Bridging the gaps between publishing law, academic research and community legal literacy: the potential place of PACLII

Jowitt, Anita L. (2016) Bridging the gaps between publishing law, academic research and community legal literacy: the potential place of PACLII. UNSPECIFIED.

Microsoft PowerPoint - Presentation Download (7MB)

Abstract

PacLII’s primary focus is improving access to justice by making laws freely available to all. The immense amount of material on PacLII, along with the specialised knowledge required to understand legal material, means that access to the “raw data” of cases and legislation may be of limited help in directly improving non-specialists’ access to justice. Even lawyers rely on tools such as case headnotes and annotated legislation, when available, to help process raw data. Other legal information institutes have begun to implement a number of strategies to help make raw data easier to understand. For example, CanLII Connects (Canada) has used blogs to implement a case summary system (http://canliiconnects.org/en); AustLII Communities (Australia) has used wikis to develop law handbooks (http://austlii.community/foswiki/Main/WebHome); and HKLII (Hong Kong) links with virtual Community Legal Information Centres (http://www.clic.org.hk/en/aboutus.shtml). Most of these initiatives rely on communities of authorised contributors, both academics and practitioners, who freely provide content. All of these are solutions that PacLII could implement, if Pacific countries were interested. There are other roles that PacLII could play as well, including: being a central hosting & coordination point for legal literacy material that is already produced by other agencies; hosting academic research networks; and developing specialised databases. This public seminar will consider possibilities for, and issues with, an expanded role for PacLII in Vanuatu. Other issues with accessibility of PacLII, including access for visually impaired users and access where there is limited internet will also be raised. It is hoped audience discussion will lead to the development of trial activities. All PacLII users who would like to contribute to this discussion are encouraged to attend.

Item Type:	Other
Subjects:	K Law > K Law (General)
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts, Law and Education (FALE) > School of Law
Depositing User:	Anita Jowitt
Date Deposited:	22 Nov 2016 02:40
Last Modified:	22 Nov 2016 02:40
URI:	https://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/9449

Actions (login required)

View Item