General Information
Name of the solution: LEOS software components
Solution's owner: European Commission
Description: LEOS is designed to help those involved in draſting legislation, which is usually part of a complex process, by facilitating efficient online collaboration. Comments, suggestions, version control, co-edition, everything is there. Regarding the structure, that is where we aim to be as restrictive as possible and this is not because we are conservative, but because this helps the draſters follow the rules and avoid mistakes. Content is stored in an XML format, currently Akoma Ntoso V3.
Type of solution: Legal interoperability tool
LEOS software components (under EUPL) implements the following:
LEOS software components (under EUPL) implements the following recommendations as explained below:
✅ Recommendation 1 | Principle 1: Subsidiarity and proportionality
LEOS software supports Akoma Ntoso at large and can be easily tailored by member states for their AkomaNtoso customisation.
✅ Recommendation 4 | Principle 2: Openness
The LEOS software components are all open source. Hence, by using them public officials are ensuring that they are giving preference to open specifications.
✅ Recommendation 6 | Principle 4: Reusability
The LEOS software is developed by the EC, but the owners of the software are also integrating contributions from external sources (Member States or the European Council).
✅ Recommendation 9 | Principle 5: Technological neutrality
LEOS produces standard Akoma Ntanso (AKN4EU) file format that can be reused on other systems.
✅ Recommendation 12 | Principle 6: User-centricity
The use of LEOS software, which allows for versioning and annotations of draft legislation, makes it easier to gather and incorporate different stakeholders views on the one piece of legislation in one place.
✅ Recommendation 16 | Principle 9: Multilingualism
By default, LEOS is provided in English. However, it can be customised in others languages.
✅ Recommendation 17 | Principle 10: Administrative simplification
LEOS is aimed to simplify the drafting process of legal text. The users don't have to worry about its structure while they are drafting with LEOS. LEOS is providing tools that simplify the review of the texts and the collaboration.
✅ Recommendation 25 | Interoperability layer: Integrated public service governance
In the EU institutions, the EP, EC, Council, OP are synchronising themselves to properly exchange legal text following the AKN4EU format issued by the EU LEOS instances. Furthermore, LEOS supports any kind of law (and not only AKN4EU) as long as they comply with Akoma Ntoso.
✅ Recommendation 26 | Principle 1: Integrated public service governance
In the EU institutions, the EP, EC, Council, OP are synchronising themselves to properly exchange legal text following the AKN4EU format issued by the EU LEOS instances. Hence, the use of LEOS components helps to establish interoperability agreements at multiple levels of administartion.
✅ Recommendation 33 | Interoperability layer: Technical interoperability
The LEOS software is open source and hence by using public officials are using open specifications.
✅ Recommendation 42 | Conceptual model: Open data
The LEOS components use Akoma Ntoso which is a standard, in turn helping to ensure legal data portability.
✅ Recommendation 45 | Conceptual model: External information sources and services
LEOS offers a possibility to connect to external Law repository (like EUR-LEX in the case of EU laws) to fetch part of the legal text and import it into the drafted act.
