Usability in Government Systems

Chapter 9

Legislative Drafting Systems

Monica Palmirani* and Fabio Vitali^†

*CIRSFID—University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

†Dept of Computer Science, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

“The number of the section must be in italic, and the heading of the section must also be in italic, but the dash separating them must NOT be in italic. That’s obvious!”

— An anonymous officer of the legal drafting office of some Parliament

Introduction

Legislative information systems are computer tools that help, streamline, and manage the activities of legislative offices, mostly the back-office activities of a national parliament or of any assembly entrusted with legislative power. Although the largest part of these tools are not in direct contact with the ...