Transforming legal documents for visualization and analysis

Abstract

Regulations, laws, norms, and other documents of legal nature are a relevant part of any governmental organisation. During digitisation and transformation stages towards a digital government model, information and communication technologies are explored to improve internal processes and working practices of government infrastructures. This paper introduces preliminary results on a research line devoted to developing visualisation techniques for enhancing the readability and comprehension of legal texts. The content of documents is conveyed to a welldefined model, which is enriched with semantic information extracted automatically. Then, a set of digital views are created for document exploration from both a structural and semantic point of view. Effective and easier to use digital interfaces can enable and promote citizens engagement in decision-making processes, provide information for the public, and also enhance the study and analysis of legal texts by lawmakers, legal practitioners, and assorted scholars.