Opportunities and challenges to free access to law in a changing world: a case of Zimbabwe Legal Information Institute (ZimLII)

Abstract

The wave of free access to law movement hit Zimbabwe leading to the establishment of the Zimbabwe Legal Information Institute (ZimLII). This was started with the help of African Legal Information Institute (AfricanLII) which sourced funds to kick start the project and then held training workshops to equip the people who will be working with the administrator. There is a steering committee which comprises of academics, lawyers, publishers, information technologists and librarians from various organisations. This board is chaired by the Director of Legal Resources Foundation. This led to the creation of a website and content has been uploaded to populate the site. The website is up and running and an administrator was employed to oversee the day to day running of the website and its maintenance. This paper is an account of the opportunities and challenges that has been faced by the institute. The major challenge was the issue of sustainability in terms of non availability of funds to continuously support the project. The ZimLII project can be regarded as one of the successful initiative towards the availability of legal information to the general public since there are plans to make it a one stop shop for those looking for such information.