Common Portal of National Case Law 8 November 2010

Plan Progress since last meeting How to better use the Portal Status of each country Plan for next 12 months How you can help us Participants answers and feedback

Part 1 : Progress since the presentation made the 21st October 2009

Main activity has been improving the relevant of judgments found Integration of Malta database IATE translator database used now through a web service to have quicker translations Google translator used for translating the judgments in the languages that DGT cannot translate

Improving the relevance There is no coherence in the functions offered by each national database. To increase the relevance of our results, we have been forced to modify the common Portal to align it to the characteristics of each of the national databases.

Example of the differences Each country has a different way of handling expressions. In some national database, you must use " ". In others, you must use a special field.

Example of special field for expression in the UK Parliament database

Consequence As each national database is different, to ensure that the Portal handle well each national database, a significant amount of time in the last 12 months has been spent improving the interfaces that the Portal uses to communicate with each database.

Part 2 : How to better use the Portal

Don’t forget to choose first your search language

Don’t forget to login if you want to search in the databases having a restricted access (Only the Italian databases for the moment)

Don’t forget to select the national case law data bases you want to search in.

Put the expressions inside " ". Without " " they will be translated separately, as shown in next slide

Don’t hesitate to put the special word AND between keywords, like for example in : "regulation 44/2001" and "provisional measure" (instead of "regulation 44/2001" "provisional measure"), as shown in next slide

Avoid plural words as their translations can be problematic. For example, if "provisional measures" is used instead of "provisional measure", some national databases will not return any judgments, while others will return less judgments or less relevant judgments, as shown in next slide

The query by dates is on top of the query by keywords (it is not possible to search by dates without keywords)

Queries by dates are possible only for the following countries : Belgium, France, Netherlands, Spain and United Kingdom. The other countries have either no queries by dates or only for a single date or only for a single year.

Part 3 : Status of each country

For each country with a representative in this meeting, we have listed the status and the unsolved questions. If possible, we would like an answer at the end of the presentation.

Case law database of Austria We have changed the connection from HTML to Webservice After this change, the integration of the national database on the Portal has been tested and confirmed by Helmut Weichsel

Case law database of Austria The main issue is that for some keywords we have translations issues from Google and IATE, which mean that the relevance of the results is not good Is there an alternative translation service? Do you plan to change your database in the near future ? If yes, what will change?

Case law database of Belgium Because of problems created by the multilingual nature of the national database, the integration of the national database on the Portal has been extensively changed, then tested and confirmed by Mr Stassart and Ivan Verougstraete. Do you plan to change your database in the near future ? If yes, what will change?

Case law database of Bulgaria This national database don’t allow queries by keywords. We are waiting for a new version of this database with a query by keyword. When will the new version be ready ?

Case law database of Croatia A new version of the national database should be ready end of We are waiting for its delivery. When exactly will it be ready ? If a test database is available, can I use it to start working on the integration of Croatia in the Portal ?

Case law database of Czech Republic We have received recently the URL of the new version : we are integrating it to the Portal. Do you plan to change your database in the near future ? If yes, what will change?

Case law database of Denmark A national database is not yet available When will it be available and using which technology ?

Case law database of Estonia The integration of the national database on the Portal has been tested and confirmed by Marelle Leppik Do you plan to change your database in the near future ? If yes, what will change?

Case law database of Finland After some problems were found in the relevant of the result, the Portal interface to the Finnish database was changed. After these changes, the integration of the national database on the Portal has been tested and confirmed by Risto Talo. We are now waiting for information about a new version, scheduled for Fall Is it now available ? Which address ?

Case law database of Germany The integration of the national database on the Portal has been tested and confirmed by Dietrich Pannier. The main issue is that for some keywords we have translations issues from Google and IATE, which mean that the relevance of the results is not good Is there an alternative translation service? Do you plan to change your database in the near future ? If yes, what will change ?

Case law database of Greece A national database is not yet available When will it be available and using which technology ?

Case law database of Hungary The integration of the national database on the Portal has been tested and confirmed by Csilla Racz Do you plan to change your database in the near future ? If yes, what will change ?

Case law database of Italy We don’t always obtain relevant judgments when searching this database. We are working with Franco Fiandanese We have received recently new information in English

Case law database of Luxembourg This national database uses a very old technology and it is therefore not possible to connect it to the Portal. Is a new version planned ? If yes, when and using which technology ?

Case law database of Netherlands After some changes in this national database, its integration on the Portal has been tested and confirmed by Opijnen M van Bistro Do you plan to change your database in the near future? If yes, what will change?

Case law database of Norway A national database is not yet available When will it be available and using which technology ?

Case law database of Portugal The integration of this national database on the Portal has been tested and confirmed by Sofia Barreto Do you plan to change your database in the near future ? If yes, what will change?

Case law database of Romania The connection stopped working. We are working with Simona Cristea. We have received recently an address : we are integrating it to the Portal. Do you plan to change your database in the near future ? If yes, what will change ?

Case law database of Slovenia The integration of this national database on the Portal has been tested and confirmed by Gregor Strojin. The main issue is that for some keywords we have translations issues from Google and IATE, which mean that the relevance of the results is not good Is there an alternative translation service? Do you plan to change your database in the near future ? If yes, what will change?

Case law database of United Kingdom After some changes in the national database, the integration of this national database on the Portal has been tested and confirmed by Neil Moulton Do you plan to change your database in the near future? If yes, what will change?

Find some examples of searches in the common portal in the next slides

Part 4 : Plan for the next 12 months

Finish the integration of Sweden Solve the issues found in the links of the Portal with Belgium, Finland, Italy, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia Finish the integration of the new version of the Czech Republic

IF If the new version of the Bulgarian, Croatian, Luxembourg and Spanish database is available, integrate it.

IF If the database of Denmark, Greece and Norway become available, integrate it.

IF If a good alternative translation source is found (especially for Austria, Germany and Slovenia), integrate it

Lastly The databases of Austria, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and United Kingdom are working well with the Portal. They must be tested periodically to check that it is still the case.

Part 5 : How can you help us

You should contact us when : you change your national case database (new address, new version…) you find errors when doing queries the relevance of queries is not adequate (whatever the country) when you have a suggestion to improve the Portal

In all these cases, send an in ENGLISH or in FRENCH to

Part 6 : Participant’s answers and feedback

We propose now that each participant answers if possible the questions asked in the slide concerning the status of his supreme court and give his feedback on the Portal.