The Walk to Freedom – Slaw

" ... Back to our turf, in 2002 at the Law via the Internet conference in Montreal the LII movement adopted the Montreal Declaration on Free Access to Law. Even though it had started in the mid-nineties, free online law still generated a lot of amazement (with a mix of reasonable skepticism): All cases from all courts and tribunals would be searchable online without a fee? With judicial history and noteup features? With hyperlinks on parallel citations? Statutes with point-in-time capabilities? Really? Wow! Today in Canada free access to law is a commodity (no more 'wow!') and it is a great thing that lawyers only think of the importance of free law on the rare occasions when the CanLII site blinks. A dozen tweets and a couple of seconds later everything is back to normal. All this means that the walk to freeing the law has successfully reached its destination. But there is more to come. This introduction resembles a Georgian toast. And as such, it’s followed by an invitation to join the free access to law artisans at the 2014 Law via the internet conference. The 21 topics ranging from open data platforms and emerging trends of access to legal information to transforming legal process through technology show that there is a lot going on in the field of access to legal information in both developing and developed countries. This will be the second time that the Law via the internet conference visits South Africa ..."