Hong Kong moves towards open access to authenticated legal information

Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region)’s legal system has retained its common law system developed during its colonial days under UK rule. The combination of legislative law and judge made law has been made available online in various commercial, academic and government sources. Government sources though to date for legislation are not “official” but recent developments by the Department of Justice aim to address this issue and this paper will outline the various Government sources of Hong Kong law online and this new development towards authentication of online legislation. Part I outlines the bilingual legal system of Hong Kong and its sources of law. Part II describes the various sources in which legislation and court judgments are available. Part III discusses the recent Government initiative in moving towards digital authentication.