4th Conference on Asian Jurisprudence, 17-19 January 2002, University of Hong Kong

Free access to law via Internet as a condition 
of the rule of law in Asian societies: 
HKLII and WorldLII

Graham Greenleaf, [*], Philip Chung [*]* and Andrew Mowbray [*]**

Abstract

The importance of free access to essential legal information is outlined, particularly in relation to the development of the rule of law in Asian countries, and to the development of the legal systems of those countries through Internet access to comparative law materials. The main features of the new Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HKLII) are described. HKLII may be the first 'legal information institute' (LII) in Asia: a free, independent, and non-profit Internet facility providing relatively comprehensive coverage of the essential legal information of a jurisdiction (Hong Kong). The development of HKLII has been made possible by the policies of the HKSAR government and judiciary supporting access to legal information. These policies, it is argued, provide better support for the rule of law than those found in some other Asian jurisdictions. HKLII is a partner in the development of the World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII), which is attempting to encourage and assist the development of global free access to essential legal information. The scope and facilities of WorldLII are described briefly. The combination of a local LII like HKLII and the facilities of WorldLII gives a model for systematic global legal research over free access Internet materials.

Contents


1. Introduction: Access to law and the rule of law

Why should we value free access to legal information? Most obviously, access to legal information supports the rule of law. People should not be governed by laws to which they do not have effective access. Businesses have much the same needs as individuals. Few people can afford access to legal information from commercial publishers.

At least in relation to 'essential' legal information, free access to the laws of one's own country is an important support for the rule of law. By 'essential legal information' we mean primary legal materials (legislation, case-law, treaties etc) and some secondary materials (interpretative) legal materials (law reform reports, travaux préparatoires, investigative commission reports etc). The test is something like 'legal information produced by public bodies which have a duty to produce it and to make it public'.

 There are also good reasons to value having free access to other jurisdictions' laws and to value people from other countries having free access to ours. Developing countries have a major need for access to law in other jurisdictions, so as to be able to undertake their own law reform based on comparative research. This is impossible without free access to the world's 'best practice' laws via the Internet, because government lawyers in developing countries cannot afford access to almost any commercial forms of foreign law materials, and the maintenance of law libraries of foreign law materials is financially impossible[1]. Attraction to foreign investment is enhanced by free access to information about the operation of a country's legal system. Transparency of a country's legal system is one of the three legal and administrative requirements for WTO membership., and this is enhanced by free access to at least regulatory materials. To achieve these global benefits requires an international quid pro quo: although people in other countries obtain a 'free ride' on access to the laws of my country (on systems funded in my country), I obtain free access to the laws of many other countries.

 Taking a global perspective, it would be desirable if two conditions were satisfied:

The purpose of this paper is to sketch how such a systematic global facility for free access to essential legal information might emerge, and the role that Hong Kong can play in these developments.

1.1. Legal Information Institutes ('LIIs')

Two approaches are possible to the provision of global Internet access to legal information: These approaches are in fact complementary[3]; systematic global research requires both.

 We use the term 'Legal information Institute' (LII) to refer to a provider of legal information that is independent of government, and provides free access on a non-profit basis to multiple sources of essential legal information[4]. Ideally, a LII should attempt to provide comprehensive coverage of at least the most important sources of essential legal information for the jurisdictions that it covers.

 Examples of LIIs include Cornell's Legal Information Institute (LII - 1994) for US federal law, the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII 1995) for Australian law, the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII 2000) for the jurisdictions of the UK and Ireland; the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII - 2000) for Canadian law; and the Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute (PacLII - 2001) for ten countries of the Pacific. These are now joined by the Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HLIII - 2002).

 Throughout the world there are many free Internet sources of case law[5], legislation[6] and other essential legal information, but seven years after the creation of the first LIIs it is still only a minority of jurisdictions around the world that have accepted the need to provide comprehensive free access to essential legal information, either through creation of government sites, or by providing the data to independent free access publishers.

