This document discusses the lack of free access to legal information in Africa and the work of AfricanLII to address this issue. It notes that without free access, citizens are disempowered and economic development is hindered. AfricanLII partners with legal information institutes in various African countries to make legislation and court decisions openly accessible online. While some successes have been achieved, challenges remain regarding sustainability and gaining widespread acceptance of the principle of free access to law.

1. Free Access to Legal Information from
Africa
Mariya Badeva-Bright
Project Director, AfricanLII

2. Free and Open Access to
Law in Africa
• Sometimes non-existent, often sporadic,
rarely complete
• Lack of access:
o disempowers the citizens, as they do not have access to the very laws
they are meant to abide by
o frustrates legal research, hence negatively affecting the work of
private, public and NGO lawyers, government officials, judges, law
reform practitioners, academics and students of the law,
o impedes foreign and local investment and economic development as
investors prefer investment destinations that have open, effective and
transparent legal systems that for example, enforce contracts and
secure property rights, and
o defeats transparency in judicial and government business.

3. Real cases
• Adjudication is compromised and diminished in
the absence of credible law reporting, and could
jeopardize the credibility of dispensation of
justice
• Human rights remain unrealized
• Misinformed media and public
• Exposing practices that threaten the
independence of judges and judicial processes
• Enabling civil society and public participation in
the work of the Judiciary and Parliament (and

4. African Legal Information
Institute
• AfricanLII is an umbrella organization,
aiming to entrench free access to law on a
national level across Southern Africa and the
rest of the continent
• Contextualizing global standards set by the
international Free Access to Law Movement
• Partners and assists LIIs in Kenya, Lesotho,
Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, the
Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa,
Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

5. Montreal Declaration on
Free Access to Law, 2002
• 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;
• Organisations 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.

6. Successes
• Tens of thousands of documents of
judgments and legislation openly published
and available via the Internet
• Standards adopted to ensure
comprehensiveness and completeness of
access
• Partnerships between justice sector
stakeholders nationally and regionally
• Regional statement of support for free
access to law

7. Challenenges
• Technical: facilitating maximal access
• Strategic: ensuring sustainability
o sustained maintenance of the collections
o organizational sustainability
o financial sustainability
o widespread acceptance of the norm of free (and
open) access to law

8. Access to Legislation
• Sometimes non-existent, sporadic, rarely
complete
• If available: expensive to produce, maintain
and access
• Distribution often constrained by regulated
reproduction and rules on authority, but
more often by lack of funds to compile and
maintain

9. The Law State of Access
Lesotho No copyright over rules and decisions
of courts and administrative bodies
(s5(a) Copyright Order, 1989)
Crown copyright in legislation.
Sporadic free, not open,
access via LesothoLII; no
commercial access
Liberia No exclusions. Authority vested. Free, not open, access via
LiberLII; no commercial
access; no updates
Malawi Exclusion of written laws and decisions
of courts and administrative bodies (s
7(a) Copyright Act, CAP 49:03).
Authority vested
Incomplete free and open
access via MalawiLII; Up-
to-date and complete
collections sold by AG’s
office
Mozambique Excluded from the scope of copyright
are official texts of a legislative,
administrative or judicial nature. No
authority
Many commercial
services; incomplete free
and open access via
MozLei ( cost)
South Africa No copyright shall subsist in official
texts of a legislative, administrative or
legal nature, or in official
translations of such texts (S 12 (8)(a)
Copyright Act 98 of 1978). No authority
Recent free (but not open)
access to legislation;
numerous commercial
offerings
Seychelles Copyright subsists in all works of
Government. No exclusions. (s 8(1)(a)
Copyright Act, CAP 51). Authority
vested.
Free and open access to
legislation via SeyLII.
Private consolidation and
updates of a selection of
legislation undertaken.
Sierra
Leone
Excluded from the scope are any
official text of a legislative,
administrative or legal nature or any of
its official translations
Incomplete free and open
access via SierraLII. No
private or government
publication
Swaziland No exclusions. Crown copyright.
Authority vested
No access to legislation.
Some printed commercial
volumes available.
Uganda No exclusions. Authority vested. Free and open access via
ULII. Some commercial
access. Not up-to-date
Zambia Copyright shall not subsist in a Bill
introduced into Parliament or in an Act
Free and open access
available via ZambiaLII

10. Summary
• Access provided by private (commercial or
non-profit) entities
• Authorities do not always have the resources
to provide up-to-date and comprehensive
access to legislation
• Cost-recovery requirement for Government
stifles production and dissemination
• Free access is not always open

11. Principles of Access to
Legislation (Cormacain)
• All Acts are published simultaneously on the Internet and in print as
soon as possible after Royal Assent. It is important to ensure that an
accurate approved text is published and that all users have access
at the same time to the same text. (UK House of Commons,
Legislative Standards)
• Accessible legislation principles:
o Availability of law as enacted
o Availability of law as amended
o Law at a point in time
o Legislation in context
o Findability

12. Kenya Law 4 years ago

13. Kenya Law Today

14. The Kenya Model
• Comprehensive, updated collection of the law
• Funded by government
• Available as public domain (the raw text), and
Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike
(metadata and value-adds)
• Costs a lot to produce legislation

15. Replication?
• Work with government (authority) to build
capacity for providing basic digital access to
law
• Positioned as an essential public (at least
partially) government funded service
• Build value added free law services for the
profession and public, sustained by a non-
profit business model (create spaces for
users to contribute financially or in-kind, web
monetization strategies, etc.)

16. Role of Libraries
• Partnerships with
o Government Publications Department of the
University of Cape Town Library
o Institutional libraries – Constitutional court of South
Africa, Parliamentary library of Malawi, etc.
• Ideas?

17. Conclusion
• Thank you!