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In 2000 BAILII operated on a pilot basis from AustLII's Sydney base, through the kind services of Professor Andrew Mowbray. It became a registered charitable trust in December of that year, and in February 2001 three of us had our first trustees' meeting in Laurie West-Knights' chambers in the Temple. In June we were joined by five other trustees, including one each from Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland and Australia.
In July 2001 we appointed our executive director, Joe Ury, and found our London home. We were then able to create a website for "new cases" in London, but the database remained in Sydney, courtesy of AustLII, until this autumn. Since then Roger Burton-West, who joined us in July, has controlled the database from the London end. The University of Cork has provided a flow of Irish materials onto the site from the start.
What do we do? We load all the caselaw and statute law we can get our hands on free of charge. The official shorthandwriters, Smith Bernal, kindly gave us their archive of English High Court and Court of Appeal transcripts between May 1996 and August 1999. Since then we have been restricted to handed down judgments in those two courts. Privy Council and House of Lords judgments go back to 1996. For Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland the caselaw usually goes back to 1998 or 1999. In Ireland Supreme Court decisions go back to 1999, High Court decisions to 1996, Irish Information Commissioner's decisions to 1998, and Irish Competition Authority decisions to 1991. Our collections are not yet as comprehensive as we would like.
Our database of statute law follows much the same pattern, although UK statutes go back to 1988, Irish statutory material to 1922, and Northern Ireland statutes to 1495! A few recent Irish Law Reform Commission papers are the harbingers of what may follow.
Where are we going? Some of those who shared our dream three years ago were good enough to pledge £100,000. This money kept the dream alive until Joe Ury arrived. We could then start spending money at the London end. This year we have raised a further £100,000. The names of all our generous sponsors are on the Bailii site, apart from those who wish to be anonymous.
To a large extent we have been living from hand to mouth. When the trustees resolved this spring to advertise for a second member of staff on a 12-month contract, three of us provided personal guarantees totalling £15,000 just in case we had not raised sufficient money to fund the post by the time it was filled. (In the event we did raise it).
What of the future? With a steady state annual income of £100,000 (which has to be worked for) we could maintain our present level of provision and improve its technical quality, but not do much more. I hope that soon we will be able to publish far more judgments from the higher courts in each of our jurisdictions on the day they are delivered. For judgments in the Royal Courts of Justice in London, for instance, our remarkable software can convert the rtf text to properly formatted html in the twinkling of an eye (almost).
But this is not the limit of our dreams. We all believe passionately in the need to create a level playing field of access to everyone, free of charge, to our caselaw and statutes and other publicly available legal materials. In the September/October 2002 edition of this newsletter, solicitor David Hodson wrote of his belief that "the bigger and more important cases" should be reported on Bailii "more quickly, publicly" to save "under the counter copies of judgments floating around London" for "those of us lucky enough to be in the know". We share that belief, but our vision extends much wider.
It would make a huge difference, for instance, to those who provide advice on housing or social security benefits, asylum, tax or employment law, if they could be sure they could find the very latest judgments from the Administrative Court or the leading appeal tribunals on the Bailii site.
The vibrant existence of Bailii has been the driving force behind many of the recent changes to the way judgments are produced in London. We now have neutral citations and paragraph numbering. We now have standard formats. The House of Lords now publishes the neutral citation of the lower court on the front sheet of its opinions, for ease of electronic referencing. We will soon do the same in the Court of Appeal. The newly revived Commercial Court Index has a link to the judgment transcripts on the Bailii site. Bailii sought and obtained a rapid reversal of a new policy by the Privy Council this summer when it began to publish its judgments in pdf format, making them slow to unload and impossible to handle. I hope that soon the flow of judgments onto the Bailii site on the day they become available may increase significantly.
Yes, we are dreamers, but dreams sometimes come true. At our recent presentation to the Bar, a barrister told me that as a single mother doing a lot of her work at home, she has found Bailii to be a godsend. It is a godsend, too, for law schools at universities which do not have great library resources, and for law centres and smallish law firms and barristers' chambers which serve sections of the public where there is not much money to spare for law reports. And it is a godsend for those who have a need to access the law in all our jurisdictions, and can find it all on a single site.
We do not wish to be beholden to one or two rich sponsors. We welcome gifts of £500 or £1,000, particularly if they can be promised for three years, to help us to achieve the stability we need.
We hope and believe we are providing a worthwhile service that will be here to stay.
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