Legal Information Institute Research Articles

Disciplinary and Legal Actions Against Dermatologists in Canada.

Dermatologists face a litany of professional and legal risks in practice. To review cases of disciplinary and legal action against dermatologists in Canada. The Canadian Medical Protective Association, all 10 provincial medical colleges, and the Canadian Legal Information Institute were contacted to obtain data on legal or disciplinary action taken against dermatologists in their records. A literature review was performed regarding litigation against dermatologists in other countries. Six dermatologists in Canada faced disciplinary action in the last 5 to 30 years. Seven dermatologists and 5 other specialists in Canada faced lawsuits relating to dermatology in the last 1 to 144 years. Procedures and therapy are the most frequently sources of lawsuits against dermatologists both at home and abroad. Dermatologists need to remain vigilant to avoid disciplinary action and lawsuits from their increasing and varied interactions with patients.

Supporting and influencing data privacy practice: The free access International Privacy Law Library

How can legal information institutes (LIIs) providing free online access to legal information, best use their shared resources to assist organisations and individuals involved in data privacy research, complaint resolution and policy development? The International Privacy Law Library (IPLL), located on the World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII) is a resource which attempts to bridge the gap between these two types of organisations. This article explores issues in the development of IPLL, and progress to date in resolving them.We then consider (Part 2) the key problem and our proposed solution to the more general question ‘How can LIIs create and maintain subject-oriented resources economically?’ WorldLII provides free access, via cooperation between seventeen LIIs, to a considerable amount of the information needed, often buried in very large generic databases of case law, legislation or scholarship. The challenge in building IPLL is to pre-select material potentially relevant to privacy issues to create a high value searchable global collection, but to do so on a low and sustainable budget. The resulting International Privacy Law Library (Part 3) is a combination of two main elements: (i) pre-selected databases, some maintained by active provision of data by DPAs, and some built editorially by the LIIs; and (ii) a set of ‘virtual’ databases (one each for case law, legislation, scholarship etc) drawn from all other content found on the LIIs. Once these virtual databases are built, they are self-maintaining (updated daily) and expand as relevant new content is added to any collaborating LII. We conclude (Part 4) with an assessment of future development needs and issues, particularly in relation to multi-lingual materials.

Influencing Data Privacy Practices Through a Global Online Research Resource: WorldLII's International Privacy Law Library

This paper explores how one group of organisations, legal information institutes (LIIs) can use shared resources to assist other global and regional groupings of organisations involved in data privacy to achieve their objectives. Bodies established by legislation to protect privacy (DPAs, PEAs etc), now in nearly 100 countries, wish to be able to better access and compare decisions on similar issues, data privacy legislation, and commentary on same. Civil society bodies and academics want effective access to the same material.The World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII) provides free access, via cooperation between seventeen LIIs, to a considerable amount of this information, sometimes as distinct databases, but just as often buried in very large generic databases of case law, legislation or scholarship. The challenge in building the International Privacy Law Library is to pre-select material potentially relevant to privacy issues to create a high value searchable global collection, but to do so on a low and sustainable budget.The resulting International Privacy Law Library contains over 15,000 documents. It is a combination of two main elements: (i) pre-selected databases, some maintained by active provision of data by DPAs/PEAs; and (ii) a set of ‘virtual’ databases (one each for case law, legislation, scholarship etc.) drawn from all other content found on the LIIs, which, once they are built, are self-maintaining (updated daily) and expand as relevant new content is added to any collaborating LII. The paper explains the method used to build ‘virtual’ databases, the content of the Library, and its usage.

Semantic Web Regulatory Models: Why Ethics Matter

The notion of validity fulfils a crucial role in legal theory. In the emerging Web 3.0, Semantic Web languages, legal ontologies, and normative multi-agent systems (nMAS) are designed to cover new regulatory needs. Conceptual models for complex regulatory systems shape the characteristic features of rules, norms, and principles in different ways. This article outlines one of such multilayered governance models, designed for the CAPER platform, and offers a definition of Semantic Web Regulatory Models (SWRM). It distinguishes between normative-SWRM and institutional-SWRM. It also compares existing principles in privacy by design, linked open data (LOD), legal information institutes (LII), and online dispute resolution (ODR). The article concludes by proposing the notion of Relational Law to summarize the ethical dimension of SWRM. Ethics are the only regulatory way to constitute a global space, out of the jurisdictional public domain set by national, international, or transnational law, and opposed to the private one.

