_ Technology Review

Hon g Kon g is slowly beginning to wake-u p to the electronicage in law - [ill Cottrell takes a loo k at the va rious electroniclegal reso urces currentl y available to the practit ioner

The Computer andHong Kong Legal Research

Material Paper veraion CD On -Iine

Htm: K."I Cu, s Hong Kong Cut10 LLXIS

Rrportu/ j uJp"'uHong Kon: LAg· R,p orU

Hong Kong Law Reports and Diges t,,,,,J OigtJtj

Hong Ko,,: Publir LIU' R'1'0rrs \'oh 5, 6. 7 on Hong Kong Cases CD Voh 5. 6. i on LE.XIS

Case diges tsHtm: Kong LtN'

Hong Kong Law .Reports and Digtu/Rrporrs a"d! OigtSI

CFA judgments a l

Unrepo rted judgmC'nuIndi vidual judgme nu availab le

1996·98 Hong Kong Caus<hnp:IIv.v.'Vo'.info.gov.hkljudl

in some pl aces guidt2u/html/cfaJjudmtl indn. .him >

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appl icablein Hong Kong

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uu-sofHong Kon: LooultafBUS veraio n included in Ann ot ated

BUS alO rdi nances o f Hong Kong aJ at fixed

Ordinances Editionda re (revised Qu artC'rly)

< http ://,,,~w.j us t i cC' .go,,·. hkl>

A""otau a Or,{iwmu s of1I0nK KO" KAn not ated Ordinances o f H on g Kong LEXIS

(so me o nly to da te]

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Gautu Supp/~" "nt No 1An no rared Ord inancn of Hon g Kon gas at fixed da re(revi sed Quan u lr)

Sub sidi ary,' legisl ationl A W S ofHong Kong LDDs~/~af BUS atEdition < h l1 p:II",~,,,, . j un ic C'.gov.hkJ>

Annotau J Orai"ancnAnn ot ated O rdi na nces o f Ho ng Kon g LEXlS

of Ho", Kong (so me)

Bills GazLtft' Supplnn~n t No J <hu p:ll lC'gco' (l:0 v.hkJ,·r9S· 99/C'ng lish/bi lls/bi lls.htm >

• Use boolean searching, specifyingthat you want items where certainwords OR others appea r, or certainwords AI 0 othe rs . Sometimesyou can specify how near.

• Use a ' wild ca rd ' sea rch wh ere asy mbol suc h as * or ! sub st itutesfo r o ne o r more lette rs in themiddle of or at the end of words.For example - of both these ­I have tried libel or slander ordefam " and ridicu l" wh ich meant Iwanted every case in wh ich thereoccur red eithe r libel or slander orso me variant of defam ation (sodefam e or defam atory as well asd e fam ati on ) and ridi cu le (orridiculing or ridi cu lous). .

these two publicat ions merged ). Thepubl ishe rs p romise that before longthey will be issu ing quarterly looseleafupdates of the Consolidated Index of AllHong Kong Reported Decisions, wh ichis good new s.

So h ow mu ch b ett er is thesituation taking into account electronicresources? We do not have one grandall -in -one CD, but we do have thewhole of Hong Kong Cases, most of theHong Kong Public Law Reports plu s, atthe time of w riting, 156-! unreportedjudg ments on one CD, and all the HongKOllg Law Reports plus the wh ole ofthe HOIlS KO/IS Law Digest on another.We can if we wish use the ind exingskill of other , for a search for aconcept will turn up the catch wordsa t the to p of a reported cas e or ina di ges t, bu t we ca n also u e ou rown ingenuity to look for conjunctionso f word s in th e full text. We cane ve n ca p i tal is e o n th ose h alf ­remembered things like ' I am surethere is a relevant case in wh ichHu n te r J said so m eth ing abouteconomic loss.'

This is not the place to give detailedsugges tions for searching. It is wor thspe nding a little time un derstandingthe possibilities which each tool offers.You will probably be able to do mostof the followin g:

locate the relevant developments, inwhich case I am less depend ent up onothers' indexin g . But the 'Table ofDecisions Referred To' in Volume 1 ofConsoiidated Index of All HOllg KtmgReported Decisions cu rrently coverso n ly to th e end o f 1995, leavi ngupdating to be done by reference tomore bound vo lumes , incl ud ing these parate Htlllg KOllg Law Reports andHOllg KtJ/!g Law Digest for 1996, before

Kong Law Reports and Digest, followedby the cumu lative index in the mostrecent monthlv is ue of the combinedHKLRD. I am dependent u pon thequali ty of the ind ex compiled by

o m eo n e else w he n u s in g thisapproach (I may feel th at pursuingcitati ons of a particular case will bes t

