The Napoleonic dream of fitting the law of the land into one’s pocket comes closer _ but slowly. It is not a question of simplifying the law into one paper book as Napoleon wanted; rather a question of packing the ever-expanding amount of law into an ever smaller electronic space. Recent developments include: The joint publication last week of a CD by the Law Book Company and Aunty Abha of the Commonwealth Acts, Regulations and annotations and NSW Acts and regulations. A new CD by CCH Australia of its 30,000-page Tax Library. It includes all the tax legislation, rulings and explanations. Continuing improvements of case law and statute law by Computer Law Services (DiskROM Australia Ph 2496888) and a continuing push into government departments with its complete consolidation of Commonwealth law and some states’ law.
A promise by the Attorney-General’s Department to get its consolidation of Commonwealth and some states’ law on CD and available to the public in Apple and Windows formats. The Attorney-General, Michael Lavarch, has promised last year that his department would produce the laws of the Commonwealth consolidated in user-friendly electronic format for public access a very low prices. He said that regulations not available electronically would not be enforceable. The promise is taking a lot of time and a lot of money _ to do what the commercial firms say they have already done. Perhaps the Expenditure Review Committee should have a look at this one. The Attorney-General’s Department says it has completed the consolidation of the legislation and regulations on an electronic database.
Consolidation is when all amendments are incorporated into an Act so it reads as a coherent entity. It is a very time consuming task. Tax, trade practices, corporations and bankruptcy, for example, are immensely complex and have thousands of amendments. The Attorney-General’s Department’s database, called Scale, is available to subscribers via modem only at up to $125 an hour and in a user-hostile form. It requires keyboard commands for everything _ 1980s style. The public can get the first 30 pages free from AGPS bookshops. Attorney-General’s says it will have Scale Mark II out by the end of the year. It has called for tenders and is down to a shortlist. This will be in Windows and Mac format via modem and CD and will include some state law, ACT law and federal case law. The commercial firms say the department is wasting its time and money. Their product is ready now. They say that the department has wasted nearly $1 million and will waste perhaps as much as that again doing something that is available commercially now for a few thousand dollars a year or less.
Attorney-General’s argues for the need for an “”official” version and says that modem is superior to CD because it is up to date immediately. At least one commercial company says its consolidation is superior to the official one and that it frequently points out errors in the official version. Others say that there is at least a month between the passing and gazetting of all federal legislation so monthly CD updates that flag new law will not ever be out of date. The AG’s product is expected to be heavily subsidised because the Government thinks it is a core function of government to produce the law.
The CD version is expected to cost much more than an audio CD. But it is a long time coming and there is trouble with negotiations with the states for state case and statute law. In the meantime the commercials are lifting their game, offering more information, with increasingly smarter software at lower and lower prices. Aunty Abha’s CD version (Commonwealth and NSW statute law and annotations only) uses the Scale database, but puts it in software called Folio Views. This enables the novice user to navigate around the thousands of federal Acts with astonishing speed and accuracy. You can search in a conventional “”paper” way through an alphabetical list of Acts, or search for text strings using “”and”, “”or” and other Boolean operators. The beauty of Folio Views is that it enables clicking back to the tables of provisions or from one electronic bookmark to another, in a way not possible by modem. It also allows highlighter that gives highlighted text a yellow background, allows hidden notes to be added and allows clicking back through the search. I found it intuitive, easy and fast. The price is $195 for either the NSW or Commonwealth database or $395 for an annual subscription with quarterly updates. There are various network combinations. The CD has electronic locking to prevent piracy. Giving away the old CDs will only enable the new user to access the demo database and will require payment to get an unlocking code. (Ph 02 2614288) Disk-ROM is developing links between statute law and case law. It is ideal for lawyers wondering whether a particular section has been referred to in the cases.
Disk-ROM has created its own consolidation and updates monthly, enabling it to capture Acts that have been passed but not gazetted so it is always up to date. However, no-one knows when a court will dump a judgment _ so modem is the only way to go. However, Scale can only give next-day service for High Court judgments; the rest are weeks behind. Info-One (1800 023936) announced this month that it would upgrade its modem access at 9600 baud (Scale is still at 2400!). CCH (02 857-1315) will update its tax CD of about 30,000 pages of law, rulings and commentary monthly. In summary, there are plenty of choices. DiskROM appears to be the go for lawyers and legal commentators. Aunty Abha appears to be the go for industry and industry associations who want easy and cheap reference to statute law. CCH is for accountants and tax specialists. Scale is too hard to use and too expensive as a primary legal source but a useful backup for ACT law and the latest High Court case. In short, despite the technology being there we are still some way of a comprehensive pack of six or seven updateable CDs with all federal and state statute and case law on it with user-friendly software to navigate it or a user-friendly modem access to a comprehensive constantly-updated Australian legal database. In the meantime ignorance of the law will be no excuse.