COURIER-MAIL: Download
Your Case! [Law via internet]
Wednesday, January 24, 1996
If the law won't come to the Internet, then it
seems the Internet is coming to the law. MICHAEL WARE
reports.
AN Internet star chamber is evolving in the United
States with cyber-magistrates about to oversee
virtual courtrooms.
"Will the defendant click here to plead not guilty
and download his defence?"
The virtual-courtroom move was announced last month
by a panel of legal and computer-science experts at
the Georgetown University Law School in Washington
state.
Tired of the legal quagmire which policing copyright,
trademark and censorship laws has become with the
Net, the board wants virtual magistrates to determine
Internet cases.
Given the international, freewheeling nature of the
Net, it has been impossible for conventional legal
frameworks to keep pace in cyberspace.
Conflicting legal standards, jurisdictional
discrepancies of unprecedented proportions and the
impossibility of preventing offences have forced the
hand of the Net guardians.
In many ways such a move is not surprising. The law
has had a cautious and somewhat tentative feel for
the Net and other emerging information technologies.
Old worlds colliding with the new.
Yet with a hiccupped, truncated kind of enthusiasm,
both the profession and the law are bracing
themselves to deliver.
Bill Bennett, editor of PC Magazine Australia,
recognises the difficulties with protecting legal
rights on the Net, but muses about the legal
profession's reticence in adopting new technologies.
"The crux of the matter (with the cyber courts) is
who gets chosen to be a virtual magistrate," he said.
"The concept in its purest form is great, but we all
know that trying to control the Internet is a
controversial issue.
"And with information, there are governments that
want to put things on-line, but there are companies
who make money from putting these things into other
forms.
"The real issue is not technology but money. The
legal profession has a real problem with using the
technology to make this information accessible
because I think they do not want to de-mystify the
law."
But not everyone in the profession has been slow to
make the change.
Within 30 minutes of the US Supreme Court handing
down a decision, it is available on the Net, and
lawyers armed with laptops and modems can cite the
authority immediately in court.
In Florida, the state legislature has set the pace
with "On-line Sunshine'', the government/legal site
to beat them all.
Florida's lawmakers produce up to 20 megabytes of
statutes a day during their annual 60-day sessions,
but it is all reproduced on the Net within days.
Members of the public can browse through and search
statutes, lobbyist information and calendars, all
with hyperlinks and all updated daily.
A measure of the interest the site has generated is
that 1451 people visited it every week in the first
five weeks.
Other well-established sites include the American
Civil Liberties Union and the US federal criminal
statutes.
The High Court of Australia recently allowed its
decisions to be posted on the Net. The move has been
ground-breaking considering the prevarication by
other superior courts in Australia.
One Queensland court is said to have been poised to
publish its decisions on-line for the past two years,
but has chosen not to.
Two sources for local legal information are the
Australian Legal Information Index and the
Australasian Legal Information Institute (but this
one can be quite slow).
The interesting thing about the Legal Information
Index is that it is the creation of an Australian
National University undergraduate, Dan Austin, who
must get very little study done, given the amount of
work required to maintain this site.
Butterworths, the legal publisher, also has an
excellent site with a wonderful collection of links,
including a list of all the government sites on the
Net. The tragedy was that Queensland was the only
state without any sites whatsoever -- but, as of last
Friday, there is now a Queensland Government home
page.
Searchable indices of federal and state legislation
are the most useful sites, but Queensland statutes
will not be found, due, it is said, to a jealous
guarding of copyright by the State Government.
Although very few Australian law firms are on the Net
(Butterworths' list of firms on the Net is seven
names long), some are eagerly embracing advances in
information technology.
Databases of statutory regimes and common-law
precedents have been developed, first as in-house
reference guides then as saleable products for major
clients.
Feez Ruthning offers its clients an environmental law
database replete with all the relevant obligations,
offences and penalties.
"There is no doubt this is a growth area," Feez
Ruthning executive director John Hall said. "Clients
will be better informed. They won't have to come to
us for everything.
"We see ourselves in the future having to target the
problem-solving side of the law, no longer the
day-to-day things. Databases like this will release
us from that.
"These, and greater electronic communication with
clients, colleagues and government, will make for a
much more effective profession; more timely, but much
more stressful."
Greater communication through e-mail, the Internet
and other networks will make clients the winners,
according to many.
"It comes down to better client service. Lawyers are
information dealers," Clayton Utz's Geoff Hartley
said.
"Information of itself is worth nothing; but the
right information at the right time is worth a great
deal. It is really about offering clients a faster
response because we have quick access to more
information."