British and Irish Legal Information Institute

The British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII, pronounced like "Bailey") provides legal information, and especially reports of cases decided by courts, in the United Kingdom generally. Decisions from England and Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, the European Union, and from the European Court of Human Rights are put online. It is an on-line database of British and Irish legislation, case law, law reform reports, treaties and some legal scholarship.^[1][2]

Background

Traditionally, legal information was accessible through a law report, usually written by private individuals or groups. While court judgments have had official reports more recently, historically a court judgment would simply be spoken, and so publication of the precedents built up depended on their record by interested third parties. The Year Books, which recorded judgments from 1268 to 1535, were probably compiled by law students. Other people, like the judge Sir Edward Coke from 1572 to 1615, then created their own series of reports. These would not necessarily be an accurate record of what was said. What was recorded might have been selective, or inaccurate. As the reporting industry developed, more people became involved and specialised in particular areas of law. The Incorporated Council of Law Reporting was created in 1885, and released copies of various cases. There still could be gaps in reporting however. With the advent of the internet, it was possible to access multiple databases for a fee online, particularly Westlaw or Lexis. However a freely available source had not yet been made.

Bailii was set up after a long and hard campaign by barrister Laurie West-Knights QC, Lord Saville and Lord Justice Brooke, who were concerned about the lack of availability of court judgments to ordinary court users and were inspired by the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) LII.^[3] The aim was to provide free access to publicly available legal information.^[1] In 2006, BAILII included 5 jurisdiction's fourteen databases.^[4] The BAILII website is jointly hosted by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London and the University College Cork's Law school^[1]

Case citations

Bailii created a "neutral citation" method, which was quickly adopted as a standard for citation of cases. The different series of cases that Bailii produces are as follows.

See also

• Free Access to Law Movement
• AustLII
• Case citation
• Template:Cite BAILII, for the Wikipedia citation template

Notes

External links

• www.bailii.org