Special Issue on Practices and Resolution of Progress Payment Claims

Special Issue on Practices and Resolution of Progress Payment Claims

Use of the Security of Payment Act in Resolving Disputes in Victoria, Australia

AbstractResearchers in many countries advocated that the security of payment act (SPA) can help expedite resolution of payment-related claims compared with traditional methods such as litigation and arbitration. While the use of SPA was articulated, few researchers have attempted to review how SPA is being implemented by the construction practitioners in real situations. This research study explored the effect of the SPA on resolving construction disputes through both literature and court cases reviews. Court cases in the State of Victoria, Australia, that are related to the use of SPA were identified from the Australasian legal information institute (Austlii) database system. Findings from relevant referred journal articles, industry, and government reports are compared with those recorded in the identified court cases. Four key features that characterize the use of SPA in the State of Victoria are identified: (1) Strengthening the position for adjudication as a fast tracking process, (2) clarifying the ...

Access to Justice: A Critique of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada's Inventory of Access to Legal Services Initiatives of the Law Societies of Canada

Canada's unaffordable legal services problem: The Federation of Law Societies of Canada's text, Inventory of Access to Legal Services of the Law Societies of Canada, contradicts the law societies' duty to maintain affordable legal services. It considers the problem of unaffordable legal services as being one of mere gaps in the availability of legal services. And in the province of Ontario, in an expressly blunt contradiction of its statutory duty to facilitate access to justice, the Law Society of Upper Canada's website states that the law society does not set fees for legal services, and it cannot reduce a lawyer's bill. Such publications tell the population that the law societies disassociate themselves from the problem of the unaffordability of legal services. If as a result, people were to think that the problem of unaffordable legal services must be the government's problem, the law societies would be quick to reject that solution as a violation of the principle of the independence of the legal profession. Then apparently, it's nobody's problem and duty.And therefore, in place of lawyers' affordable services, the Inventory of Initiatives text summarizes the law societies' greater use of programs of costs by cutting competence by way of, self-help, law students and paralegals, unbundling of legal services, and lawyers' pro bono charity.The problem is causing four types of damage: (1) to the many thousands of people whose lives have been severely damaged for lack of legal services; (2) to the courts clogged with the very slow moving cases of self-represented litigants; (3) to the legal profession, shrinking instead of expanding to meet the ever-increasing need of the population for lawyers' services; and, (4) to legal aid organizations who provide free legal services to poor people, but whose funding governments fear to make adequate to meet the need for such services while the majority of the taxpayers cannot afford legal services for themselves.A democracy does not have to accept such poor performance and neglect from its law societies, nor the loss of its ability to make effective use of the rule of law and constitutional rights and freedoms. Therefore, to forestall the inevitability of government intervention, Canada's law societies have immediate need for some program in place that makes persuasive their claims that they are doing something of substance, beyond mere vague expressions of concern, to solve the problem. Now, they have nothing. But undertaking to improve the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) to become a support-service providing legal opinions and related services to lawyers nationally, as has LAO LAW provided to Ontario's lawyers successfully for 35 years, would immediately show that they are taking action that will definitely have a substantial impact upon the cost of legal services. Otherwise, they will do nothing, or little, too late. Then government intervention will be needed, to impose a new form of management structure that is more responsive to the absence of affordable legal services than is the self-regulation of the legal profession as presently provided by Canada's law societies.

