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Finding legal information on the Internet can be frustrating and time-consuming, even for the keenest net surfer. But with the help of LawLinks, an on-line index to legal web-sites developed by the Law Reform Commission of Hong Kong, the information you want may be just a few mouse clicks away.
LawLinks is a sort of 'one-stop shop' for finding legal resources on the net, and contains links to around 1 000 useful web-sites from all over the world, Michelle Ainsworth, Deputy Secretary, Law Reform Commission (LRC) said today (January 28).
"We originally created LawLinks as an internal efficiency tool to help lawyers unfamiliar with on-line research to get 'up and running' quickly on the Internet. Although it contains an enormous number of links, it is actually very easy to use because the links are all arranged behind a simple, one-page main-menu screen of law-related topics. You simply click on the topic that you are interested in (eg, 'Cases' or 'Human Rights'), and a list of relevant, pre-searched web-sites appears," Ms Ainsworth, who was behind the design and development of the LawLinks index and the LRC's homepage, said.
"We received such positive feedback on LawLinks internally, particularly on how user-friendly it was, that we decided to make it publicly available on the LRC Homepage at www.info.gov.hk/hkreform, so that anyone looking for legal information could make use of it," Ms Ainsworth said.
We believe that LawLinks will be helpful not only to judges, legal practitioners, legal academics and law students, but also to journalists and other members of the public looking for information on particular areas of the law, she said.
LawLinks contains connections to a wide range of law-related subjects. It can be used to access information all over the world on legislation, case-law, legal publications, legal institutions and professional organisations, governments, universities and academic libraries, as well as information on many specialist legal subjects. There are also links to web-sites of more general interest, such as newspaper and magazine sites, television and radio sites, and a very popular link to sites on lawyers' jokes.
The LRC Homepage, apart from hosting LawLinks, contains extensive information about the Commission and its activities. Through its 'Reports and Papers' section, users can download copies of the LRC's latest reports and consultation papers which are published on the Homepage simultaneously with the release of the hard-copy publications.
The Commission also plans to make available on its Homepage, in both English and Chinese, every report that the Commission has published since its establishment in 1980.
"This is actually quite a large project, as many of our earlier reports were prepared in English only so must be translated into Chinese. It is important that we do this though, as our reports are sometimes used by the courts as an aid to interpreting legislation which has resulted from LRC recommendations," Ms Ainsworth said.
"Once this project is complete, the Law Reform Commission of Hong Kong will be one of the only law reform agencies in the world to have all of its reports available on-line," she noted.
End/Sunday, January 28, 2001
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