Free the Law: Initiative needed to have indlii.org
I was recently searching for some legal material and landed at http://www.austlii.edu.au/ - the website of Australasian Legal Information Institute. The website allows _free_ access to most of the Australian legal resources, including legislation and decisions of the High Court of Australia [the Highest court in Australia]. They have devised standard notation for citing case law that is uniformly followed througout Australia, with most of the Courts sending in the judgements and transcripts of proceedings to austlii in standard formats. Legislation is reported to the site by the attorneys who represent the state.
Austlii has also led initiatives in England that led to www.bailii.org
Free access is available to all to the legal resources at austlii
In India, NIC has taken several initiatives, and a wealth of information relating to legislation and case-law are available, but not everything is free. AFAIK, there are no standard notations that enable citing case-law published at the NIC servers before the courts. Again, AFAIK, many proprietary software tools are used in India, in sharp contrast to Austlii that uses GNU C and has created its own in-house software to index information. [ http://www2.austlii.edu.au/%7Egraham/Slides/London/technical.html ] [ http://causelists.nic.in ]
Austlii also has a worldlii site to provide access to legal information in other jurisdictions. An initiative to have a site named indlii on the lines of austlii may help to standardise reporting of legal information on the internet.
Details about how the austlii project was created, funded and works is available at: http://www.lawonline.cc/accesslawright.htm under the title "Free the Law"
Having free and easy access to legal information would be the first serious step in e-governance efforts. Probably, FSF-India, and a few law universities in India could take the initiative to move NIC to create indlii on the lines of austlii, possibly by teaming up together along with austlii.
Regards, Ramanraj.
Ramanraj K said on Wed, Jun 09, 2004 at 07:47:07PM +0530,:
Information Institute. The website allows _free_ access to most of the Australian legal resources, including legislation and decisions of
Yes, and in many respects, the US of A is very back in this.
have devised standard notation for citing case law that is uniformly followed througout Australia,
To a large extent, this is because Australia has a well developed and formalised research and citation system within _public_ control. In the US, this is done by private bodies, like (IIRC), LEXIS or NEXIS, and they have a vested interest in that an alternate citation system does not come up.
not everything is free. AFAIK, there are no standard notations that enable citing case-law published at the NIC servers before the courts.
Wait a minute. Is any case law published on any of NIC servers? I have not seen any. May be I am missing something?
The NIC does have a CD of few Sup. ct. decisions for sale. For some reason (it is not actually available if you decide to buy it) people choose to pay three to ten times more for data bases from other So Called Cd vendors.
Again, AFAIK, many proprietary software tools are used in India,
In India, weebee is in public domain (grin).
available at: http://www.lawonline.cc/accesslawright.htm under the title "Free the Law"
Great link.
If you have the time or inclination look into the situation in Singapore. last time I went there (the sites, that is) they required software of a particular brand and version.
And there is a proposal to implement something along those lines in India.
Mahesh T. Pai wrote:
Ramanraj K said on Wed, Jun 09, 2004 at 07:47:07PM +0530,:
Information Institute. The website allows _free_ access to most of the Australian legal resources, including legislation and decisions of
Yes, and in many respects, the US of A is very back in this.
Not really - much legal information on USA can be found at http://www.law.cornell.edu/ . But, AustLII has been able to evolve and frame better vendor neutral standards. AustLII is believed to be the world's largest legal database with about 7 GB of textual information, and most probably Cornell might be the next. If IndLII ever comes up, with our volume of legislation, litigation and case-law, we will beat every other legal database in no time at all :)
have devised standard notation for citing case law that is uniformly followed througout Australia,
To a large extent, this is because Australia has a well developed and formalised research and citation system within _public_ control. In the US, this is done by private bodies, like (IIRC), LEXIS or NEXIS, and they have a vested interest in that an alternate citation system does not come up.
The free public access based on vendor neutral data formats and notations are fundamental to a democracy, and now private bodies can no longer monopolise or capitalise on the intellectual work of our legislatures and courts. The private bodies will not go out of business, but they will have to build their business around the free access material - say providing more exhaustive head notes, case summaries, cross-linking or other features. Of course, we could expect some private bodies to do everything in their power to prevent the introduction of vendor neutral citations.
not everything is free. AFAIK, there are no standard notations that enable citing case-law published at the NIC servers before the courts.
Wait a minute. Is any case law published on any of NIC servers? I have not seen any. May be I am missing something?
Please visit: http://causelists.nic.in - Marked judgements of the Madras High Court and few others are available on line from NIC servers.
available at: http://www.lawonline.cc/accesslawright.htm under the title "Free the Law"
Great link.
If you have the time or inclination look into the situation in Singapore. last time I went there (the sites, that is) they required software of a particular brand and version.
And there is a proposal to implement something along those lines in India.
Do you mean on the style of Singapore? Are there any links?
Regards, Ramanraj.
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Mahesh T. Pai -
Ramanraj K