A mockup of the NeuRIS legal information system on a tablet. On the page to be seen, master data (file number, dates, and document type etc.) of a ruling are queried. A preview of the original document is shown on the right-hand side. An overview of all steps of the service is shown on the left.

Law

NeuRIS (New Legal Information System)

Making German federal law accessible as open data

Constituents and institutions often struggle with the complexity and fragmentation of legal resources. There is no central location where laws, regulations, and judgments are openly and easily accessible to all. Even finding relevant legal information is a significant hurdle.

As part of the German federal government’s open data strategy, we are working with the Federal Ministry of Justice and Federal Office of Justice to develop a legal information system called NeuRIS. It consists of a powerful legal information system with data storage and a documentation environment, along with a legal information portal for public research purposes. The documentation centers use the system to create and update German federal legal information. The portal gives constituents full access to current laws, regulations, court decisions, and administrative rules, including metadata, as open data. This project meets the requirements of the German Data Use Act and supports the EU Open Data Directive, which promotes the publication of dynamic data and development of data interfaces (APIs).

Status: Development

Go to the new legal information portal website (German only)
Go to the GitHub repository