Eve Gray of the University of Cape Town IP Law and Policy Research Unit, has posted Incomprehension Compounded by Mistranslation – The Imperatives of Access to Legal Information in South Africa, on the VoxPopuLII Blog, published by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School.
In this post, Ms. Gray describes the South African legal publishing industry, and the factors that inhibit competition and innovation among established firms in that sector. Using the example of the Report of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Ms. Gray describes how those factors limit most South Africans’ access to legal information.
Ms. Gray describes the South African Government’s progress in providing access to legal resources on its Website, and the efforts of the Southern African Legal Information Institute (SAFLII) to extend and enhance that access.
Ms. Gray identifies nonprofit organizations and research centers — which employ new business models featuring open access digital publishing combined with fee-based access to services or printed works — as sites of innovation in South African legal publishing. Ms. Gray concludes by describing several of these innovative organizations and assessing their impact on public access to legal information.
This post will be of interest to members of the legal publishing industry, to the legal community generally and the access to justice community in particular, and to advocates of open access to legal information.
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