 Throughout Asia there has as yet been only limited progress in the provision of systematic access to essential legal information. In some jurisdictions there is now access to comprehensive sets of legislation (eg Singapore, Japan), and isolated Courts have made their decisions freely accessible (eg the Supreme Courts in Korea and India). However, there have been no examples of attempts to create systematic access to the essential legal information of a jurisdiction. In the worst case, government agencies and Courts are still being tempted to regard the provision of legislation or Court decisions as a revenue-generating opportunity, limiting access to the law to those with the capacity to pay high access fees.

2. Public policy and access to legal information

2.1. Obligations of public bodies

We have argued elsewhere[7] that official bodies should accept that they have seven obligations in the provision of essential legal information in order to provide the best support to the rule of law and other values:

1 Provision in a completed form (including additional information best provided at source)

2 Provision in an authoritative form (examples are court-designated citations and digital signatures)

3 Provision in the form best facilitating dissemination

4 Provision on a marginal-cost-recovery basis to anyone

5 Provision with no re-use restrictions or licence fees (subject to preserving integrity)

6 Preservation of a copy in the care of the public authority

7 Non-discriminatory recognition (end the privileged status of 'official' reports )

 A corollary of these propositions is that it is not sufficient for official bodies only to publish essential legal information for free access on their own web sites. Provision to other publishers (whether LIIs or commercial publishers) is also necessary for sound public policy, and is more important than official self-publication. Such dissemination is necessary to ensure that free-access is not second-rate access.

 The government and Judiciary of the Hong Kong SAR satisfy most of these criteria to a high degree, with matters concerning Court-designated citations yet to be addressed. The most explicit illustration of these policies (other than the existence of HKLII) is the 'Yes you may copy and link ...' policy on the BLIS web site[8] which states in part in relation to the whole of the Hong Kong Ordinances and other legislation:

1.It is the policy of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region[HKSAR] that the electronic publications of the laws of Hong Kong should be freely available to all persons. 2.Visitors to this web site are permitted to a.download, print, make copies of and distribute HKSAR legislation on this site, and b.include the HKSAR legislation in a text book or other educational materials, whether in electronic or paper form.
Overall, the HKSAR satisfies these seven criteria more than any other jurisdiction in Asia and more than most jurisdictions in the world.

2.2. Free access and its beneficiaries

The relationships are complex between access to 'essential' legal information and legal information which is essentially 'editorial content', and the roles played by free access publishers and commercial publishers. The diagram below illustrates some of those relationships, but they cannot be explored in depth here[9].


 


Relationships between free and fee, essential and editorial



Where essential legal information is not available to free access publishers, that is an indication of poor public policy, in terms of the criteria outlined above.

 Where free access publishers provide access to some of the information also published by commercial publishers (eg legislation, case law) lawyers and others who can afford commercial legal publications ('wealthy lawyers') benefit from the competitive pressure on commercial publishers. As a result, they are more likely to provide some financial assistance to free access.

3. The Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HKLII)

The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law and the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) have jointly developed the Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HKLII) - <http://www.hklii.org/>. Access to HKLII and to all data on it is free. HKLII (pronounced 'H K Lee') was made available for public access on 13 December 2001, and was under development for four months prior to that. HKLII is to be launched by the Hon Andrew Li, Chief Justice of Hong Kong, on 17 January 2001.

The development of HKLII was and is possible because Hong Kong, of all jurisdictions in Asia, already has both public policies supporting free access to legal information, and a number of official Internet sites providing some of that information in a systematic and sophisticated form. It has therefore been possible to build on these developments in Hong Kong to create one comprehensive, independent source of free access to essential Hong Kong legal information.

 The main motivations for the creation of HKLII are:


 


Extract from HKLII home page <http://www.hklii.org/>



3.1. Contents of HKLII

The initial contents of HKLII are: HKLII is, from its initial release, the most comprehensive collection of Hong Kong law available for free access which can be searched with a single search (as described below). Other databases of Hong Kong law are under development for inclusion in HKLII over the coming months.

At present only English language versions are provided on HKLII, but Chinese language versions of some data (including Ordinances and some case law) will be provided later. The Chinese language versions will initially be browsable only, not searchable.

 The system is described as a demonstration system at present, because we are still developing the continuous updating arrangements. We have released it for use now as it is already useful.

