GARANT is a comprehensive, fully cross-referenced legal information resource, with the following elements: The GARANT System – a legal information database, updated daily, providing for quick and precise searches, complex analysis of a legal situation, and keeping abreast of changes in legislation in an online format. PRIME – a daily individualised information feed that contains legal news and hundreds of thousands of commentaries on legal acts and court practice, and that enables creating overviews of changes in the legislation. Legal Consulting – access to a unique body of knowledge of experts in legal consulting: to solutions of tens of thousands of real practical situations, with the option of receiving individual written consultations. All-Russia Satellite Online-Seminars – interactive participation in seminars given by authoritative specialists in Moscow broadcast to other towns and cities throughout Russia, incorporating the possibility of getting answers to questions asked through the system. Electronic Express – a service providing electronic digital signatures for participation in electronic trading in state and municipalprocurement initiatives. Garant Vesti – a colour publication succinctly informing users about the most important changes in the legislation, interesting court practice, new developments in the field of legal information provision, and effective applications of work with legal information. Professional Journals – «Aktualnaya Bukhgalteria» : pertinent, reliable information for bookkeepers; and «Zakonadatelstvo» : authoritative legal analysis for lawyers. Consultations on Efficient Use of the System – assistance from specialists, plus clearly arranged resource materials allowing for quick and easy retrieval and analysis of information; professional-user certificates also obtainable. The WWW.GARANT.RU Legal Portal – a source of timely legal information: legislation news, just-released documents, consultations, internet conferences with senior state officials, and dialogue on the popular trade forum. Service – assistance in solving technical questions on working with the GARANT legal information resource, a hot-line, and dedicated personal managers.
System Contents
At present the GARANT system contains more than 30 million documents: acts of official bodies, court practice materials, constantly updated interactive encyclopedias, a library of trade press articles and books and commentaries on the legislation, official bookkeeping and statistical accounting forms, economic and legal terms, economic and reference information. The system presents the legislation of all 85 regions of the Russian Federation. Also included is a directory of medicines and medicine manufacturers. The GARANT system is primarily intended for bookkeepers and accountants, lawyers, managers, banking employees, and other specialists whose job duties include solving issues of a legal character. New documents appear in the electronic GARANT Legal Enquiry System database under direct contracts with both federal and regional governmental bodies. Every day the GARANT L.E.S. gets updated with approximately ten thousand documents. The electronic texts correspond exactly to the official texts, and undergo careful legal processing: the respective commentaries, references, schemes and hypertext links are all applied accurately and consistently.
System Functionality
The GARANT L.E.S. provides for different types of information searches. The main type of search is the «Basic Search», of one line, created specially for working with legal information. With an internet connection available, the «Legal Information Online» function allows one to get access to the services «Legal Information Support Hotline» and «Legal Consulting». The «Time Machine» function enables searching for texts of documents that were in effect at a particular moment in time in the past. The «Document Checking» function allows to track histories of changes in documents. The «Similar Documents» function lets one instantly create a list of documents that have a theme similar to a given document. The «Version Comparison» function compares two versions of a document. The «News Online» function allows loading online legal news and other information. The «Online Meeting» function provides users of the network version to exchange instant messages that can incorporate hypertext links and documents in the system. The system is fully integrated with the internet; there is a free-of-charge internet version containing the main regulatory documents of Russia and a fuller internet version, accessible on a commercial basis. «Mobile GARANT Online» gives access to the legal information system on a convenient flash memory stick. With an internet connection available this allows working with legal information that is/was current at a given moment in time.
