Library of Congress Report on Lifecycle of Parliamentary Documents

The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. recently published a report on the Lifecycle of Parliamentary Documents:

"Parliamentary documents subject to processing in the jurisdictions surveyed often include documents and records that are produced in parliament, such as bills and related information, explanatory memoranda and bill digests, petitions, tabled papers, written and audio reports of parliamentary proceedings, and parliamentary research publications (...)"

"Access to parliamentary documents is guaranteed under constitutional provisions in France, Japan, Portugal, and Sweden. The production, publication, and preservation of parliamentary documents in all surveyed jurisdictions are also governed by legislation, standing orders, resolutions, and procedural rules of the relevant parliamentary chambers."

"National or parliamentary archives have traditionally engaged in official record keeping of parliamentary documents in some jurisdictions, with national or parliamentary libraries also contributing by collecting and providing access to various parliamentary documents along with reference and analysis to advise members, where applicable."

"The jurisdictional surveys of Australia, Canada, the European Parliament, Germany, Israel, and Portugal describe special procedures for documenting, correcting, and approving recording of floor proceedings and hearing minutes in the plenum and in committees, with different rules applicable in some jurisdictions for confidential hearings and records."

"Subject to restrictions on dissemination of certain sensitive documents, information sharing among legislative agencies and within parliamentary departments is a common practice. Projects for preservation of and access to digital records of parliamentary documents exist in all surveyed jurisdictions with procedures in place for coordinating digitization of multiple types of parliamentary documents by designated bodies, such as parliamentary or national libraries and archives."

The report looks at Australia, Canada, the European Parliament, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Portugal, Sweden, and the UK.

The Law Library of Congress is the world’s largest law library, with a collection of over 2 and a half million volumes from all ages of history and virtually every jurisdiction in the world.

Over the years, it has published dozens of comparative law reports which are a treasure trove for legal research on a huge variety of issues.