Maria Teresa Leonardi received a degree in Political Science from the University of Catania in 1987. She works at the Legal Documentation Center (Faculty of Law), where customers (faculty, staff, students, lawyers) carry out juridical and legislative searches on databases with the staff assistance. She shares responsibilities for database training given to students and the teaching staff. She also works with the Chair of Legal Computer Science of the same Faculty. She is member of the Associazione Italiana per la Documentazione Avanzata.
Contents
Introduction
Legal Information Retrieval Online
Legislation on the Internet
National Legislation and Sets of Rules
Regional Legislation
Juridical DatabasesIntroduction: Legal information retrieval and Main instruments
In Italy, most legal information is contained on databases offered in CD-ROM format. The Legal Documentation Center of the Faculty of Law possesses all the main legal databases on CD-ROM available on the market.
The most comprehensive online database is the Electronic Center of Documentation of the Supreme Court of Cassation, which uses the Italgiure-Find language.
The growth of the Internet has induced the Supreme Court to allow access to its own archives via the Web by Easy-Find, a user friendly language that enables inexperienced and experienced users to carry out searches. The limitation of this system is the high price (even universities cannot offer these services free of charge). The only access free of charge is the Novelty Service.
Legal Information Retrieval Online
It is necessary to specify that our customers are normally advised to use both databases on CD-ROM and the Internet. This allows them to integrate the not always updated information of CD-ROM with that of Web sites, which provide less content, but offer more current data.
Particular care is required in the selection and the continuous modernization of the Directory (Italian version, English version). I personally and frequently offer to check the links and to enrich the Directory with essential descriptions about the content of the sites and means of access in order to allow the less expert and “impulsive” customer to carry out successful searches.
Legislation on the Internet
Access to the legislation is very important, especially in a country where one finds many laws that overlap, while old laws remain in force. Delivery of most legislation is through databases on CD-ROM, available through subscription from major editors of legal works. It is possible to deduce in fact from the directory that follows, concerning the most important sites reporting legislation, that it is only possible to access rather recent legislation online and free of charge. Therefore, searching the Web is a necessity to integrate update material located offline. Our customers are trained to use the legislative databases on CD-ROM. Only students who are enrolled in the degree program for Legal Computer Science may carry out legislative searches also on the CD-ROM.
National Legislation and Sets of Rules
Index of the laws (in chronological order, by typology, by topic-classification system TESEO); Approved and not yet promulgated or published bills; Decree-laws in conversion course; Legislative decrees; more requested Bills and documents; the selection of these is based on the demands that every day reach the Parliamentarians Information Office of the Senate.
Gazzette Ufficiali – General Series- First Part (from November 1996)
Telematical Official Journal (Gazette) by the Legislative Documentation Office of Palermo University. Table of contents. Some measures in full-text.
Gazzette Ufficiali – First Part (from March 1998)
Service by the Jesi Commune. Summary – Most important measures accessible through a full-text searching engine.
Disegni di legge presentati nel corso della XIII Legislatura
Available data: documentation of legislative proceedings, the texts of the bills, and the text of others documents associated with the bill. Texts may be searched by the bill number, by keywords (included) into the bills schedule of the Senate or the Chamber of Deputies, or by keywords contained in the text (only for Senate bills).
From the Ministry of Justice a selection of proceedings concerning: Tutorship of Personal Rights, Themes of Society, Law and Criminal Proceedings, Law and Civil Proceedings, Public Administration, Magistracy and Offices of Justice, Labour and Professionalism, Constitution and Constitutional Organs.
Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri; Archivio dei provvedimenti
Enables you to search proceedings using different search engines and provides access to Presidential proceedings in chronological order from October, 1998. There is no information posted about the use of boolean logic on this site.
Full text of the Civil Code. There is no search engine. There is no information posted on when the site is updated.
Regional Legislation
Laws from 1990 and the Official Bulletin from 1994.
Legislation by thematic zones and a chronological index from 1971.
Regione Emilia-Romagna – Bollettino Ufficiale (from 1996); Leggi e Regolamenti (by topics); Banchi Dati (simple and advanced searching capabilities; also searchable by the Teseo classification system.)
Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia
Bollettino Regionale from April 1998 Index; full-text from March 17,1999. Leggi Regionali – Historical text, laws, administrative and regulatory materials.
Database of Regional Legislation. Provides capability to search by year and number of the law and/or law title and/or law text.
Laws and Regional Regulations (in full-text) from March 22, 1971. Systematical Index Research form.
Official Bulletin from August 1995.
Database of Regional Laws in chronological order (from 1971) and by thematicals zones. Research form.
Official Bulletin (Index) from March 1997.
Regione Sicilia:
ICARO – Access to the database of the Assemblea Regionale Siciliana. Advanced search capabilities and a simple guided search provided.
Presidenza: GURS (Sicilians Region Official Gazette) from December, 1997. FONS (Sicilian set of rules sources) Laws and Bills of 12th Legislation
Regionals Laws from 1971. Searching engine enabled.
Regionals Laws (in force texts) from 1970. Bills from 1995.
Juridical Databases
Jurisprudence searching on the Internet in Italy is very difficult. The supreme courts aren’t free of charge on the Internet, except for the Constitutional Court (sentences in full text from 1994; chronological and textual searches). This is a private venture of Professor Pasquale Costanzo.
Some Tribunal law is available on the Internet (ex.: the Tribunal of Cassino, but there is no search engine or information about updating.) Another interesting site is T.A.R. On-line, that includes sentences of the Administrative Tribunal of Catania issued from April 1, 1996 to March 31, 1999; organized in chronological order and providing text searching capability.
It is possible to read the most important sentences, published by private sites or electronic magazines. It is clear that fragments of data don’t enable the researcher to carry out complete searches, an indispensable condition for scientific works and legal activity. Also for juridical searches, it is necessary to resort to databases on CD-ROM.