1. Information Systems of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania (ISSRL): Practical User Remarks Ramūnas Čepatis, Senior Adviser of the Committee of the Development of Information Society

2. ISSRL Subsystems Search system of legislative acts of the Republic of Lithuania; Search system of legal acts of the European Union and other countries and their translations; Search system of plenary sittings of the Seimas; Audio recording and stenography system of the meetings and press conferences of the Seimas; System for storing, processing and search of media and information agency reports; Photo document archive system.

3. ISSRL Characteristics ISSRL authors’ vision: Publicity; Transparency; Efficiency; Security; Information reliability; Information dissemination; Interactivity; Accessibility; Access; Continuous storage of information. Evaluation of practical experience: + Functional multipurpose ISSRL virtually satisfies the interest of user groups with diverse practical objectives - User-friendliness The use of the subsystems of ISSRL operating in the format of the website of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania requires certain skills, Due to the complexity of the information structure and the website tree, information search may take time.

4. ISSRL Functional Multipurpose Internal users: - Drafting, considering, and adoption of legal acts; - Parliamentary scrutiny; - Interinstitutional and interdepartmental cooperation; - Contacts with social partners, lobbyists and electorate; - Accountability to the public; - Public relations; External users: - Public scrutiny of the activity of the Seimas; - Participation in the legislative process; - Access to relevant political and legal information; - Access to political, historic and legal information resources (educational aspect).

5. Potential ISSRL Users 1.Members of the Seimas; 2.Electorate of the Members of the Seimas; 3.Media representatives; 4.Persons interested in political developments; 5.Persons interested in the legislative process and/or indirectly participating in it; 6. Persons interested in the parliamentary history and/or the history of Lithuanian party system; 7. Staff of the Office of the Seimas organizing the activity of the Seimas, committees or Members of the Seimas and/or working to the Members of the Seimas; 8. Representatives of public authorities.

6. Specific ISSRL User: Needs Analysis (I) There are 15 committees, 15 standing commissions and a variable number of ad hoc commissions in the Seimas, The activity of these bodies is organized de facto by operating departments of the Office – the secretariats of the committees and the commission secretariat. The secretariat normally includes a senior adviser, several advisers and one or several assistants and/or a secretary. The main functions of the secretariats of the committees and the commission secretariat are: - To organize the activities of the committees or commissions, to ensure timely preparation of documents of the committees or commissions and response to the letters and requests by different organizations and citizens; - To organize meetings, hearings, discussions, working group meetings or other activities of the committees or commissions; - To draft laws and legal acts, arrange the expertise of draft laws and legal acts, provide proposals, comments and conclusions to the members of the Seimas drafting or analyzing legislation; - To assist in organizing the implementation of the decisions made by the committees or commissions and parliamentary analysis of individual problems.

7. Specific ISSRL User: Needs Analysis (II) The diversity of secretariat activities of a specific committee determines a certain priority of the use of ISSRL subsystems (in reverse order of importance): - Search system of legal acts Legal acts of the Republic of Lithuania Legal acts of the European Union Official glossary of EU terms EUROVOC - Additional services of the website of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania (links, statistics, bibliography, internal administration services) - System of the plenary sittings of the Seimas - Audio recording and stenography system of the meetings and press conferences of the Seimas - Other ISSRL subsystems

8. Search System of Legal Acts (SSLA) (I)

9. Search System of Legal Acts (SSLA) (II) Practical features of documents published in SSLA: - Formality: all legal acts (LAs) published in the Official Gazette “Valstybės žinios” and its supplementary “Informaciniai pranešimai”; - Efficiency: “News” column offers miscellaneous relevant information on –  The newest registered draft LAs, –  The newest LAs in force, –  The newest published LAs, –  The newest decisions by the Board of the Seimas, –  The newest committee documents.

10. Search System of Legal Acts (SSLA) (III) - Transparency: in addition to official texts of LAs, work documents of the Seimas are published reflecting the process of the entire legislative cycle in the Seimas: Draft LAs, amendments, comparative versions, Agenda of plenary sittings of the Seimas and major as well as additional committee meetings, Minutes, LA explanatory statements, Proposals by Members or political groups of the Seimas for draft LAs, Conclusions by the Legal Department of the Office of the Seimas concerning draft LAs, Final (official) version of LAs.

