Using Technology to make Better Law

Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General – in the Senedd at 2:43 pm on 2 May 2018.

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Photo of Jeremy Miles Jeremy Miles Labour 2:43, 2 May 2018

Well, I thank the Member for his question. He raises a number of very interesting points there. There is a fundamental both challenge and opportunity for the legal services sector across the world in the sorts of things that he describes, both in terms of creating smart contracts, but also, as his question infers, in the ability to research vast amounts of data and law and case law in a way that is robust and reliable. As it happens, the conversations I've had suggest that that's harder to achieve when it comes to researching legislation itself. But one of the things I've been very keen to do, in thinking about how we can make law more accessible to people in Wales in general, is to have in mind that the pace of change in this area is so significant that we run the risk of designing a better technological solution today for the challenges that we had 10 years ago, rather than thinking forward to what the world might look like in 10 years' time. Now, that is an ambitious challenge, and I don't for one second suggest that it is straightforward—it absolutely isn't. 

He mentions New Zealand in his question. One of the discussions I've been having with the National Archives is around how legislatures can legislate in code and in data form, so that where you have, for example, taxation legislation or benefits legislation, the legislature passes code that can be instantaneously turned into forms and made available to the public in that authoritative way. That obviously poses new burdens on any legislature and needs to be thought through very carefully. I have a meeting arranged with Google in the weeks ahead to discuss with them whether they are working with any other partners worldwide on innovation around some of these areas. I think it's important to have as many sources of inspiration from as many different jurisdictions as possible for what we hope to be able to achieve in the long term here in Wales.