Commonwealth online case law boosted by new free services

AustLII (Australian Legal Information Institute), which manages the Commonwealth Legal Information Institute (CommonLII) announced the launch of free access to the English Reports 1220-1873 and LawCite, a free access international citatory.

Both services were developed as part of an Australian Research Council Linkage grant to improve access to online case law and involved seven industry partners, including four courts and tribunals and two legal publishers.

The English Reports, which have not previously been available for online access, are located on the CommonLII at http://www.commonlii.org/intcases/EngRand contain 124,882 cases dating from 1220-1873.

At the launch, in Sydney on 1 December 2008, Justice Michael Kirby, of the High Court of Australia, spoke of the continuing relevance of the English Reports to today's law, mentioning numerous recent High court decisions where reasoning found in the English Reports was important.

Professor Graham Greenleaf Co-Director of AustLII and Philip Chung the Executive Director also spoke at the launch, which was attended by a number of distinguished guests from legal and academic backgrounds. Ms Shirani de Fontgalland, Head of the Criminal Law Section of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat who was also present, welcomed the addition of the English Reports to CommonLII on behalf of the Secretariat.

LawCite is an international database which includes a substantial collection of all common law cases cited in the past decade, plus most of the important uncited decisions before this.

CommonLII is believed to be the only existing research facility providing comparative research across most common law countries.

CommonLII is a non-profit website which is a co-operative development, providing free access to law facilities in Commonwealth and common law countries. Its purpose is to provide a comparative law facility by which the laws of all common law countries can be searched and compared.

Proposed in 2003 at the Commonwealth Law Conference in Melbourne, Australia, CommonLII was launched two years later at the Commonwealth Law Conference in London in 2005. Initial financial support for its development came from the Australian Research Council's research infrastructure fund and the Australian Attorney-General's Department.

In 2005, Commonwealth Law Ministers meeting in Ghana welcomed its development and encouraged all countries to co-operate by providing, where possible, access to their legal materials.

A number of Commonwealth institutions have expressed their support for CommonLII, including the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat.

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