Free Access to Law August 1, 2011

There are a number of groups that are advocating for openness to the law/law scholarship including court decisions. The latest group to endorse the movement is the Council of Canadian Academic Law Library Directors.

Council of Canadian Academic Law Library Directors Calgary Statement on Free Access to Legal Information. (2011)

Point three from the Calgary statement is directed to courts:

We urge all Canadian courts, legislatures and governments to commit to electronic publication of their primary legal publications by making definitive, “official” versions available immediately upon publication in stable, open, digital formats in a stable, freely-accessible online repository.

US Directors of Academic Law Libraries Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship (2009)

The Legal Information Institutes Montreal Declaration on Free Access to Law (rev. 2007)

In the US they are working to make authentication easier. The US Uniform Law Commission recently adopted the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act: act from the AALL site and backgrounder. (The act should soon be available on the ULC site)

The Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act establishes an outcomes-based, technology-neutral framework for providing online legal material with the same level of trustworthiness traditionally provided by publication in a law book. Increasingly, state governments are publishing laws, statutes, agency rules, and court rules and decisions online. In some states, important state-level legal material is no longer published in books, but is only available online.

The Act requires that official electronic legal material be:

• Authenticated, by providing a method to determine that it is unaltered;
• Preserved, either in electronic or print form; and
• Accessible, for use by the public on a permanent basis.

If a state preserves legal material electronically, it must provide for back-up and recovery, and ensure the integrity and continuing usability of the material.