Legal text

Version 0.4.3not yet reviewed by a lawyer

A check profile fixes how the source check reads a source. It is chosen by the kind of source, not by the topic of the text. The check profile Legal text applies to federal laws, draft laws, regulations and the constitution. This page describes its method; every change to it gets a new version.

Any other document with fixed wording, such as a study, a statistic or a report, is checked under the check profile General. Which check profile applies is detected per source and can be changed. Method of the check profile General

Checking is German text against German sources. The explanations in the findings are therefore always in German.

Splitting the text into statements, classifying each statement, and every finding with its explanation are produced by a language model. No person reviews the individual findings before they are shown. Produced without a language model are the division of the sources into sections, the version statement (section 3), the result “not checked” for a section that is not selected, the evidence check (section 7) and the result “not found in the source text”.

How often you can run a source check is stated on the tool's page.

1. What is checked

The source check holds each statement of a text against the sources it refers to. The yardstick is what the source says and means. Every finding has up to two lines; which one counts depends on the kind of statement (section 2):

Reproduction: Does the text reproduce the source correctly? Word for word (the quote stands like that in the source), in substance (in other words, without changing the content), shortened (a condition, exception or alternative that matters is missing), contradicts the wording, or not found in the source text.
Reading: Does the source carry the meaning or application the text draws from it? Covered, not covered, or open, defensible, each with the criterion that decides it.

What the source check is not

It is not a fact check. The only yardstick is the source. Whether a statement about the world holds is not examined.
It gives no legal advice on individual cases. What follows for a particular person or case is listed and not checked.
It makes no assessment of constitutionality. It checks whether a text reproduces a constitutional provision correctly. Whether a law is compatible with the constitution is not assessed.

2. Statements and their kinds

The text is split into single statements. One passage can hold several, for example a deadline reproduced correctly and a conclusion from it that the source does not carry. Which passages are statements, and of which kind, is decided by the language model. Every statement must stand word for word in the text: a passage the language model names that cannot be found there is dropped, and so is a quote that is not in the text. The kind decides how a statement is checked:

About the source: What a source says or contains, including that something is not in it. Checked against the wording and sense of the passage; the reproduction line is what counts.
Application: Whom or what a rule covers, from when and with which exceptions, stated in general. Checked against the scope of the source (section 5); the reading line is what counts.
Interpretation: What a source means or what follows from it. Measured against the criteria of the check profile (section 4); the finding names those that decide it. The reading line is what counts.
Evaluation: A judgement or a claim about the world. It cannot be checked against wording, so it is listed without a finding.
Individual case: Applying a rule to a particular person or case. Listed without a finding, because checking it would be legal advice on an individual case.

A statement classified as an evaluation or an individual case is not checked. If a statement needs a section that is not selected, its result is “not checked”, and the missing section is named. A finding rests only on selected sections.

3. Version of a source

Laws and drafts exist in several versions, such as a ministry draft and the version adopted by the cabinet, each with its own date and often its own numbering. Held against another version, an exact quote looks invented. So before the check, every source is compared with the quotes in the text, without a language model, and gets one of three statements, provided the text quotes it:

matches this version: The quotes in the text are in it.
a different version from the one quoted: Quotes in the text are missing from it but stand in another given version. The version holding the most quotes is named.
version open: It lacks no quote that another given version holds, but at least one quote is in none of them. Whether the text quotes loosely or means a version missing from the list, the check does not decide. If the text names the document as a draft or a parliamentary paper, a version from official sites is suggested where possible.

The version statement stands apart from the finding. It is a fact about the list of sources, not a statement about the text.

4. Criteria

A reading is measured against the four criteria, ordered the way lawyers read a legal provision:

Wording: What the operative text says, word by word, with its conditions, alternatives and exceptions.
Context: How the passage works together with its cross-references and the neighbouring provisions.
Legislative history: What the explanatory memorandum, an earlier version or the provision replaced say about the passage. An explanatory memorandum regulates nothing itself; it explains what the operative text is meant to regulate.
Purpose: What the rule is for, as far as the selected sections show it.

How a criterion decides the reading

The language model classifies the reading. These are its instructions; where the evidence check verifies part of them, that is said too.

covered: The source carries the reading. The finding names the criterion that shows this and the passages for it; without a criterion it is discarded.
not covered: Only when a criterion speaks explicitly against the reading, for example wording with a condition the text passes over, or an explanatory memorandum that says the opposite. That no criterion supports the reading is not meant to be enough.
open, defensible: The source allows more than one defensible reading. The strongest support in the source for each reading is to be shown as a passage of its own, without the language model deciding between them. The evidence check requires at least two different readings with two different passages.

5. Statements about application

The language model is instructed to measure a statement about application against the scope the source states: which persons it covers, which subject matter, which period and which exceptions. If the statement passes over an exception, the finding is to name that exception.

6. Which knowledge is used

The language model may use knowledge of method: how to read an operative text, what words such as “unbeschadet” (without prejudice to) and “vorbehaltlich” (subject to) mean for the relation between two provisions, that an explanatory memorandum explains but regulates nothing, and that “soll” (shall, as a rule) is a rule that may be departed from only in atypical cases. The rules the language model is meant to apply are set out here.

Subject knowledge must not be the basis of a finding. The language model is instructed accordingly, and the evidence check discards a finding whose explanation recognisably brings in knowledge from outside the selection (section 7, rule 7). Whether subject knowledge flows unstated into a classification cannot be ruled out this way; that is why every finding names its passages.

