Legislationline
http://www.legislationline.org/
Mission/Mandate:
“Legislationline, a free-of-charge online legislative database, was created in 2002 to assist OSCE participating States in bringing their legislation into line with relevant international human-rights standards.” (ODIHR Website, http://www.osce.org/odihr/13462.html, accessed on 13 October 2008)
“The Legislative Support Unit [of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, which maintains Legislationline; comment by ACCORD] was created in 2004 within the ODIHR Democratization Department. Its activities focus on three areas:
(1) Strengthening capacity for legislative reform;
(2) Improving legislative efficiency and transparency; and
(3) Legislationline.org.
A core task of the Unit is to lend assistance to lawmakers upon request while the legislative process is underway in the form of either opinions or comments on individual pieces of legislation affecting or relating to human dimension issues. […] In terms of sharing good practices, the ODIHR’s legislative database (www.legislationline.org) is a powerful tool for all those involved in legislative reform.” (Legislationline Website, http://www.legislationline.org/aboutUs.php, accessed on 13 October 2008)
Target group:
Lawmakers in OSCE participating states, especially persons involved in legislative reform (cf. Legislationline Website, http://www.legislationline.org/, accessed on 13 October 2008); “law drafters, legal professionals, government officials, parliamentary staff, and legal specialists in international organizations” (ODIHR Website, http://www.osce.org/odihr/13462.html, accessed on 15 October 2008)
Objective:
“Legislationline is an internet-based free-of-charge legislative database published and maintained by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Its purpose is to assist lawmakers in OSCE participating States by providing them with sample domestic legislation and international standards on selected human dimension issues.” (Legislationline Website, http://www.legislationline.org/, accessed on 13 October 2008)
Legislationline’s main objective is to provide lawmakers with good practice examples of other states’ legislation affecting or relating to human dimension issues: “The database was designed as a tool for lawmakers, not as an archive of domestic or international legislation. Through the country and thematic scroll-down menus, they can access examples from other countries' legislation that can help them make their own choices, when faced with the task of drafting legislation in their domestic context.” (Legislationline Website, http://www.legislationline.org/aboutUs.php, accessed on 13 October 2008)
Funding:
Legislationline is fully maintained by ODIHR
Scope of reporting:
Geographic focus: Central Asia, Eastern Europe, South Caucasus, South-Eastern Europe, Western Europe and North America
Thematic focus: Legislation affecting or relating to human dimension issues, including freedom of association, citizenship, terrorism, elections, gender, migration, police, trafficking in human beings, freedom of assembly, access to information and data protection, prison service, right to a fair trial, independence of the judiciary, hate crimes, death penalty
Publication cycle:
Regular update of legislation, as well as of links to international treaties, conventions and other relevant instruments plus EC/EU norms and documents, European and domestic case-law, bilateral conventions and other texts of relevance; newsletters are published monthly
Languages:
English, Russian
Navigation of website:
A drop-down list of topics and countries in the lower half of the homepage leads to sub-sections of the website with more extensive search forms, where legislation can be sought by topic, subtopic, country and international standards. Resources and OSCE/ODIHR legal commentaries (to be found in the top menu) can be displayed in total or sorted by topic and/or country (choose topic and/or country first and then choose resources or commentaries from top menu). The newsletter requires subscription (link in top menu).
Additional references:
ODIHR - Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights: Legislationline.org
