Free Access to Law (Legal Information) is a Legal Right
Copyright © 2021 By Dr. Leesi Ebenezer Mitee, PhD in International Human Rights Law, Legal Information Technology (Legal Informatics), Indigenous Customary Law and Indigenous Rights
Chapter 4 of Developments in Human Rights Law and the Proposed Human Right of Free Access to Public Legal Information: The New Human Rights-Advocacy Approach and the Ten Criteria for the Formal Recognition of New Human Rights (Volume 1 of the New Human Right of Free Access to Public Legal Information Book Series) has six Sections.
Section 1 presents a brief background to the study, defines the aim of the research, and summarises its contribution to scholarly literature.
Section 2 develops the contextual framework for examining the existence of the right of free access to public legal information.
Section 3 examines the existence of the right of free access to public legal information under the general right of free access to public (government-held) information.
Sections 4 discusses the statutory traditional requirement to publish public legal information with basic accessibility and the statutory modern requirement to publish it with technologically enhanced accessibility.
Section 5 identifies governments and lawmaking intergovernmental organisations as the duty-bearers that have the exclusive legal obligation to provide free adequate access to all categories of their public legal information and discusses the judicial recognition and enforcement of the right-holders’ legal entitlement to that provision.
Section 6 outlines the major findings of the study and concludes that free access to public legal information exists as a legal right and notes its inadequate legal framework. It proposes a comprehensive definition of the right and makes far-reaching law-reform and policy-relevant recommendations for the proper international human rights legal framework for its protection, promotion, and actualisation to enhance national and global free access to all categories of public legal information. The Section ends with a note on the indispensability and universal relevance of the right of free access to public legal information.
Dr. Leesi Ebenezer Mitee is the Founder and Director of the Human Right of Free Access to Law Advocacy (HURIFALA). He holds a multidisciplinary PhD in international human rights law, legal information technology (legal informatics), indigenous customary law and indigenous rights.
He is an Associate Professor of Law and a former legal research national consultant to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on the 1998 PCASED project that provided the juridical foundations for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) 1998 Moratorium which culminated in a regional multilateral treaty: ECOWAS Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons, their Ammunition and other Related Matters 2006.
Dr. Mitee’s legal innovations include:
➤ pioneered the global advocacy of the recognition of the right of free access to public legal information as a substantive human right in 2017;
➤ devised the <.officiallaws) official public legal information generic top-level domain (gTLD) system for easy identification of the reliable versions of the laws published online worldwide;
➤ developed the system of nationally networked one-stop official public legal information websites (NOPLIW system) for optimal findability and management of online law databases;
➤ invented the human rights-based public access-adequate huricompatisation model of ascertainment of indigenous customary law; and
➤ formulated the new human rights-advocacy approach (NHRAA) that consists of ten criteria for the recognition of new human rights.
His upcoming New Human Right of Free Access to Public Legal Information Book Series consists of 22 modern academic article-style independent but interconnected chapters of four books:
➤ Developments in Human Rights Law and the New Human Right of Free Access to Public Legal Information: The New Human Rights-Advocacy Approach and the Ten Criteria for the Formal Recognition of New Human Rights (Volume 1) — ISBN 9789083108520 (eBook) 9789083108506 (paperback);
➤ The New Human Rights-Based Huricompatisation Model of Ascertainment of Indigenous Customary Law: Strategies for Adequate Local and Global Public Access (Volume 2) — ISBN 9789083108568 (eBook) 9789083108544 (paperback);
➤ Innovative Technological Mechanisms for Adequate Web-Based Access to National and Global Public Legal Information (Volume 3) — ISBN 9789083108513 (eBook) 9789083108582 (paperback); and
➤ A Model Empirical Study of the Current State of Governmental Provision of Free Access to Nigerian Public Legal Information (Volume 4) — ISBN 9789083108551 (eBook) 9789083108537 (paperback).
Email: info@hurifala.org
Website: https://hurifala.org