Chung, Philip; Mowbray, Andrew --- "Editorial" [2016] JlLawInfoSci 1; (2016) 24(2) Journal of Law, Information and Science viii

• Selected papers from the Law via the Internet Conference 2015

Introduction

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Editorial

Selected papers from the Law via the Internet Conference 2015

Introduction

This volume of the Journal comprises a selection of papers from the 15th Law via the Internet Conference held in Sydney, November 2015. The Law via Internet (LvI) Conferences are the official conferences of the Free Access to Law Movement (FALM - <http://www.falm.info/> ). It is an international voluntary association that has as its members more than 60 organisations from around the world. FALM members provide and support free access to legal information, consistent with the principles of the Free Access to Law Movement and subscribe to the Declaration on Free Access to Law.

The papers deal with a range of issue broadly based around the theme of advancing free access to law by a diverse group of scholars and commentators.

David Mason, Executive Director of the Australian Treaties Secretariat in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, discusses the significance of free access online provision of Australian treaties in his paper entitled ‘“Deliberative democratising” of Australian treaty making: Putting into context the significance of online access to the treaty process.’ This article traces the intellectual debate in relation to the need for the democratisation of the treaty making process and discusses how this impacted upon Australia’s treaty reforms.

Marc van Opijnen, Adviser Legal Infomatics of the Publications Office of the Netherlands, examines the development of standards and systems to promote accessibility of court decisions in Europe in his paper entitled ‘Court Decisions on the Internet: Development of a Legal Framework in Europe.’ In particular, it explains the significance of the European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) in the publication of judgments. This article also more generally discusses the public policy and legislative issues surrounding case law publication.

Kawachi Gen, Nagai Akira, Nakamura Makoto, Ogawa Yasuhiros, Ohno Tomohiro, and Toyama Katsuhiko, detail their experience in the application of XML standards to statutes in Japan in their paper entitled ‘Applying the Akoma Ntoso XML Schema to Japanese Legislation.’ This paper discusses the challenges in relation to dealing with the underlying structural ambiguities of the Akoma Ntosa Schema in the context of Japanese statutes. It proposes a mechanism for the conversion between the Japanese statutory schema and the Akoma Ntosa that retains a strict annotation approach.

David Noble, former Chief Parliamentary Counsel of New Zealand, provides an expert commentary on ‘Collaboration between the state and the LII community in improving access to legislation in a national jurisdiction: a New Zealand example.’ Historical examples of provision of legislation by the State are discussed. The inter-relationship between government and non-government organisations and how free access to legal information can be improved and enhanced is analysed.

Lyn Newlands, Judgments Publication Coordinator, Family Court of Australia provides an insight into the ways in which a major Australian court deals with privacy issues and in particular, anonymisation practices in her commentary—‘Publishing Family Court judgments: problems and solutions.’ The need to balance open access with the protection of personal information is examined. The Court’s approach to the redaction of judgments is detailed.

Philip Chung and Andrew Mowbray

Co-Directors, AustLII