Laws.Africa Developer Guide
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Laws.Africa Developer Guide
Quick start
Content API V2
Overview
Countries and localities
Works and expressions
Table of Contents
How-to Guides
How to use the Table of Contents API
How to download images
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Quick start
A quick introduction to using the Laws.Africa Content API.
This quick start guide will get you started with fetching legislation from the Laws.Africa Content API. It includes:
  1. 1.
    Signing up for a Laws.Africa account
  2. 2.
    Listing available legislation
  3. 3.
    Fetching the HTML for a piece of legislation
  4. 4.
    Displaying the HTML
This guide uses the Cape Town by-laws as example content, which is free and doesn't require an API subscription. Other content such as national laws require a subscription.
Find out more about API subscriptions and licensing terms at https://laws.africa/api/detail.

Create an account

To get started, you'll need a free Laws.Africa account and API token.
  1. 1.
    Sign up for a free Laws.Africa account at https://edit.laws.africa/accounts/login/​
  2. 2.
    Get your API token from https://edit.laws.africa/accounts/profile/api/​
In the examples below, replace <YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN> with your personal API token.
Once you're signed into your account, you can also visit the API URLs in your browser.

Get a list of by-laws

Fetch a list of the by-laws (municipal legislation) for the City of Cape Town.
$ curl -H "Authorization: Token <YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN>" \
https://api.laws.africa/v2/akn/za-cpt/.json
The za-cpt part of the URL identifies the City of Cape Town in South Africa.

Fetch the Animal by-law

Let's fetch the details of Cape Town's Animal by-law, in JSON format. This includes the title, publication details and a list of other API calls you can make for additional details.
$ curl -H "Authorization: Token <YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN>" \
https://api.laws.africa/v2/akn/za-cpt/act/by-law/2011/animal.json
Laws.Africa can provide us with a Table of Contents for the by-law, also in JSON format. Let's fetch that:
$ curl -H "Authorization: Token <YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN>" \
https://api.laws.africa/v2/akn/za-cpt/act/by-law/2011/animal/toc.json
Now let's get the HTML content of Section 3 of the by-law, regarding dog registration and licensing:
$ curl -H "Authorization: Token <YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN>" \
https://api.laws.africa/v2/akn/za-cpt/act/by-law/2011/animal/eng/main/section/3.html

Display the by-law

Finally, let's put that HTML into a webpage and include some stylesheets to make it look good:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/laws-africa/indigo-web/css/akoma-ntoso.min.css">
​
<div class="akoma-ntoso">
<section class="akn-section" id="section-3" data-id="section-3">
<h3>3. Dog registration and licensing</h3>
<section class="akn-subsection" id="section-3.1" data-id="section-3.1">
<span class="akn-num">(1)</span>
<span class="akn-content"><span class="akn-p">The <span class="akn-term" data-refersTo="#term-owner" id="trm78" data-id="trm78">owner</span> of a property where one or more dogs are kept must register the <span class="akn-term" data-refersTo="#term-dog" id="trm79" data-id="trm79">dog</span> or dogs with the <span class="akn-term" data-refersTo="#term-Council" id="trm80" data-id="trm80">Council</span>.</span></span>
</section>
<section class="akn-subsection" id="section-3.2" data-id="section-3.2">
<span class="akn-num">(2)</span>
<span class="akn-content"><span class="akn-p">Dog registration must take place within four months of the <span class="akn-term" data-refersTo="#term-dog" id="trm81" data-id="trm81">dog</span>&#8217;s birth or within 30 days of acquiring a <span class="akn-term" data-refersTo="#term-dog" id="trm82" data-id="trm82">dog</span> on property within <span class="akn-term" data-refersTo="#term-Council" id="trm83" data-id="trm83">Council</span>&#8217;s jurisdictional boundaries.</span></span>
</section>
<section class="akn-subsection" id="section-3.3" data-id="section-3.3">
<span class="akn-num">(3)</span>
<span class="akn-content"><span class="akn-p">The <span class="akn-term" data-refersTo="#term-Council" id="trm84" data-id="trm84">Council</span> may levy a <span class="akn-term" data-refersTo="#term-dog" id="trm85" data-id="trm85">dog</span> license fee in respect of a property where one or more dogs are kept.</span></span>
</section>
<section class="akn-subsection" id="section-3.4" data-id="section-3.4">
<span class="akn-num">(4)</span>
<span class="akn-content"><span class="akn-p">The amount of the <span class="akn-term" data-refersTo="#term-dog" id="trm86" data-id="trm86">dog</span> license fee may be determined in terms of a resolution of <span class="akn-term" data-refersTo="#term-Council" id="trm87" data-id="trm87">Council</span>. A reduced <span class="akn-term" data-refersTo="#term-dog" id="trm88" data-id="trm88">dog</span> license fee may apply for sterilized dogs.</span></span>
</section>
</section>
</div>

Next steps

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Laws.Africa Developer Guide
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Overview
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Outline
Create an account
Get a list of by-laws
Fetch the Animal by-law
Display the by-law
Next steps