The Southern African Legal Information Institute

1

• The Southern African Legal Information Institute
• (SAFLII)?
• Achievements Challenges

2
Our Vision

• SAFLII aims to be a catalyst in the creation of
  an African Legal Information network of networks,
  and to develop its own consulting, research and
  development and support capacities.
• In order to achieve this, SAFLII proposes to
• Facilitate the establishment of Legal
  Information Institutes in the region
• Develop supportive capacity in
• Consulting
• Research and development and
• Open Standards development and maintenance.
• Maintain and develop free online access to case
  law and legislation for South Africa

3
About SAFLII

• We are a project of the South African
  Constitutional Court Trust and are based at the
  Constitutional Court in Johannesburg, South
  Africa.
• We have partnered with the SAJC to obtain primary
  legal materials from 15 countries in Southern and
  Eastern Africa.
• Other partners are Kenya Law Reports,
  AKOMANTOSO, and Lawgistix.
• We consist of a team of 6 full time and 3 part
  time staff.
• We are powered by AustLII, CANLII and other Open
  Source software
• We are funded by OSF/OSI, Ford Foundation and
  Carnegie.

4
Where we are today
Angola, 0, 0
Tanzania, 2, 55
EACJ, 1, 2
Lesotho, 0, 0
Botswana, 2, 797
SADC Tribunal , 0, 0
Uganda, 5, 226
Mozambique, 1, 13
Mauritius, 0, 0
Zimbabwe, 2, 215
Namibia, 3, 291
of 2049
Madagascar, 1, 93
Seychelles, 0, 0
South Africa, 14, 3982
Malawi, 2, 410
Zambia, 0, 0
Swaziland, 3, 400
Total 6486
5
Usage
Oct 2007
Sep 2007
Jun 2007
Jul 2007
Aug 2007
Hits
39,668
128,157
126,740
129,574
...
6
Achievementsand Impact

• Content sourcing and delivery
• Initiation of content through CJs (SAJC)?
• Non-electronic material
• Digitization projects
• Electronic material
• Institutionalization projects
• Content delivery
• Universal Discovery
• Accessibility vs Privacy

7
Digitization Projects

• South Africa Supreme Court of Appeal
• 83,000 pages 1 court from 1968
• Cost R70,000 USD 10,000
• Lesotho High Courts
• 120,000 pages, 1 court from 1980
• Cost 80,000 USD 11,500
• Namibia Superior Courts
• 16,000 pages 2 courts from 1990
• Cost R15,000 USD 2,200
• Botswana High Courts
• 15940 pages, 2 courts (HC, CA), from 1980
• Cost R14,000 USD 2,000

8
Institutionalization Project

• Current
• email, FTP
• Medium term
• http upload tool
• Long term
• xml schema
• workflow tool integrated plone, OpenOffice

9
Challenges

• The world is full of insurmountable
  opportunities Yogi Berra
• Quantity and quality of non-electronic material
• Telecommunications infrastructure
• Accountability

10
A proud moment ...

• You have thrown open a mighty window of research
  for us Professor Charles Fombad, University of
  Botswana

11
Thank you ... please visit us athttp//www.saflii
.org