3.2. HKLII content from World Law

HKLII also includes a catalog and search engine for other legal resources on the web from Hong Kong and elsewhere in Greater China. These HKLII resources are the part of the World Law service which is being developed by contributing editors at the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law, using the World Law software and indexing framework developed by AustLII. HKLII is therefore a contributor to a collaborative law catalog.


 


Main page for Hong Kong in the World Law catalog (extract)



Other World Law pages associated with HKLII are the pages for the jurisdictions China, Macau SAR, and Taiwan, and the subjects WTO and Human Rights. Other subjects are being added.

3.3. HKLII search options

HKLII uses the SINO search engine developed by AustLII and used by AustLII, BAILII, CanLII, PacLII and WorldLII. SINO (which stands for 'Size Is No Object') is a fast search engine which provides a full range of boolean and proximity operators.

 All HKLII databases may be searched simultaneously, and may also be searched in groupings ('All case law', 'All legislation' etc) or by each individual database. Customised selections of individual databases may also be made. The example below show a selection of three collections of case law, plus practice directions.


 


HKLII full search screen (extract) showing only some of the search options



In default, searches are over the whole of HKLII, and the results are ranked in order of likely relevance to the search query. The example search results below (a search for 'arbitration near (appeal or review)') show in the first six items retrieved a section of an Ordinance, a Practice Direction, and decisions from three different Courts. The effectiveness of the relevance ranking is indicated by the titles of the first two items retrieved.


 


Example of HKLII search results (extract)



3.4. Differences between HKLII and existing facilities

Many of the resources on HKLII, including Ordinances and much of the case law, are already available for free access via the Internet, due to the policies of the Hong Kong SAR government and Judiciary in favour of free access and the very good 'official' web sites already available for Hong Kong law..

 HKLII nevertheless adds value to this information by providing different ways of accessing it. Some examples of the additional functionality of HKLII are as follows:

One the other hand, the 'official' sites have some features and forms of value-adding that HKLII does not have as yet. In particular, Ordinances and some case law are available in Chinese as well as English. BLIS provides historical versions of Ordinances, but HKLII does not. The Judiciary's Legal Reference System provides links between cases and corrigenda which HKLII does not as yet, and also some additional fields for searching cases.

 The relationship between HKLII and the 'official' sites of legal information in Hong Kong is as it should be: each provides forms of value-adding to the underlying legal information that the technology chosen to implement each makes possible, and they each stimulate the other to improve the quality of the services they provide.

 The relationship between HKLII and the commercial publishers of Hong Kong legal information is twofold. HKLII does not attempt to provide the forms of value-adding that can only be provided by extensive editorial input, such as headnotes on cases, legislative annotations, and expert commentary. However, by providing such value-adding as can be provided by automated means, HKLII may stimulate commercial publishers to re-examine their own services.

4. The World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII) and HKLII

The World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII) - <http://www.worldlii.org> - is a free, independent and non-profit global legal research facility developed collaboratively by a number of Legal Information Institutes and Law Faculties around the world. HKLII is one of the collaborating parties in WorldLII, the only one in Asia at present.

The name 'WorldLII' was used to describe the challenge of developing a global free access legal research facility at a meeting of parties interested in free legal information at the LII Workshop on Emerging Global Public Legal Information Standards[11] held at Cornell in July 2000. Various possible models were discussed at the Cornell workshop, the most detailed of which was a distributed search system described by Tom Bruce[12]. This implementation of WorldLII does not rely as much on distributed searches as Bruce's model.

4.1. Collaborating parties

WorldLII is principally a collaboration between existing LIIs, as indicated on its front page, with AustLII taking the leading technical and organisational role in the initial implementation. However, it is likely that WorldLII will develop to include contributions of databases that come from organisations other than LIIs.


 


Collaborating parties banner from the WorldLII front page



Databases accessible through WorldLII are located at the following sites:

  • Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) - <http://www.austlii.edu.au/>
  • British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) - <http://www.bailii.org/>
  • Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) - <http://www.canlii.org/>
  • Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HKLII) - <http://www.hklii.org/>
  • Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute (PacLII) - <http://www.paclii.org/>
  • WorldLII (including databases provided by Wits Law School, South Africa)
  • Technical development and hosting

    WorldLII's user interface, the World Law facilities, and those databases located at WorldLII (such as those from South Africa), are hosted on AustLII, and the initial implementation is by AustLII. Technical enhancements to WorldLII are being developed jointly by AustLII and the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII).