11. Search System of Legal Acts (SSLA) (IV) –Relevance: users may choose not only an official (original) LA format but also the latest version, reflecting a chronological amendment perspective of LA. –Functionality: document search is simplified and accelerated by a diversity of SSLA selection instruments: –  10 criteria for document selection, –  4 criteria for categorizing search results, –  subsystems of LA varieties of individual superior power, –  document selection according to the most popular LA formats provided (Constitution, Statute, Law) as well as their status (draft law, latest version).

12. Search System of Legal Acts (SSLA) (V) Some objective comments on EU SSLA - EU SSLA interface and operation mechanism are identical to SSLA of the Republic of Lithuania, - On the other hand, it does not guarantee efficient or at least successful search results of documents, especially those translated into Lithuanian, - Why? –  A relatively small number of EU LAs translated and published in EU SSLA, –  Chaotic numeration system of EU legal acts - Alternative – EU SSLA “Eur-lex” EUROVOC – a strong and effective “anti-headache tool” for coordinating official legal terminology and searching for keywords necessary for effective document search in SSLAs.

13. Search System of Legal Acts (SSLA) (VI) Summary: - SSLA authors have basically managed to create a user-friendly search system of legal information and documentation, –Ensuring rapid search of relevant information, –Allowing a thorough and objective analysis of the legislative process - The efforts of SSLA authors have been appreciated by ISSRL users, e.g. in the period of 2 December 2004 – 5 January 2005 SSLA was accessed 889.5 thousand times. It made up 19 per cent of all the access cases to the website of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania.

14. Other ISSRL Subsystems: the Aspect of Functional Efficiency (I) Other ISSRL subsystems mentioned above ensure efficient presentation of current and archival - statistic, - contact, - bibliography, - official (document), - audio, - visual, information reflecting the process and the outcomes of the activity performed by Members of the Seimas, parliamentary political groups, parliamentary committees, departments of the Office of the Seimas, social partners of the Seimas, objects of parliamentary control and Lithuanian public authorities as well as news on political, economic, and social life in Lithuania and in the world.

15. Other ISSRL Subsystems: the Aspect of Functional Efficiency (II) Information provided in other ISSRL subsystems contributes to - Establishing proper awareness of current developments of political life in Lithuania, - Getting the news on the institution of the Seimas and the activity of Members of the Seimas, - The ensuring of optimal arrangement of committee activity: –  Organizing the meetings of the Seimas –  Communicating with social partners of a committee and objects of parliamentary control, –  Cooperating and coordinating the activity with that of other committees of the Seimas, public institutions or departments of the Office, –  Ensuring timely drafting of LAs, legal expertise, editing, registration and submission for reading in the main committee or a plenary sitting of the Seimas, –  Controlling the implementation of committee assignments and decisions.

16. ISSRL Functional Efficiency: Critical Remarks (I) Functional efficiency potential of ISSRL is reduced by a low (first) maturity level of service interactivity of the system – both internal and external ISSRL users basically receive public services only in the form of information. As a result, ISSRL user: - With no rights of administrator cannot individually (but only through a mediator) influence the content of system data bases (e.g. supplement it with new official documents), - With no user identification software cannot equally and officially participate in a legislative or administration process.

17. ISSRL Functional Efficiency: Critical Remarks (II) Due to objective reasons – the abundance and diversity of information stored, processed and managed in ISSRL: - Its search and presentation structure on the website of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania is rather complex and requires users to have additional practical skills, - Internal ISSRL users, depending on their competence or specific activity, use only a part of ISSRL services. The remaining services are irrelevant.

18. ISSRL Functional Efficiency: Practical Suggestions ISSRL authors and administrators projecting the development of the system should consider: - The increase of the level of maturity (interactivity) of services provided by ISSRL, - The division of the website of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania into two or more websites oriented towards potentially different needs of internal and external users, - The adjustment of the interface of the website of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania to the needs of internal users for optimal organization of their work, e.g. –§ On-line news timeline on internal life (what, where, when, and the result) –  Document adjustment system providing a possibility to control the entire history of document adjustment (how long is a document kept in one or another location? What is the stage of its adjustment? What are the comments made? etc.). –  User edited calendar agenda with a deadline alarm system, etc.

19. Thank you for your attention and patience! Ramūnas Čepaitis + 370 5 2396053 racepa@lrs.lt