Keep the law free.
The Australasian Legal Information Institute needs your help, well actually it needs some of your cash.
AustLII provides free internet access to Australian legal materials, including legislation, treaties, and the decisions of courts and tribunals. It is an attempt to improve access to justice through better access to information.
We are very lucky in Oz to have such a free service which is accessible by anybody with internet access. In the US similar services are in private hands and they cost so much that even many lawyers can’t afford access let alone Joe public.
Recently however funding to AustLII has been cut; no government conspiracy this time, the grants they were previously receiving were to set up infrastructure not to fund the on going operation. The loss of funding has resulted in loss of staff which in the long term will mean loss of services. AustLII calculates that if each Australian lawyer chipped in $10 a year that would be enough to keep them going.
Freedom of information is something we should all be keen to support so do don’t just leave it up to the lawyers go to the AustLII web site and donate a bit of cash. These are our laws we should have the ability to access them.