     At the time of writing, the first version of WorldLII has existed for only a few weeks, so this description of its features is relatively brief.


     


    WorldLII front page (extract) - looks familiar?



    WorldLII has been designed with an appearance and functionality similar to the other LIIs collaborating in its operation, to assist user recognition and ease of use. What does the logo mean? Well, it is vaguely world-shape ...

    4.2. Content of WorldLII

    WorldLII commences with databases from most continents, particularly those with jurisdictions with a common law tradition. As the front page indicates, there are databases from jurisdictions in Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America and the South Pacific. WorldLII has a global rather than regional approach, and starts life with a more extensive range of databases than any other free access facility, even though it is still only a fraction of what it may be possible to achieve.

    Databases from other LIIs

    Almost all of WorldLII's initial databases come from its collaborating LIIs, as follows: AustLII (120); BAILII (19); PacLII (25); CanLII (41) and HKLII (13). At its inception there are searchable on WorldLII 218 databases from 43 jurisdictions in 20 countries.

    Databases only on WorldLII

    Initially, the only databases on WorldLII that are not included on one of the other collaborating LIIs are the two databases provided by Wits Law School: the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa, the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

     We intend that, subject to limitations of resources, we will include in WorldLII significant databases made available to us by Courts, Law Reform Commissions, and the like from jurisdictions where there is currently no national or regional LII that can act as a host.

    World Law catalog and search facility

    WorldLII also includes the World Law Catalog and a web-spider search facility for sites listed in the catalog, covering law sites not on WorldLII[13].

    4.3. Search options

    The most obvious strength of WorldLII is that it already allows over 200 databases from 20 countries to be searched simultaneously, and this is in fact the default scope of searches.

     However, the most valuable search feature of WorldLII will often be that it allows narrower searches over particular types of materials, but across a wide range of jurisdictions. This is illustrated by the range of selections already provided.


     


    An extract from the WorldLII search options (Full Search Form)



    The following search options have been implemented:

    These options are important as they will provide WorldLII with a logical structure within which to place databases which become available from jurisdictions which do not have a separate LII providing a 'home' for databases. We hope that by providing these options they will encourage leading Courts, Law Reform Commissions, Law Journals and the like to discuss with us the possible inclusion of their databases in WorldLII. We expect that some databases will be included in WorldLII's own databases only temporarily, and that WorldLII will act as an 'incubator' for the development of separately operating LIIs.

     Geographically-based search options will become particularly interesting when WorldLII expands to include databases from more than one LII or other source in a region. The geographical options provided at present include (with current content listed):

    An interesting inclusion is that the Privy Council's decisions in WorldLII include appeals from so many geographically disparate regions. Those listed above are only from regions where we already have other databases, but when appropriate they can also be added to regional collections from the Caribbean and from the Indian subcontinent.

     Finally, users may choose their own combinations of the over 200 databases accessible from WorldLII: 'customised' searches. It may also be valuable to provide for users a selection of the most obviously valuable subject- specific customisations, such as 'All administrative review Tribunals' or 'All unfair competition tribunals' or 'All anti-discrimination tribunals'.

    4.4. Cross-national hypertext links

    The development plans for WorldLII include the creation of mark-up software which automates the creation of hypertext links where cases (or other documents) from one national jurisdiction cite case or legislation from another national system.

    In WorldLII and its collaborating LIIs, cross-national hypertext links are only implemented to a limited extent as yet. For example, on WorldLII and BAILII in the database 'England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions', the decision Yasin Sepet And Erdem Bulbul V. Secretary Of State For Home Department (Unhcr Intervening) [2001] EWCA Civ 681 <http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2001/681.html> contains two automated hypertext links to Australian High Court decisions on WorldLII (and AustLII), as shown in the following extract (at para 88).


