| name | bart-statutory-reference-checker |
| title | BART: Statutory Reference Checker |
| description | Use when checking statutory citations in Singapore legal documents, verifying references against Singapore statutes, or auditing Word documents for citation accuracy. |
| author | LegalQuants |
| author_url | https://github.com/LegalQuants/lq-skills/tree/main/skills/bart-statutory-reference-checker |
| license | Apache-2.0 |
| version | 0.1.0 |
| execution_mode | open |
| jurisdiction | sg |
| practice | general |
| language | en |
| tags | ["singapore","statutory-citation","legal-research","word-addin","compliance"] |
BART: Statutory Reference Checker
When to Use
- Auditing Singapore legal documents for statutory citation accuracy
- Verifying that cited Singapore statutes exist and are properly referenced
- Checking if statutory references have been amended or repealed
- Academic work on Singapore legislation
- Pre-filing review of submissions
How It Works
Backend (Python + Next.js frontend)
- Semantic search over Singapore statute text using Legal-BERT/GEMMA
- BM25 + reranker for precise citation matching
- ChromaDB vector store for fast retrieval
- Word Add-in integration for in-document checking
Word Add-in Features
- Scan entire document for statutory references
- Validate against live Singapore statute database
- Flag missing amendments or repealed provisions
- Suggest correct chapter/section references
- Hover tooltips with current text of cited provisions
Output
Report showing:
- All statutory references found
- Validation status (valid, amended, repealed, not found)
- Suggested corrections where needed
A verified or valid result means "the cited reference was found in the source statute database at the time of lookup" — not "this citation is authoritative" and not "this submission is fit to file." Every finding is a research aid that requires lawyer verification.
Audience and Work Shape
Audience: Singapore-qualified lawyers, paralegals, and academic users running a statutory cite-check on a Singapore-law document (typically a submission, opinion, or academic paper). Not for unsupervised drafting, non-lawyer use, or non-Singapore documents.
Work shape: Pattern-Matched Review. Claude (or the BART pipeline) surfaces candidate citation mismatches; the lawyer adjudicates. Output is a list of findings, not a sign-off.
Inputs and Halt-on-Missing
Required inputs before running:
- The target document (path or selection) containing the citations to check.
- The intended statute snapshot date (the version of the Singapore statute book the user wants citations checked against).
- The scope of the check (whole document, named section, or selection).
If any of these are missing, halt and ask. Do not proceed with assumed defaults — a stale snapshot date or wrong scope is a silent failure mode and the user must specify it explicitly.