Access to Justice Support Services or Government Intervention A Solution for Canada's Unaffordable Legal Services Problem

The solution to the “access to justice” problem that the majority of the population cannot obtain legal services at reasonable cost, is to enable the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) to provide the support services to all lawyers in Canada, that the LAO LAW division of Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) provides to lawyers in Ontario who do legal aid cases. In contrast, all of the literature and conferences that this most serious of law society problems has generated, recommend solutions that involve treating the symptoms of the problem but not the cause. For example, the solutions put forward by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada involve cutting the cost of legal services by using: (1) self-help solutions; (2) people of lesser competence than lawyers; (3) pro bono services. This article discusses the inadequacy of those solutions to cope with: (1) the ever-increasing volume of laws, (2) complexity of those laws; (3) technology to be understood; and, (4) the greater volume of e-records to be reviewed. Such increasing legal infrastructure creates an ever-increasing need for lawyers to interpret and apply it, which means increasing time to deliver every legal service so as to maintain its high quality. In that sense, legal services are under constant pressure to improve. The failure of Canada's law societies to produce the innovation that enables a product or service to be improved without increasing its price, has caused legal services now to be unaffordable for the majority of the population. Therefore, society and reality are going forward, but the law societies are taking the legal profession and the availability of legal services backward. The long history of law society failure to solve this problem, and chronic inaction, is due to a lack of understanding of its cause. As a result, the solutions that have been recommended are meant to improve the existing system of providing legal services. That is the cause of the problem, the preservation of the existing system — the “handcraftsman’s method of delivering legal services whereby the same lawyer, or group of lawyers, does all of the work necessary to deliver each legal service. Instead, LAO LAW enables the use of a “support services” method of delivering legal services — like the family doctor referring patients to specialists and the rest of the medical world's infrastructure of support services; and like the car manufacturers using "special parts companies." There is no equivalent in the legal profession to the specialist that is the family doctor. If the legal profession in Canada does not make that transition, the problem will never be solved. It has to be solved, otherwise the small and middle-sized law office will disappear, and government intervention will be necessary — either by: (a) a program of socialized law by way of government-funded and cost-recovered legal services; or, (b) enabling the free enterprise competitive marketing of legal services by: (1) allowing law firms to be owned by non-lawyer commercial entities; and, (2) allowing such entities to provide legal services directly to their customers, by employing lawyers from all the disappearing law firms. That appears to be the only way in which the necessary innovation that creates the necessary cost-efficiency that drives down the price of legal services, will occur. Or, improving CanLII as a support service for all lawyers in Canada is the only way to escape government intervention. Otherwise, “Being without a lawyer means being without power in our society,” which means, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a "paper tiger," which means, Canada is no longer a constitutional democracy; merely a parliamentary democracy.

Access to Justice Canada's Unaffordable Legal Services <i>CanLII</i> as the Necessary Support Service

The solution to the “access to justice” problem that the majority of the population cannot obtain legal services at reasonable cost, is to enable the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) to provide the support services to all lawyers in Canada, that the LAO LAW division of Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) provides to lawyers in Ontario who do legal aid cases. In contrast, all of the literature and conferences that this most serious of access to justice problems has generated, suggest solutions that involve treating the symptoms of the problem but not the cause. For example, the solutions put forward by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada involve cutting the cost of legal services by using: (1) self-help solutions; (2) people of lesser competence than lawyers; (3) pro bono or “low bono” services. This article discusses the inadequacy of those solutions. The long history of law society failure to solve this problem is due to a lack of understanding of its cause. As a result, the solutions that have been recommended are meant to improve the existing system of providing legal services. That is the cause of the problem, the preservation of the existing system — the handcraftsman’s method of delivering legal services. Instead, LAO LAW enables the use of a “support services” method of delivering legal services. If the legal profession in Canada does not make that transition, the problem will never be solved. It has to be solved, otherwise the small and middle-sized law office will not be preserved, and government intervention will be necessary — either by: (a) a program of socialized law by way of government-funded legal services; or, (b) enabling the free enterprise competitive marketing of legal services. LAO LAW has a 35-year history of success in supplying fact-specific legal research services, and several other support services developed from that initial research service. It has solved a smaller version of the very same problem. It has saved LAO millions of dollars that would otherwise have been paid out on lawyers’ accounts for legal research. The Federation of Law Societies of Canada is the sponsor of CanLII, which is “funded by Canada’s lawyers and notaries for the benefit of all.” At present, CanLII provides free online access to court and tribunal decisions and to statutes from all jurisdictions in Canada. It is a national service available in both English and French, with an impressive record of accomplishment. But its present service cannot provide a solution to the problem. All legal services are based on legal research. Therefore CanLII could substantially reduce the cost of legal services provided by lawyers if it could provide the support services at cost that LAO LAW provides. Therefore the solution lies in the hands of the law societies. But such innovation will not happen if there is not sufficient fear of the interaction among: (1) the consequences of not solving the problem; (2) the power of the internet, the social media, along with the news media to quickly turn those consequences into a major public issue — particularly so by the publication of the sad stories of the high percentage of unrepresented litigants caused by unaffordable legal services; (3) the well established progress of the loss of self-regulation by law societies in other countries; (4) the fact that the consequences of the unavailability of legal services at reasonable cost will motivate the many non-lawyer legal services providers to offer to people desperate for a lawyer’s services, which they cannot afford, legal services that should be provided by lawyers; and, (5) the attention brought to these factors by publicized reports and discussions as to: (a) whether there should be an official regulator of non-lawyer providers of legal services; and, (b) if so, should that regulator be the law society in each jurisdiction. If a law society cannot regulate the provision of legal services in its own profession, how can it be expected to adequately regulate the provision of legal services by other professions?

