github.io/mlang/mlang/index.html