Information Technology
Legal Recourse for Students and Professionals
Now all on database www.paclii.org
Law students and legal professionals now have recourse to a legal database - www.paclii.org . The Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute (PacLII) website, managed by the University of the South Pacific¹s School of Law, Emalus Campus, Port Vila, Vanuatu, contains legal materials from the region and beyond.
Bob Hughes, Professor and Head of School of Law, Emalus Campus, initially set up the database for the Vanuatu Law School.
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Hughes explains that the site¹s original purpose was to provide law students and staff with access to Pacific legal materials they couldn't otherwise get. Content has grown.
PacLII currently features cases and legislations from 15 Pacific Islands countries and territories: Nauru, Federated States of Micronesia, American Samoa, Samoa, Niue, Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu, Fiji, Cook Islands, Marshall Islands, Palau, Kiribati, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands.
It also contains world law, Pacific Islands treaties and conventions and information on Pacific Islands law societies and bar associations. Hughes said: ³It will improve not only the quality of justice in the region and the development of a genuinely Pacific jurisprudence, it will also improve access to justice.
"People are expected to know and understand the law. They can't do that without access to the materials embodying the law. The PacLII database provides that access free via the Internet."
PacLII is a USP School of Law and the Australasian Legal Information Institute project with funding from USP, New Zealand Official Development Assistance and AusAID. Funding for the Australasian Legal Information Institute is from the Australia Research Council.
USP's School of Law Internet project manager Robynne Blake runs PacLII's daily operations.
PacLII is modelled on technology and software used by larger legal websites - AusLII, BAILII (British and Irish Legal Information Institute) and CanLII (Canadian Legal Information Institute). As the website develops Hughes says he would like to see Pacific countries contribute more by way of case reports and legislations. To date Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands are the main providers.
"I would like to see us obtaining materials from the French territories and from the United States alliances to the north as well. "These are significant areas for legal research in the Pacific and should not be ignored. "Sometimes it is hard to convince people that this is the way of the future for law reporting and for the provision of easy access to legal materials. "The use of the Internet in this area is still viewed by some with a firmly Luddite reactionary point of view, but I sense that things are changing."
He adds that at some stage the issue of PacLII becoming the official government-sponsored law-reporting agency for the Pacific has to be addressed, but not without negotiations and support from all regional governments.