Private Standards Organizations and Public Law

Legal information institutes ofthe world, meeting in Montreal, declare that:* Public legal information from all countries and international institutions is part of the common heritage of humanity. Maximising access to this information promotes justice and the rule of law;* Public legal information is digital common property and should be accessible to all on a non-profit basis and free of charge;* Organizations such as legal information institutes have the right to publish public legal information and the government bodies that create or control that information should provide access to it so that it can be published by other parties.We hear of tyrants, and those cruel ones: but, whatever we may have felt, we have never heard of any tyrant in such sort cruel, as to punish men for disobedience to laws or orders which he had kept them from the knowledge of.ABSTRACTSimplified, universal access to law is one of the important transformations worked by the digital age. With the replacement of physical by digital copies, citizens ordinarily need travel only to the nearest computer to find and read the texts that bind them. Lagging behind this development, however, has been computer access to standards developed by private standards development organizations, often under the umbrella of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and then converted by agency actions incorporating them by reference into legal obligations. To discover what colors the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires for use in work-place caution signs, one must purchase from ANSI the standard OSHA has referenced in its regulations, at the price ANSI chooses to charge for it.The regulations governing incorporation by reference as a federal matter have not been revised since 1982, and therefore do not address the changes the digital age has brought about in what it means for incorporated matter to be reasonably available, as 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(1) requires. This Article seeks to bridge that gap, suggesting a variety of approaches that might bring the use of incorporation by reference into conformity with modem rulemaking practices and respect the general proposition that documents stating citizens' legal obligations are not subject to copyright, while at the same time both honoring clear federal statutory policy favoring the use of privately developed standards in rulemaking and respecting the needs standards organizations have to find reasonable means to support the costs of their operations. Business models created in the age of print need to change; the challenge is to find ways to permit the market in privately developed voluntary standards to thrive, without thereby permitting the monopoly pricing of access to governing law.Introduction 499A. Voluntary Consensus Standards 499B. Their Occasional Conversion Into Legal Obligations 502C. And Hence the Problem to Be Discussed 507I. The Uncertain State of the Caselaw on the Copyrightability of Standards That Have Been Converted into Law 511n. Federal Regulation of Incorporation by Reference 518A. The Office of the Federal Register 518B. Copyright Preservation as Affirmative Federal Policy? Congress, the NTTAA, the NIST, and the OMB 524C. Possibilities of Change: An Administrative Conference Study, Rulemaking Proposal, and Reconsideration of OMB Circular A-119 529HI. Can the Public Have its Access-to-Law Cake and Standards Developers Eat Revenue from Standards Sales Too? 537A. Proposed Rulemaking and Digital Rights Management 537B. Standards Developed in the Expectation of Incorporation 543C. Standards Developed Independently of Any Expectation of Their Incorporation 546D. Must Incorporation by Reference Create Legal Obligations? 549IV. Changing Part 51 555Conclusion 559IntroductionA. Voluntary Consensus StandardsThis Article addresses the public/private confusions over standards developing organizations' work. …

Challenges for Free Access to Law in a Multi-Jurisdictional Developing Country: Building the Legal Information Institute of India

