Akoma Ntoso
Structured legislative documents for Ireland. Acts and bills as machine-readable XML.
How Parliaments Publish Data
Parliaments produce some of the most structured, most important public data in existence: legislation, votes, questions, committee proceedings, member records. This data underpins democratic accountability. In theory it should be the easiest public data to access and analyse. In practice, every parliament publishes it differently.
The Akoma Ntoso research project surveyed parliamentary open data across ten countries and regions: the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Brazil, and multiple African nations. For each, we assessed: what data is available via API, what formats it uses, whether it follows the Akoma Ntoso standard (the international XML vocabulary for legislative documents), and how usable it is for developers and researchers.
The findings reveal a fragmented landscape. The UK and US lead with comprehensive APIs and AKN-aligned standards. Norway and Switzerland provide excellent APIs using custom schemas. Most African parliaments — despite AKN being born from an African initiative — have minimal digital infrastructure. And almost nowhere does structured open data cover parliamentary proceedings (debates, votes, committees) as well as it covers legislation. This research informs whether derilinx-labs should build tools in the parliamentary open data space.
Different Libraries, Different Systems
Imagine every library in the world organises its books differently. One uses colours. One uses numbers. One just puts them in piles. If you want to compare books across libraries, you have to learn every system from scratch. Akoma Ntoso is an idea for a shared system — one way to label laws and parliament records so they work the same everywhere. This research checked which libraries have adopted the shared system, which ones use their own, and which ones don’t have a system at all.
Research Methodology
1. Identify parliaments
Selected parliaments from five continents with varying levels of digital maturity: established democracies with strong open data programmes, smaller nations with emerging infrastructure, and the African parliaments where Akoma Ntoso originated.
2. Assess open data APIs
For each parliament: documented every available API endpoint, the data formats returned (JSON, XML, RDF, custom), the scope of coverage (legislation, votes, questions, members, committees), and the quality of developer documentation.
3. Evaluate Akoma Ntoso adoption
Checked whether each parliament uses Akoma Ntoso XML, an AKN-aligned standard (e.g. USLM in the US, LexML in Brazil), or an unrelated format. Assessed both legislation and proceedings separately.
4. Rate usability
Assigned ratings from A to F based on: API availability, format standardisation, documentation quality, coverage breadth, and third-party ecosystem (community wrappers, academic tools).
5. Synthesise findings
Identified patterns: the legislation-vs-proceedings gap, the role of third-party intermediaries, the paradox of African non-adoption, and the practical barriers to cross-parliament data integration.
What This Research Enables
Build-or-wait decision
Derilinx leadership needs to decide whether parliamentary open data is a viable product area. This research provides the evidence: which parliaments have usable APIs, which standards are actually adopted, and where the gaps are that tools could fill.
Cross-parliament analytics
If derilinx-labs builds tools for parliamentary data, this research maps the integration landscape. Which parliaments can be connected today (the UK, Norway, Switzerland, Brazil)? Which would require custom adapters? Where is the data simply not available?
Standards advocacy
The findings can inform Derilinx’s engagement with EU and international standards bodies. The legislation-vs-proceedings gap — where AKN covers laws but not debates or votes — is a concrete, documented problem that standards work could address.
Research Findings Summary
Countries assessed
UK (A), US (A), Canada (B), Australia (B−), New Zealand (B), Switzerland (A−), Norway (A−), Iceland (C+), Brazil (A−), African parliaments (B+ to D by country). Ratings based on API quality, coverage, documentation, and format standardisation.
Akoma Ntoso adoption
Direct AKN: UK (legislation.gov.uk), African nations (via Laws.Africa). AKN-aligned: US (USLM), Brazil (LexML-BR). Non-adopters with good APIs: Switzerland, Norway, Canada, New Zealand, Australia.
Key findings
Legislation vs. proceedings gap: Even where AKN is adopted, it typically covers only legislation (Acts, bills). Parliamentary proceedings — debates, votes, committee records — almost universally use custom formats.
Third-party ecosystem: In multiple countries, third-party organisations (OpenAustralia, TheyWorkForYou, openparliament.ca) provide better structured API access than the parliaments themselves.
Africa paradox: Despite AKN’s African origins, adoption is primarily driven by the Cape Town-based Laws.Africa rather than by parliaments directly. Kenya is the standout success.
Standards reviewed
Akoma Ntoso (OASIS LegalDocML), USLM (US), LexML-BR (Brazil), DCAT-AP, OData, custom XML/JSON schemas. Full comparison table and per-country analysis in the research document.
Sources
Parliamentary API documentation, developer portals, OASIS standards publications, Laws.Africa developer guides, academic papers (Nature Scientific Data, MDPI, ACL Anthology). 50+ sources documented.