Judge says user pays blocks progress

By Chris Barton

The "user pays culture" is blocking the way to free information on the internet about New Zealand law and the work of the courts.

District Court Judge David Harvey delivered a paper yesterday to the Computerisation of Law via the Internet conference in Sydney.

It said the user pays mentality was "an impediment to getting decisions of New Zealand courts available online."

Most legal information internet sites in New Zealand charged for access to their databases and some efforts to provide free public services had failed.

Judge Harvey lamented, too, the slow progress by the Parliamentary Counsel Office in making legislation freely available online. Australia and Britain were much further advanced.

"It must be a matter of concern that there should be any question that internet access to legislation should be other than free. While other countries move ahead, New Zealand still debates public free access to legal information."

Judge Harvey argued the user pays malaise and the lack of Government leadership on IT issues affected the development of the so-called knowledge economy.

He referred also to Telecom's June directive that all internet service providers must change to new phone numbers and to its potential impact on the free local calling provisions of the Kiwi Share.

But Judge Harvey did praise as "a significant and laudable step" the Department for Courts' announcement that Court of Appeal judgments were going online.

Ironically, this progress came through the generosity of Australian state and federal funding. The judgments are available free at www.austlii.edu.au. The site is run by the Australasian Legal Information Institute.