This article analyses the complexities involved in providing free public online access to the “public legal information” of the Indian legal system. It starts with some of the causes of the complexity of Indian legal information then describes the considerable progress that has previously been made in the provision of free access to some types of legal information, but why the result is still below international standards. The article then explains a project to remedy some of these deficiencies, the Legal Information Institute of India (LII of India), being carried out by eight Indian law schools and an international partner. It has developed in its first year of public operation, the LII of India, a system with over 750,000 searchable documents and 151 databases. The considerable remaining challenges for creation of a world-standard and sustainable system are then outlined, and steps proposed to address them. The extent to which this collaborative project might be a model for development of free access to legal information in other countries is considered.By “public legal information” we mean that information which, as a matter of public policy, ought to be available for free public access in a society which values democracy and the rule of law. This has been argued elsewhere to include legislation, case law, treaties a country has entered into, reports proposing reform of the law, and such legal scholarship as authors have chosen or are required to make freely available to the public. For the purpose of this article, this definition is assumed.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council faces more legal challenges

British Journal of MidwiferyVol. 21, No. 6 LegalThe Nursing and Midwifery Council faces more legal challengesAndrew SymonAndrew SymonSearch for more papers by this authorAndrew SymonPublished Online:27 Sep 2013https://doi.org/10.12968/bjom.2013.21.6.449AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail View article References British and Irish Legal Information Institute; www.bailii.org Google ScholarDimond B (2006) Legal Aspects of Midwifery. Books for Midwives, Hale Google ScholarMcDaid v Nursing & Midwifery Council [2013] EWHC 586 Google ScholarSymon A (2010) Legal challenges to the NMC’s Fitness to Practise decisions. British Journal of Midwifery 18(6): 390–1 Link, Google Scholar FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails 1 June 2013Volume 21Issue 6ISSN (print): 0969-4900ISSN (online): 2052-4307 Metrics History Published online 27 September 2013 Published in print 1 June 2013 Information© MA Healthcare LimitedPDF download

Free Access to Law is it Here to Stay? Good Practices Handbook

This current good practices guide is part of the 'Free Access to Law – Is it Here to Stay?' research project launched in 2009. The project was originally led by LexUM (University of Montreal), SAFLII (The South African Legal Information Institute) and the Centre for Internet and Society (India), with funding from the International Development Research Centre and the Open Society Institute. The outputs of the project are: A research methodology guide; An environmental scan report; A collection of case studies; This present Good Practices Handbook; The Free Access to Law online library providing access to a number of papers on the topic.

List Media: The Telephone Directory and the Arranging of Names

List Media: The Telephone Directory and the Arranging of Names

Searching Legal Information in Multiple Asian Languages

AbstractIn this article Philip Chung, Andrew Mowbray, and Graham Greenleaf, the Co-Directors of the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII), explain the need for an open source search engine which can search simultaneously over legal materials in European languages and also in Asian languages, particularly those that require a ‘double byte’ representation, and the difficulties this task presents. A solution is proposed; the ‘u16a’ modifications to AustLII's open source search engine (Sino) which is used by many legal information institutes. Two implementations of the Sino u16A approach, on the Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HKLII), for English and Chinese, and on the Asian Legal Information Institute (AsianLII), for multiple Asian languages, are described. The implementations have been successful, though many challenges (discussed briefly) remain before this approach will provide a full multi-lingual search facility.

Assessing BAILII in 2012

AbstractCynthia Fellows, Philip Leith and Joe Ury report on the survey responses to a usage and attitudinal project carried out in early 2012 by the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII). There were 3,274 survey participants and their responses demonstrate substantial support for BAILII as an open access mechanism, a technically competent dissemination tool and a useful resource for lawyers and non-lawyers alike. Such positive response, we suggest, indicates that BAILII's resources are now threaded through the fabric of UK digital legal information, strengthening the ability of all citizens to access and become better informed about the laws of the land.

“Free the Law” seminar – inspiration and motivation

An account of the historic meeting and seminar at Chatham House led by Professor Graham Greenleaf describing work to provide free public online electronic access to legal material in Australia and the possibilities of emulating that success in the UK. Article by Laurence Eastham describing the seminar which ultimately led to the development of the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII). Published in Amicus Curiae - Journal of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and its Society for Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London.

