Internet Newsletter for Lawyers
September/October 2004, by Delia Venables

British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII)
Where We are Now
by Joe Ury

BAILII's here, it's growing and it won't go away! It is like a scene out of Godzilla but this time it's true (and much more friendly).

Since August last year about 27,000 judgments have been added to BAILII, www.bailii.org.

  • 11,093 of these new judgments were added, often within hours of being handed down.

  • 2,429 were pre 2003 judgments, added to the existing databases. We are currently working on a further 1,261 pre 2003 judgments to fill in any missing past judgments as they become available to BAILII.

  • We have also created new databases with 23,845 judgments from the following:
     - Court of Justice of the European Communities (including Court of First Instance Decisions)
     - UK Employment Appeals Tribunal
     - UK Immigration Appeals Tribunal
     - UK Social Security and Child Support Commissioners' Decisions
     - UK Financial Services and Markets Tribunals Decisions
     - UK Special Commissioners of Income Tax Decisions
     - England and Wales Care Standards Tribunal
     - Fair Employment Tribunal Northern Ireland Decisions
     - Industrial Tribunals Northern Ireland Decisions.

    Additionally we have made 19,277 corrections to existing judgments in order improve the BAILII searching facility.

    We are currently building five more databases and are in discussion with several sources to acquire more pre 1996 judgments. We are always making improvements to the BAILII systems that collect, convert, enhance and deliver the information that the user requires.

    This significant case expansion is reflected in our usage statistics, as more and more people hear about BAILII and find the primary legal material they are looking for.

    Irish content on BAILII is the result of cooperation between BAILII and IRLII, the Irish Legal Information Initiative. In addition to BAILII content, IRLII, at www.irlii.org also offers a number of unique services such as a searchable index of Irish cases and a comprehensive listing of academic articles published in 15 Irish journals from 1997 to date.

    The BAILII project is fostering an attitude of shared ownership amongst the users and we receive many messages of encouragement and many helpful suggestions via our feedback link. In this same vein we receive a good deal of cooperation from the courts and tribunal staff as they work to provide us with judgments/decisions. In some cases they have even modified their procedures in order to take advantage of our ability to rapidly publish their material.

    A great advantage of BAILII is its association with legal institute initiatives in other countries including:

  • AustLII, the Australasian Legal Information Institute, at www.austlii.org
  • CanLII, the Canadian Legal Information Institute at www.canlii.org
  • PacLII, the Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute at www.paclii.org
  • HKLII, the Hong Kong Legal Information Institute at www.hklii.org
  • SafLII, South Africa materials at www.saflii.org
  • WorldLII, a single site which tries to include all the materials offered from those above, at www.worldlii.org.

    These legal information institutes agree:

  • To promote and support free access to public legal information throughout the world, principally via the Internet;
  • To cooperate in order to achieve these goals and, in particular, to assist organisations in developing countries to achieve these goals, recognising the reciprocal advantages that all obtain from access to each other's law;
  • To help each other and to support, within their means, other organisations that share these goals with respect to:
     - Promotion of public policy conducive to the accessibility of public legal information;
     - Technical assistance, advice and training;
     - Development of open technical standards;
     - Academic exchange of research results.

    The WorldLII databases include case law, legislation, law commission reports, law journals and treaties from around the world. A lawyer can search refugee jurisprudence across many jurisdictions. A law student can have access to law commission papers throughout the common law world on say, defences to murder. WorldLII allows for focused and exhaustive legal research – and all for free.

    The WorldLII association is slowly developing and a recent outcome is the overnight mirroring of BAILII databases on the WorldLII service. If you are ever unable to connect to BAILII keep it in mind that BAILII content, usually up to the day before, can be found in the Europe collection on WorldLII. It is in conjunction with WorldLII that some of our EU databases will be developed.

    Regular users will probably have noticed that, as the body of materials on BAILII grows, the number of hyperlinks between neutral citations in documents have grown. You can quickly go between, for example, a Court of Appeal judgment and the Immigration Appeal decision cited, between a House of Lords Decision and the judgment on appeal or from a VAT & Duties Tribunal decision to a High Court judgment cited therein.

    BAILII as a charity is supported by the donations of organizations and individuals who promote and support the concept of free access to public legal information. A good example of sponsorship is Matrix Chambers' sponsorship of the Employment Appeals Tribunal Decisions database. We, or I should say you, now have a huge (11,093 decisions and growing) fully searchable database of EAT decisions as far back as 1989, many of them difficult to locate anywhere else.

    With all resources going toward the basic running costs of BAILII your donations have a direct influence on the quality and quantity of BAILII content. BAILII needs your support so if you are able to donate or the organization you work for would like to be a BAILII sponsor please get in touch or donate via our "Donate to BAILII" button on our home page.

    The staff of BAILII consists of myself (Executive Director), Roger Burton West (BAILII System Administrator and Developer) and Viky Martzoukou (Project Officer - RCJ Judgments).

    Joe Ury, BAILII Executive Director, jury@bailii.org


    Five years of Free Law - British and Irish Legal Information Institute
    5th Anniversary Celebration

    Monday 1st November 2004 18.15 pm for 18.45 pm
    Chairman: The Rt Hon Lord Justice Brooke
    Hosted by Baker & McKenzie, 100 New Bridge Street, London EC4V 6JA

    Meeting fee £25.00.
    (Reduced meeting fee for full time academics and students in full time education £15.00.)
    Registration form and more details will be posted soon on BAILII at www.bailii.org

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