Using paper reso urces, I shall have tolook up a topic in the Subject Index inVolume 2 of Consolidated Index t~f AllHong Kong Reported Decisions whic htakes me up to the end of 1997 only.Then I sha ll have to look at the boundvolum es of HOllg Ktlllg Cases since thenindivid uall y beca use th er e is nocomple te ind ex for each yea r, andindividual issues since the last boundvolume. Then the volumes of the HOllg

The electronic age in law dawnedrather late in Hon g Kon g, and i

still less advanced than in ome otherjur isdi ctio ns . Basically we now haveavai lable to us (assu ming in so mecases that we have the requisi te de pthof pocket) th e following ca e andtatutory material (see table below):

HONG KONG LAWYER FEB1999

_ Technology Review

• Specify a precise phra e rather thansepara te word s.

• Ind icate that you want to be 'casespecific' - you wa nt Hunter andnot hunter.

Different databa se and so ftwa reap proach th ese things in d iffer entways. The Hong Kong Cases sof twa re(Folio Vie ws) a llows yo u to put aspe cific phrase in qu ot ati on marks.The Hong Kong Law Reports andDiges t allows yo u to choose 'exactentry'. Often (for example Hong KongCa es on CD or BUS) ther e may bedifferent wa ys of searching the sa meda tabase, some whi ch permi t a searchof th e whol e text and so me whic hinvolve effect ive ly comple ting a formsea rch ing s pecific e leme nt , uchas case nam e s, ju dge 's n am es ,catchwords etc. Som etime yo u maynarrow yo u r search in ter ms of tim e(as in the Hong Kong Law Reportsand Digest ).

Each CD seems to have its ownid ios y n c ras ies, not to m enti onirrita tions. I find it an irrit an t th atHong Kong Cases tells me it has founda number of hi ts, wh en this mean s notcases but word occurrences (far more).Apparently an updated ver sion of theu nd e rly in g software wi ll soo nimp ro ve th is situa tion (if you nowpe rf o rm yo u r s e a rc h fro m th e'Contents' page you will more quicklysee ho w ma n y act ua l ca ses areinvolved, es pe cially if you click on'3' as the lev el of expans ion of th eda tabase). The HKLRD is clear er inthis respect, but the three stage processrequ ired to ge t to the fu ll text of areported case is a little tedi ous (enteryour sea rch word s, click 'Sea rch', seea se ries of brief su m maries, click onone th at seems rel evant , ge t th ehead note, click on ' Full' button for thefu ll report). e ithe r of th e COs o fHong Kong case law is as satisfactoryas so me o f the o the rs now beingprod uced, such as the Electro nic LawReports (the Incorporated Co uncil ofLaw Rep orting reports since 1865) or

HONG KONG LAWYER FEB1999

the ne w English Re ports o n CD .But they a re an inva lua b le toolfor research. No t for re ad ing th ecases: the id eal is defin itely to hav eboth the paper and the CD versions sothat yo u can ide ntify cases using theCD, but actually read them in pap erformat.

The An no ta ted Ord ina nces onCD is basically ident ical w ith th eprinted version. This mea ns that thequality of the annotations, and of theindexes, is that wit h which you mayal rea dy be famil iar , and in terms ofbeing up to date the product is inferiorto BUS (BUS is cons tan tly updatedwhereas the CD is onl y issued th reetimes a year). It might be sensible tothink in term of the CD version ratherthan the paper version. It is d ividedinto two ' infobase ' , One con tains thetext of the statu tes and the annotations,and th e o ther is ca lle d th e FinderIndex. The latt er includes the variousindexes yo u will find in the paperversion.

I imagine that few peopl e in HongKong will wa nt to make mu ch use ofHon g Kong mater ial on LEXIS. LEXISse ar ch ing is so phis tica ted, bu t it isexpe ns ive. Ther e is a one-o ff searchfacility under whi ch the search is do nefor yo u rat her tha n the usu al d o-i t­yourself approach, but for us in HongKon g it wou ld mea n mi d n ig h t

sea rching since the se rvice works USEastern Stand ard time (thoug h ther eis a vo ice mail service, too ) - see<h t t p :/ / ww w .l e x is-n e xi s .com /express / >.

