{"slug": "show-hn-open-dataset-of-the-lebanese-law", "title": "Show HN: Open Dataset of the Lebanese Law", "summary": "A developer published a free open dataset of Lebanese legislation, offering a public database, API and MCP server built from the Lebanese University archive of laws dating back to 1904. The dataset links every law, article, ruling and Gazette issue, versions articles so changes from later laws are visible, adds 100k unofficial English translations generated with LLMs, and converts 47k rulings from PDFs to text via OCR, flagging handwritten files for a planned HTR model. The creator said the work is \"legally wrong, but hopefully morally acceptable\" and is seeking trust from Lebanese authorities, while other Lebanon datasets charge for the same data.", "body_md": "Hey folks! I made it easier for builders to use the lebanese legislation through: a public DB, API, and MCP.\n\nThe Lebanese University has an archive of all laws dating back to 1904 (legallaw.ul.edu.lb). People and AI can barely find it and navigate it. It also had outdated articles.\n\nNow, more people are using it. Builders for their startups, lawyers for their work, and students for their bar prep. I'm still trying to get it trusted by authorities.\n\nThe database includes the edges between every law, article, ruling and Gazette issue. You can easily identify how they influence one another.\n\nArticles are versioned, so you can see how it was affected by other laws from the date it was published.\n\n100k unofficial english translations were added using LLMs. They aren't accurate, but they help with search and SEO/AEO/GEO. We're working on producing legally accurate translations.\n\n47k rulings were PDFs, some handwritten. We converted all of them to text using OCR, flagging handwritten files. We're working on an HTR model specifically for those to increase the confidence.\n\nToday, other datasets in Lebanon charge for this data. I'm doing it as a public service. I want change in my country. And, lately, I think it's through helping builders. Yet, what I'm doing is legally wrong, but hopefully morally acceptable.\n\nComments URL: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50261135](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50261135)\n\nPoints: 1\n\n# Comments: 0", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-open-dataset-of-the-lebanese-law", "canonical_source": "https://huggingface.co/datasets/taktekhq/lebanese-legislation", "published_at": "2026-10-27 15:52:25+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-27 16:12:04.164327+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-tools", "agent-protocols", "large-language-models", "ai-search"], "entities": ["Lebanese University", "Lebanon", "legallaw.ul.edu.lb", "MCP"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-open-dataset-of-the-lebanese-law", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-open-dataset-of-the-lebanese-law.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-open-dataset-of-the-lebanese-law.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-open-dataset-of-the-lebanese-law.jsonld"}}