Primary legal information

Abstract

Numerous writers have noted the seemingly exponential growth of primary legal materials - that is, case reports, legislation and other materials (Statutory Instruments, for example, in the UK and European Directives throughout Europe) which the lawyer might have to access. In the common law systems, where every judgment might potentially become a precedent, the situation was worse than in the civil law countries where case law did not impinge so much upon the development of law. However, with the arrival of the European Union and its strong legislative programme, the civil law countries in Europe are now under considerable information pressure too. And, given the ease of communication between the legal systems there is evidence of cross-fertilisation between them, with foreign cases being cited more frequently than in the past.¹

Article Footnote

European harmonisation has certainly had an effect upon this - however, language has affected the ease of access, with judges being aware of cases from other jurisdictions being of potential interest but being unable to read these in detail. This is certainly the case in patent litigation where no common appellate system is available to the litigants.