If a statement turned on another law, a ruling or a commentary, the language model can only suggest that document as a further source. It counts once it has been fetched and selected; then it stands in the list of sources like any other.

This has a price: some findings a lawyer would give from memory come out as “not checked” until the right source is added. In return, the visible list of sources answers every question about what a finding rests on.

7. Evidence check

Before a finding is shown, it goes through a check without a language model. If it breaks one of the following rules, it is discarded and counted with the reason; the statement then appears as “not checked”. The evidence check establishes that the passages cited stand like that in the selection. Whether the classification itself holds, for example “shortened” rather than “in substance”, it does not check.

A finding cites at least one passage. The only exception is the result “not found in the source text”, which is produced without a language model (below).
Every passage of the check path stands word for word in the selected section the finding names. The same words elsewhere in the selection or in a deselected paragraph do not count. The comparison evens out quotation marks, dashes, whitespace and hyphenation at line ends. Case counts, except for the first letter of a quote, and a quote matches whole words only. A quote with an ellipsis matches when its parts stand in that order in the same section, with at most 300 characters left out between two parts.
A passage has at least three words, or two words with at least 15 characters together (spaces included); for a quote with an ellipsis this applies to each part. A single compound word shows nothing.
A reading by the criterion of wording cites at least one passage in the operative text, not only in the explanatory memorandum or the cover sheet.
“Open, defensible” supports at least two different readings with two different passages.
“Word for word” requires the statement to have at least one quote and every one of its quotes to stand in the selected sections. “Not found” is ruled out when all its quotes stand there.
The explanation of the finding brings in no recognisable subject knowledge from outside the selection: no section or article number that appears neither in the check path nor in the statement nor in the selected sections (the number is compared, not the law it belongs to); no mention of a federal court or the European Court of Justice in its usual short form, no ruling (“Urteil”), no “Beschluss vom”, no case number with “Az.” and no commentary, unless the statement itself uses the word; no text in quotation marks that stands neither in a passage nor in the statement nor word for word in a selected section. The search is for these fixed markers; a mention written out in full or in an unusual form can slip through.
The explanation uses no word from the source check's list of excluded terms. It holds words that attribute untruth, deception or unlawfulness to a text, and recommendations to persons.

The exception: not found in the source text

If no quote of a statement about the source stands in any of the given sources, there is no passage that could be shown. This result is settled without a language model: the quotes are searched for in the sources, and once more in the selection before the check. The finding names the sources and versions searched. The recorded search is its evidence.

8. Verifiability and check path

Every finding states how much it takes to verify it yourself. The language model makes this classification.

can be read directly: Quote and passage stand side by side. One passage is enough.
traceable along the check path: The finding follows cross-references or the explanatory memorandum. The steps are shown in order.
expert assessment: The finding depends on legal method. It is marked as a machine assessment, with the recommendation to have it reviewed by an expert.

A finding “not found in the source text” has no passage. It can be verified by searching the sources named for the quote.

The check path is the ordered chain of passages a finding rests on, for example § 3 → § 1 para. 1 → explanatory memorandum on § 3. Every finding has one sentence in plain language and an expandable expert version with all passages.

9. Review and change of model

The check profile is to be measured against reference cases: 10 to 15 statements from two or three texts, checked by hand and reviewed by a lawyer. Until the check profile passes them, it carries the notice “not yet reviewed by a lawyer”, and so does every result produced with it.

State of this version: not yet reviewed by a lawyer.

The check profile is bound to a language model named exactly, never to a label behind which the model can change. Once reference cases exist, they are run again before every change of model. Every change gives the check profile a new version. A stored result keeps the version and the review state it was produced with.

10. Limits and responsibility

The result is machine-made. Only what the selected sources say is checked. It is not legal advice and not a legal assessment of an individual case.
Whoever uploads a file confirms that they may use it. The platform does not check this. You are responsible for it.
Whether and where you pass on or publish a result is your decision. You are responsible for it, in particular for quotes from the text checked and from non-official sources and for statements about named persons.
Recording words that were not spoken in public can be a criminal offence in Germany (Section 201 of the German Criminal Code). The live check is therefore only for public broadcasts and for interviews in which every person speaking has agreed. The platform does not check whether you may record. You alone are responsible for that.

11. Version and changes

Current version: 0.4.3. The version changes when the criteria, the instructions to the language model, the model itself or the rules of the evidence check change.

0.4.327 September 2026
Every source carries its level of origin: official, primary source or secondary source. Against a secondary source, a report about another document, a finding records the reproduction only and says “primary source missing”; the instructions to the language model state this rule for every such source, and the evidence check discards a finding with an interpretation resting on one.
0.4.227 September 2026
Splitting the text into statements and references lets the language model think for less long. On short example texts it used to take up to three and a half minutes, now about ten seconds. Instructions and answer format are unchanged.
0.4.126 September 2026
The instructions to the language model limit suggestions for further sources to at most 3 per finding, each at most 200 characters long. At most 3 are shown; longer ones are discarded.
0.4.026 September 2026
Check and evidence check. Findings with reproduction and reading, criterion, verifiability and check path; every passage is checked without a language model before display.
0.3.026 September 2026
Splitting revised. References written out in words (“section seven paragraph one”) are also recorded in citation form; a speaker is named only when the text names one.
0.2.026 September 2026
The text is split into statements of the five kinds, and its references to documents are recorded.
0.1.025 September 2026
Check profile defined with its four criteria. No checking yet.