Transparency to Law-Drafting: Lawradar as Every Finns' Own Watchdog

Lawradar (accessible at https://lakitutka.fi/) is a ground-breaking policy research tool for law-drafting documents in Finland. It pools together all official documents produced during the legislative process of individual bills from the preliminary preparation phase to enactment. At the core of its novel interface, ‘Lawradar for All’, is the idea that the user might not have any prior knowledge about the policy processes behind legislation, yet they will be able to study all topics of their interest using Lawradar. Lawradar makes legislative documents truly accessible for both researchers and citizens alike, aiming to democratise information that impacts everyone. During the latest development phase of Lawradar, we have focused on users without an academic background in law or politics. Hence, the simplicity of language and the unambiguity of the legislative process are the focal points in the development. The previous word-based search is augmented with a semantic search that relieves the users from using overly formal or technical language. A new massive open online course is also being developed by our team and linked tightly with Lawradar. The course will offer everyone an insight into the legislative process and the opportunities of participation in state-level legislative processes – and how to stay informed about proposed law changes affecting their lives. Furthermore, the Lawradar research team continues to improve the usability of legislative documents for all. We envision creating a legislative reform focused chatbot to answer any questions related to past and present legislative processes, and to facilitate the targeted and detailed consultation of all relevant stakeholders and individuals. This chatbot would be able to summarize the effects the proposed law would have to the particular user chatting with the bot – and even facilitate the submission of their feedback to the legislator. The advent of LLM-based solutions is providing us the necessary technology to aid both the citizens in following and participating in the process, and the government officials in consulting the stakeholders. A legislative reform focused chatbot would be a hopeful step towards a more transparent and inclusive legislative process with the help of modern technology.