     


    Extract from a UK court decision with automated hypertext links to Australian cases



    This example also shows a UK court citing an Australian decision by its Court-designated 'HCA' citation, rather than a publisher-designated citation. Because AustLII and BAILII identify all cases by their Court-designated citations, these links can be created automatically between and within national collections on WorldLII.

     Where Courts cite cases by use of publisher-designated citation, the task of recognising the location of cases on WorldLII from the citation is much more difficult and is a major research task for the future development of WorldLII and for national LIIs.

    4.5. Future development of WorldLII

    It is not easy to predict how WorldLII will develop, or what tools will be needed to best assist that development. Systems like this tend to develop something of a momentum of their own, depending on the wishes of data providers, users and funding organisations. Some of the further developments which would assist WorldLII's growth and quality include:

    5. A model for systematic global legal research

    The relationship between HKLII and WorldLII (including its World Law component) gives for the first time a working model for systematic global legal research over free Internet law resources. Such research involves the following five separate steps, each of which is now possible using WorldLII and its collaborating LIIs:
    1. Start search on the most relevant law site (eg HKLII)
    2. Expand search to cooperating standardised law sites (mainly LIIs) (eg WorldLII)
    3. Expand search to non-standardised law sites by a law-specific web spider (eg World Law's search facility)
    4. Expand search over general (non-law) search engine (eg Google)
    5. Browse and search a global catalog of legal web sites to find sites the content of which cannot be searched from a central facility (eg World Law's catalog)
    The research task is made more complex by the fact that we often need to make our research specific to particular types of legal materials (eg legislation, case law or law reform reports). As illustrated earlier, such type-specific research can be done using WorldLII or its collaborating LIIs.

     This systematic approach to legal research is implemented in two different ways in WorldLII and its collaborating LIIs: (i) invitations in search results to repeat searches over different collections; and (ii) the World Law interface which provides search options of different scope over different collections. They are outlined below. Other implementations of a systematic approach will no doubt be implemented as WorldLII develops.

    5.1. Repeating searches for comprehensive research

    In order for WorldLII to be part of as comprehensive a legal research system as possible, the presentation of search results in WorldLII, World Law and in the collaborating LIIs all invite users to broaden their research by automatically repeating it over the other relevant systems. In addition, users are invited to repeat their search over Google, and their SINO search (from any of the systems) is translated into the most suitable search over Google[14].

     Where a user starts research from a single LII (eg HKLII), search results will appear headed by a message such as the following:
     


    World Law - Categories found: 2 Repeat search over WorldLII Databases ; World Law Websites

    The user is therefore invited to broaden their research by repeating the search automatically over WorldLII (represented by the bold lines in the diagram below). When the search is repeated over WorldLII, the WorldLII search results invite the user to repeat the search over World Law. When the user repeats the search over World Law, the search results then invite them to repeat the search over Google (and translate the search into Google syntax).

     Similarly, anyone who commences research on World Law is invited to repeat their search over WorldLII (represented by the lighter lines in the diagram below), and both the WorldLII and World Law searches invite a further search over Google.


     


    A systematic research path, starting from a single LII (in bold)

    Our aim is therefore to assist (and encourage) users to do comprehensive searches over WorldLII, World Law and Google without having to re-key searches or learn different search commands for each system.

    5.2. An interface for comprehensive research

    The limitations of the above approach of inviting users to repeat searches are that it is not as intuitive as a interface which provides search alternatives, and that it does not so easily allow for searches of limited scope.

     How can this be achieved through one reasonably transparent interface? We propose to implement it through the World Law interface, as shown below for the 'Legislation' page of the World Law catalog. The fourth option 'Only WorldLII Legislation' is additional to the options available now.


     


    Proposed World Law search interface on the Legislation page



    When this is implemented fully in World Law, the user's context in browsing the catalog (eg 'Legislation') will determine the scope of the second and fourth options offered. So, for example, if the user is at the World Law page for all 'Law Reform' then the available options will include 'Only World Law - Law Reform' and 'Only WorldLII Law Reform'.

