If you have never read the Maltese constitution, it’s because you are afraid that you won’t understand it. Or it may make you bored.
But that could change once a young Maltese engineer builds and launches a new website aimed at making the country’s best legal documents accessible to anyone.
Alex Portelli created the Constitution Offmalta.com this summer by photographing complex documents and simplifying it into plain language for 5, 10, 15-year-olds, adult citizens with the help of artificial intelligence.
Portelli pointed out to the Times of Malta that the project was driven by his belief that all citizens should be able to understand the core principles of the state, and in contrast to countries like the United States, many of Malta are not very familiar with the constitution.
Therefore, for example, in the original constitutional instrument, Article 37 on the protection of property states that “the property of the explanation shall not be forcibly owned and there is no interest in the property of the explanation unless it is made by law imposed for ownership or acquisition for the purposes of the public interest payments.
On the Portelli website, this complex statement is categorized into a clear statement. “The government cannot obtain the rights you have to or to your property.
How he used AI
Portelli used AI to handle the initial simplification, converting the dense legal terms of the original text into more “conversational tones,” which served as a basic draft.
“AI provided an important starting point,” Portelli told Malta’s Times.
“However, the text has been meticulously reviewed, fact-checked, reorganized, and confirmed to ensure that the simplified version is accurate and logically structured.”
This manual, human effort, was the most important stage of the work, ensuring that the simplified text maintained the integrity and true meaning of the original law.
He also said the website’s clean, modern design and open source nature are at the heart of its mission. By publishing the code, Portelli hopes that the entire process is transparent and invites others to contribute to the project.