Challenges for Free Access to Law in a Multi-Jurisdictional Developing Country: Building the Legal Information Institute of India

Challenges for Free Access to Law in a Multi-Jurisdictional Developing Country: Building the Legal Information Institute of India

Challenges for Free Access to Law in a Multi-Jurisdictional Developing Country: Building the Legal Information Institute of India

This article analyses the complexities involved in providing free public online access to the ‘public legal information’ of the Indian legal system. It starts with some of the causes of the complexity of Indian legal information, then describes the considerable progress that has previously been made in the provision of free access to some types of legal information, but why the result is still below international standards. Developing a free access legal information system for India involves more complex technical and organizational issues than is the case for most other countries. This is because of the complexity of India’s constitutional structure and resulting legal institutions, the value it places on democracy (and the particular form of ‘monitory democracy’ it has developed), human rights and the rule of law, the litigious nature of its citizens, its linguistic complexity, and its expanding market economy. Although India’s constitutional right of freedom of speech has been interpreted to include access to information, this constitutional principle has not yet been developed in relation to legal information to require governments to meet the needs of the ordinary citizen to access legal information for free or to international standards of quality. The English language is likely to retain its privileged, but not exclusive, position in the legal system for some time to come. In addition to the separate deficiencies of each of the existing sources of free access online resources in India, the over-riding problem is that no free access source have created facilities so that all of these sources – case law, Central and State legislation, treaties, open access scholarship and law reform – to be searched together. There is no comprehensive site which allows users to search any one of these ‘five pillars’ of legal information across India, let alone all five of them. The article then presents a project that attempts both to build on, enhance and consolidate much of the good work that has already been done by Indian government organizations, and NGOs, to develop free access to legal information in India, and to overcome many of the deficiencies identified in the previous section. The Legal Information Institute of India (LII of India) is being developed by eight Indian law schools and an international partner (AustLII, the Australasian Legal Information Institute). It has developed in its first year of public operation, the LII of India, a system with over 750,000 searchable documents and 151 databases. The national launch of LII of India was organized and hosted by National Law University, Delhi on 9 March 2011 by Union Minister of Law and Justice, Dr M Veerappa Moily. It was followed by ‘satellite launches’ in Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Kolkota during March and April 2011, hosted by the respective National Law Universities in those cities. The system is therefore only now becoming known but is receiving over 6,000 page requests per day, and will have received approximately 2.25 million accesses in the 2011 calendar year. The considerable remaining challenges for creation of a world-standard and sustainable system are then outlined, and steps proposed to address them. The extent to which this collaborative project might be a model for development of free access to legal information in other countries is considered. The future of LII of India depends on a number of factors, including establishment of an effective technical team and servers in India, an Indian-based governance structure, collaboration with organizations in India with similar goals, establishment of local financial sustainability, and continuing technical support from AustLII during the establishment phase. These challenges are discussed, as well as the difficulties in extending development at the State level, and the longer term challenges of providing information in languages other than English, and the legal issues surrounding that task.

Challenges for free access to law in a multi-jurisdictional developing country: building the legal information institute of India

This article analyses the complexities involved in providing free public online access to the “public legal information” of the Indian legal system. It starts with some of the causes of the complexity of Indian legal information then describes the considerable progress that has previously been made in the provision of free access to some types of legal information, but why the result is still below international standards. The article then explains a project to remedy some of these deficiencies, the Legal Information Institute of India (LII of India), being carried out by eight Indian law schools and an international partner. It has developed in its first year of public operation, the LII of India, a system with over 750,000 searchable documents and 151 databases. The considerable remaining challenges for creation of a world-standard and sustainable system are then outlined, and steps proposed to address them. The extent to which this collaborative project might be a model for development of free access to legal information in other countries is considered.By “public legal information” we mean that information which, as a matter of public policy, ought to be available for free public access in a society which values democracy and the rule of law. This has been argued elsewhere to include legislation, case law, treaties a country has entered into, reports proposing reform of the law, and such legal scholarship as authors have chosen or are required to make freely available to the public. For the purpose of this article, this definition is assumed.