Script Summary: This script is no longer maintained nor functioning for the moment. Raf.jaf has revived it: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/106433
Make the legislation on juridat.be and ejustice.just.fgov.be readable
1. Introduction
Juridat.be is the sole belgium public free database containing updated versions of all the belgian legislation. This is an imported source for all the people that can not afford to subscribe to one of the commercial databases, but who need to look something up in a juridical text. Up until now most people in this situation thought that judicial language was plain unreadable to the untrained eye. I think however that the blame should be put with the people who built the juridat.be website, since an avarage law article on this site looks somewhat like this (right click -> view image to see properly):
This script attempts to make the text on juridat.be more readable for the human as well as the machine eye by adding structure to the texts as can be seen here:
The script works in both French and Dutch. I will only maintain this page in English unless someone with good knowledge of French or Dutch is willing to translate it...
2. Installation
You need the following software to use this script:
3. Features
4. Known bugs and limitations
Mandatory reading before sending bug reports!
5. Disclaimer
To keep it brief: Don't rely on it when it is judicially important. Im not responsible for your lazyness.
6. Changelog
2008-05-10 -> the website of juridat changed. The script is now updated and should work again. The feature of seeing if the text is updated to the latest version is no longer there, since they claim that from now on it will be up to date within one day...
Note: you must also re-install the CSS Style for this update to work!
2007-09-28 -> turn to v1.0 without changes
2007-08-26 -> release of beta 1
1. Introduction
Juridat.be is the sole belgium public free database containing updated versions of all the belgian legislation. This is an imported source for all the people that can not afford to subscribe to one of the commercial databases, but who need to look something up in a juridical text. Up until now most people in this situation thought that judicial language was plain unreadable to the untrained eye. I think however that the blame should be put with the people who built the juridat.be website, since an avarage law article on this site looks somewhat like this (right click -> view image to see properly):
This script attempts to make the text on juridat.be more readable for the human as well as the machine eye by adding structure to the texts as can be seen here:
The script works in both French and Dutch. I will only maintain this page in English unless someone with good knowledge of French or Dutch is willing to translate it...
2. Installation
You need the following software to use this script:
- Firefox
- Greasemonkey (extension for firefox)
- Stylish (extension for firefox)
- The CSS Style that goes with this script.
I have noticed that userstyles.org often goes down. Therefor you can find the CSS style also HERE. To install manually, just copy all the text on that page, and rightclick on the stylish icon in the bottom right of your browser. Select "manage styles...", click "write" and paste all the code here. Next, give it a name and save. It should work now.
3. Features
- An attempt is made to structure the summations of the legal texts. (see known limitations for more details)
- A tabbed interface is supplied so you can go to your search results and refine your search without a trip to the server...
- To see the complete original version of a text, click on the monkey in your statusbar to turn of greasemonkey, and then middle-click (on your scroll wheel) on the link to the translation NL/FR. then in the new tab, click on the translation link again to get it in your own language again. For now this is the shortest way to do it...
4. Known bugs and limitations
Mandatory reading before sending bug reports!
- There is an annoying bug which sometimes causes a blank screen to show instead of the search page when you initially open the site. To solve this, press shift+reload. I hope to find the cause of this bug and will make an update.
- The links to "Raad van State", "gearchiveerde versies" and "uitvoeringsbesluiten" often don't work. This is due to a bug in justel. In case of the last two, you can often get them by opening the text in a new tab ( middle-click -- on your scroll wheel -- on the FR/NL translation to open it in a new tab, then do that again to get the original language. This version normally has working links. Don't ask me why they generate different links in this case, but they work...
- The texts at juridat.be do not have a consistent syntax. Neither does the "html"-ish code they use. It is therefor IMPOSSIBLE to create software that flawlessly gives structure to these texts, so don't expect it. This is convenience software, not court room proof material. In any case, when you need to be sure, look at the original article. (-> if ever the script fails to give you the original text, please report immediately.)
- There is no implementation for floating point sectioning (sections like 1.1, 1.2, 1.3) (yet). They all get interpreted like normal summations, often leading to wrong indentation. You don't have to notify me about this. Hopefully i can be asked one day to fix it. Not right now though.
- If there is a summation like a) b) c), it is impossible to tell without looking at semantics how far c) continues. If other paragraphs follow, i have chosen to keep them out of the summation. This will produce about 50% wrong indentation, but there is absolutely nothing i can do about that. Don't bother emailing me about it.
- There is no pre-caching of the search results as well as no looking up the number of search results. I might sometime in the future work on it, but i doubt it.
- There is no reset button on the search form.
- There is currently no way to link to a specific article of a text due to various reasons. maybe later.
- There is no main link to the article you are looking at. I should fix this one day. If you want to send people a link to an article, click on the translation NL/FR and now copy the link to the original language.
- The search feature provided by juridat, the one that allowed you to jump to the next hit and the previous hit, does not work any longer. However, this shouldn't be a great miss, since firefox has a great search feature. Press ctrl-f and type your search term. Type F3 to jump to the next one.
- There is no error handling, so possibly if something breaks, everything else breaks with it. Let me now when that happens.
- ...
5. Disclaimer
To keep it brief: Don't rely on it when it is judicially important. Im not responsible for your lazyness.
6. Changelog
2008-05-10 -> the website of juridat changed. The script is now updated and should work again. The feature of seeing if the text is updated to the latest version is no longer there, since they claim that from now on it will be up to date within one day...
Note: you must also re-install the CSS Style for this update to work!
2007-09-28 -> turn to v1.0 without changes
2007-08-26 -> release of beta 1