    References

    [AustLII 1997] `New directions in law via the internet - The AustLII Papers' Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT), Issue 2, 1997, University of Warwick Faculty of Law, (refereed electronic journal at http://elj.warwick.ac.uk/jilt/issue/1997_2) (with Mowbray A and King G)

    [AustLII 2000a] 'Scalability of Web Resources for Law: AustLII's Technical Roadmap: Past, Present and Future', 2000 (1) The Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT) <http://www.law.warwick.ac.uk/jilt/00-1/austin.html> (Austin, D, Mowbray A and Chung, P)

     [AustLII 2000b] 'A Defence of Plain HTML for Law: AustLII's Approach to Standards', 2000 (1)The Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT) <http://www.law.warwick.ac.uk/jilt/00-1/chung.html> (Chung, P, Mowbray A and Austin, D)

     [AustLII 2000c] Solving the Problems of Finding Law on the Web: World Law and DIAL', 2000 (1) The Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT) <http://www.law.warwick.ac.uk/jilt/00-1/greenleaf.html> (Greenleaf G, Austin D, Chung P, Mowbray A, Matthews J and Davis M)

     [AustLII 2000d] 'Free the Law: How the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) Achieved the Free Availability of Legal Information on the Internet' 2000 (1). The Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT).<http://www.law.warwick.ac.uk/jilt/00-1/transcript.html> (Greenleaf G)

     [AustLII 2001a] 'Philosophy, Practice and Future of the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII): Achieving the free availability of legal information on the Internet' (Transcript) Joint Symposium 2001 - Social Roles of Legal Information Database, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan, 19 May 200; published in SHIP Project Review 2001, Meiji University, Japan; slides only at <http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~graham/Slides/Tokyo2001/>; transcript will be available at <http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~graham/>

     [AustLII 2001b] 'World Law: Finding law after Google' (Graham Greenleaf, Philip Chung and Russell Allen) Proc. AustLII Law via Internet 2001 Conference, AustLII, Sydney, 2001; will be available at <http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~graham/>

     [CanLII 2001a] Daniel Poulin 'CanLII 2000-2004 - a Canadian Model for a LII ' Proc. AustLII Law via Internet 2001 Conference, AustLII, Sydney, 2001

     [CanLII 2001b] Ernst Perpignand and Daniel Poulin 'CanLII 2000-2004 - Technical Strategy' Proc. AustLII Law via Internet 2001 Conference, AustLII, Sydney, 2001




    [*] Graham Greenleaf is Distinguished Visiting Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong, Professor of Law, University of New South Wales, Co-Director, Baker & McKenzie Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre (UNSW), and Co-Director, AustLII; g.greenleaf@hku.hk; <http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~graham/>

    [**] Philip Chung is Lecturer in Law, University of Technology, Sydney, and Executive Director, AustLII; philip@austlii.edu.au

    [***] Andrew Mowbray is Associate Professor and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Technology, Sydney, and Co-Director, AustLII; andrew@austlii.edu.au


    [1] This is the basis of the Asian Development Bank's funding for Project DIAL (Development of the Internet for Asian Law) - see <http://www.austlii.edu.au/links/dial/>.

    [2] See AustLII 2000b and AustLII 2001c for an explanation of this approach.

    [3] ibid

    [4] We are not suggesting that LIIs should only provide essential legal information. They are likely to be involved in the provision of other types of secondary materials such as law journals, in the provision of 'plain English' guides to the law and in other approaches to improving public access to the law. These matters require different considerations from what is discussed in this paper.

    [5] See <http://www.austlii.edu.au/links/2172.html> for a global list

    [6] See <http://www.austlii.edu.au/links/2027.html> for a global list

    [7] See [AustLII 1997], [AustLII 2000d] and [AustLII 2001a] for more discussion.

    [8] See <http://www.justice.gov.hk/index.htm#>

    [9] ibid

    [10] This has not been implemented fully on HKLII at the time of writing, due to the need to modify mark-up scripts to deal with Ordinances. On the AustLII system, there are over 30M such within-system links.

    [11] See <http://barratry.law.cornell.edu/Summit/index.htm>

    [12] Tom Bruce 'WORLDLII: A sketch for a distributed search system' <http://barratry.law.cornell.edu/Summit/worldlii.htm>

    [13] See [AustLII 2001b] for a detailed description.

    [14] ibid