JustCite expands into South Africa

July 20, 2012 - PRLog -- 20th July 2012

JustCite expands into South Africa

Justis Publishing now indexing South African judgments from SAFLII

Justis Publishing Ltd  is pleased to announce that its JustCite citator now indexes South African court judgments from The Southern African Legal Information Institute  (SAFLII).

JustCite is a provider-neutral online citator that indexes, and seamlessly links to, millions of full-text legal documents from over 100 legal databases across the world.

JustCite uses advanced search algorithms to help users find the most authoritative cases, and a sophisticated results ranking system that considers the legal relationship that cases have with one another. It also has a host of visual tools that make it easy to tell if a case is still “good law”.

Over 19,000 South African judgments from SAFLII have been indexed on JustCite, with the coverage from South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal and its Constitutional Court going back to 1984 and 1995, respectively.

Masoud Gerami, managing director of Justis Publishing, said: “I am delighted that we have included the index of the valuable South African judgments from SAFLII in this collection, which is another step in providing easy access to the highly inter-related laws of different countries.”

The laws and legal system of South Africa combine customary, common, and civil law legal systems and have been influenced by the British and Roman Dutch legal systems.

Roger Gachago, SAFLII’s CEO, said: “Globalisation is motivating the movement towards greater uniformity of laws and is promoting research and the comparison of laws across jurisdictions. SAFLII’s collaboration with Justis improves access to South African case law and will eventually extend the influence of its jurisprudence.”

The SAFLII initiative is the latest in a long string of multi-jurisdiction activities from Justis Publishing, which recently expanded its Australia and Singapore coverage on JustCite, and forms part of its drive to index a growing list of legal material from countries around the world. The news further consolidates JustCite’s position as the most far-reaching citator in the world.

Gerami added: “Justis Publishing is pursuing an initiative to bring together the most relevant and authoritative content from all common law jurisdictions, and make them available through the exciting and ground-breaking JustCite platform. I am confident that this addition will be of significant benefit to practitioners in South Africa and the wider common law community.”

Gachago added: “We are pleased that South African jurisprudence is now available to users of JustCite. South Africa has a strong legal tradition that will contribute to comparative legal studies and other research.

“While Legal Information Institutes around the world are motivated by principles of judicial accountability and the Rule of Law, it is evident that their collections also have commercial value. Collaborations of this nature enable for-profit publishers of legal materials to enhance and package free materials in ways that end up serving the objectives of both entities.”

For further information, please call + 44 (0)20 7267 8989 or email press@justis.com, or visit www.justcite.com.