Unlike the COs and LEXIS, BU Sis free - and lon g may it remain so .I t is t h e mai n it e m und e r th eDepar tm ent of Ju sti ce Web s ite a t<http:// www.info.gov.hk/ justice / >.A useful gu ide is provided, but in caseyou wo uld like a quick start here are afew tip s. If yOll know the number ofthe Ord ina nce yo u want yo u maysimply fill in its number in the Cha pterro w box (cl ic k on th e 0 next toOrd inances and Subsid iary Legislationif you wan t bo th) and click the 'View

No w' button. You wi ll see a list ofOrd inan ces beginning approximatelywith the one yo u w ant. Th is workses pec ially badly towards the end ofthe list. I want ed a list of all ' nationallaws' but was qui te un able to prod uceanyth ing by typing 1553 (the BasicLaw ) in the box. Even typing 1000 didnot work. Wh en I (in d esp er at ion )typed 545 the lis t of laws began withone over 1000! Eventually, by clickingrep eated ly on ' Next List' , I go t to thenational laws.

Click on the blu e arrow po intingto the Ordinance you want. If you haveclic ked Ordinances and Su bsid iar yLegisla tion you will now see a lis t oft i t le of th at Ordina nce an d itsSub idiary Legi lation . Click on theblue arrow next to the one you want ,an d you will see a lis t of se ctions /regu lations.

If you want to search for a phrasein enactrnen ts, decid e firs t whetheryou w ant 'ordinances, su bs id ia rylegi lation or both - and don' t forgetto click on 'View ow'. Then you mayclick on 'Simple Search' or'Ad vancedSearch' . The re a re va rious differen tkinds of the latt er: Search for seciionts)or cnactmentts) is flexibl e and usefulfor findin g the text of a specific sectionin a spe cific enactment if you knowwhat yo u ar e looking for. Search foruiordts) provides a form for booleansea rc hes . Searc h for toordi s) ill

definitionts) is a goo d wa y to find ou twhet her a particular term has beendefined in ano the r Ordinan ce - thefirst time Hon g Kon g has had wordsand phrases statu torily defined! otethat it find s not on ly words actua llyd e fin e d but a l l word s u sed indefiniti ons.

It is perhaps wo rth mentioning thatas well as Bills, w h ich ar e rea di lyav a ilable in pape r fo rm , you migh tfind it use ful to loca te th e LegCod iscussion of a Bill, es pec ially sinceHan sard is rat her slo w appeari ngthese da ys. You ca n find LegCo at<h tt p:// ww w.legco.gov.hk />. Andyou may be lucky eno ugh to find not ~

_ TechnologyReview

only H a ns a rd , in its fi nal or aprelimina ry ver ion, bu t even th emin utes of a Bills Com mittee.

If yo u d eal regul arl y w ith apartic u lar govern me nt dep artmentyo u may already be familia r wi th itswebsite. As a ample I have found thefollowing which might be u eful to apractitioner:

<http:/ / www.wb.wpelb.gov.hk /circular / > - Planning Environmentand Lands: among the documentsthere I found ' P roce d u re s forEnvironmental Impact Asse sment ofDevelopment Projects and Proposals'.

<http:// w w w .info.gov.hk/ cr/ >- Cornpanie Registry: you may haveaccess to (and pay for ) a commercialervice for earching the registry.

At the Land Registry, you willfind , in ter alia, The Direct AccessService (DAS), described a an 'on-

line search facilitv which enablessu bscribers to use computer terminalsat their own office, to make di rect on­line sea rches of compu terized lan dregisters; to place order for copi es ofland re cords; to pl ac e orde rs fo rcertified copies of land record ; and tocollect imaged copies of land recordsby fax' (go to <http:/ / www.info.gov.hk / landreg / service.htm#dir».

The Securities and FuturesCommission a t <http:/ / www.hksfc.org.hk / eng / index.ht m> has lists oflicensed schemes and persons undervarious ordinances , and copies of itsCodes and Guidelines.

There is a good way to go beforelegal practice in Hong Kong is reallyrevolutionised by electronic means. Inother jurisdictions you may find all ormost d eci s ions available on theInt ernet ; we have only the Court of

Final Appeal. On the other hand, thesearching facilities for BUS are bettertha n on ma ny In te rn et leg islationservices, and it is amazi ngly up to date(to the day before I am w riting this).The size of the Hon g Kon g marketmay dictate that we shall never haveava ilable some of the facilities onefin d elsewhere : e-rn a i l curre n tawareness services , electron icnewsletters and the like.

I have concentrated on Hong Kongresources, though it is arguable that(BLlS asi de) the m a in value ofelectronic resources, especially of theInternet, is likely to be the facility tofind things out from outside HongKong .

fill CottrellSenior Lecturer

llllil'l'rsity of HOlIg KOlIg

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