Kenya Law has developed and continues to curate the largest collection of national caselaw in Africa. The official law reporter of the Kenyan government plays a critical role in the organisation, management and dissemination of Kenya’s primary legal materials: legislation and case law. This aids the public, the legal profession and Government, and supports an effective justice sector.

Kenya Law has partnered with the African Legal Information Institute, Laws. Africa NPO and Netrix Business Solutions Ltd. to develop a new web-based software platform to modernise and improve the management of their case law database. The system will support the most effective reporting of case law through the Kenya Law Reports. It will also enable Kenya Law to deliver additional products and value to their users, provide insight into the business processes around case law reporting, and report on developments in Kenyan jurisprudence.

To support these requirements, Kenya Law has identified the need to capture and manage rich, structured data and metadata for Kenyan case law. The new software platform will enable and assist the reporter in capturing, structuring, researching, analysing and publishing this data and its derivative products. Caselaw will be captured and made available in an Akoma Ntoso XML format, which will support Kenya Law in treating the case law database not just as a collection of case reports, but as a valuable, rich, structured dataset of Kenyan jurisprudence that enables the creation of new value-adds for Kenya Law and its stakeholders.

The project will run over the course of two years, from 2020 to 2022.

The National Council for Law Reporting (Kenya Law) www.kenyalaw.org is a service state corporation established by law to prepare and publish Kenya’s official law reports which contain judgments, rulings and opinions of the superior courts of record. Kenya Law has also been mandated to revise, update and consolidate the Laws of Kenya which currently consists of 503 individual statutes running into over 35,000 pages of legal text. Kenya Law has established itself as Kenya’s focal point institution for preparing and disseminating Kenya’s public legal information.

The African Legal Information Institute (AfricanLII) www.africanlii.org was established in 2010 and is a programme of the Democratic Governance and Rights Unit at the Department of Public Law, University of Cape Town. AfricanLII capacitates individuals, organizations, and governments to build and maintain sustainable free access to law portals, and reach the people of Africa and beyond. It offers software solutions, project management advice, know-how, and university-certified courses in legal information systems development and management. AfricanLII convenes a network of 16 African LIIs (https://www.openlawafrica.org/ ) - a collaborative group of organizations and individuals in Africa, dedicated to free access to the law on our continent. The AfricanLII website also provides a Pan-African legal search engine and hosts African regional legal materials for free access.

Laws.Africa www.laws.africa is a South African non-profit organization, which digitizes African law for public use. Laws.Africa created and supports a machine-friendly, openly licensed African legislation commons (https://laws.africa/commons). Laws.Africa also develops and maintains the largest open-source implementation of the Akoma Ntoso XML standard in Africa through the Indigo Legislation Platform. Laws.Africa is an integral technology partner of AfricanLII.

Netrix Business Systems Ltd. (Netrix) is an ICT firm based in Nairobi, Kenya. The company was established in 2008 and registered as a limited company in 2010. Netrix’s core business is the design and development of web-based computer systems, mobile solutions and general software solutions. Amongst the offerings is also Cloud hosting and Services, website design-development and hosting., system integration services, Emerging Technologies and Consultancy. Netrix is a professionally managed software development company servicing clients all over East Africa. It approaches its services with a clear goal to offer quality services to its clients. Total customer satisfaction is Netrix’s Quality Policy, as they work to efficiently and effectively apply their documented quality standards.

Contacts for further information:

Long’et Terer, Kenya Law: lterer@kenyalaw.org

Mariya Badeva-Bright, AfricanLII: mariyab@africanlii.org

Greg Kempe, Laws.Africa: greg@laws.africa

Jesse Ndegwa, Netrix: ndegwa@netrixbiz.co.ke