Summary

Building on expertise and software developed by LexUM at the University of Montréal, JuriBurkina is a searchable French-language database that makes available to anyone with Internet access, a repository of Burkina Faso’s jurisprudence and legislation. This project involves the support, collaboration and partnership of the Burkina Faso Bar Association, the General Secretariat of the Government of Burkina Faso and the information and communications technology (ICT) company ZCP Informatique. JuriBurkina is the first Internet-based legal information centre in West Africa.

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) operating system, web server and database software are deployed for the infrastructure setup. Specialized FOSS process automation tools for JuriBurkina's day-to-day publishing operations are provided by LexUM; these include LexEDO, a legal publishing platform; Polyglotte, an automated document converter; and NOME, an anonymization tool for court decisions. FOSS was chosen for the development and deployment as costs had to be kept affordable and source code availability was needed to ensure that local ICT experts can take over and fully maintain and support the system once it became operational.

The deployment of JuriBurkina gives the local people easy and ready access to the legal documents of their country as well as the technology and tools for legal publishing. This will, in turn, have an impact in producing greater transparency of the local judicial system and lead to better governance in the public institutions of Burkina Faso.

JuriBurkina is fully operational for over two years and is managed, operated and supported by the local Bar Association. This deployment represents the initial effort in the creation of a regional legal information network comprising Burkina Faso and two other countries, Niger and Senegal.

Background of Organization

LexUM is the University of Montréal's justice system technologies laboratory. The team consists of over 20 legal and computer science professionals who are assisted by as many university students. It is involved in the use of technology to improve access to law and justice and has collaborated with a large number of courts, governmental organizations, legal professional associations, universities and international organizations in Canada and internationally. LexUM's expertise covers various aspects of the application of ICT to law:

• developing technologies for free access to law
• designing judiciary information management systems
• conceiving technical and documentary standards for the legal community
• assisting international development with the use of legal information technologies
• developing strategies for mastering technologies in the legal domain

Being a strong promoter of free access to law on an international level, LexUM works mainly in countries that are looking at utilizing legal information technologies to uphold democracy and ensure better governance of their institutions. LexUM has conceived and currently manages many international development projects involving the use of legal information technologies.

Objectives of Project

The main objectives of the JuriBurkina project are to:

• Create a free and open Internet resource giving access to the jurisprudence and legislation from Burkina Faso.
• Improve access to legal information in Burkina Faso for the benefit of the legal profession and the public.
• Promote greater transparency of the judicial system.
• Create an educational resource for the legal profession and a self-sustainable local legal publishing organization.
• Transfer knowledge and build local capacity in legal technologies and legal web content publishing and management.
• Help Burkina Faso join the global network of Legal Information Institutes.
• Pave the way for the expansion of the project from a local resource to a regional network.
• Create and test a FOSS publishing platform.

The main outcome of this project is the availability of a free and open Internet website housing the jurisprudence and legislation of the country.

The primary groups in Burkina Faso targeted by this project are the legal profession, judiciary, local authorities, academics and the public. Other parties like businesses and organizations abroad interested in understanding the legal system of Burkina Faso will also find JuriBurkina useful.

Support and assistance from the government, judiciary, legal profession and private sector of Burkina Faso have made JuriBurkina possible. The key partners involved in this project are LexUM, the Burkina Faso Bar Association, the General Secretariat of the Government of Burkina Faso and the local ICT company, ZCP Informatique.

FOSS Application

Description

FOSS is deployed for the infrastructure setup as well as for the publishing activities.

The software used for the infrastructure include Red Hat Linux Enterprise Server for the server operating environment, Apache web server and PostgreSQL for the database.

Specialized process automation tools for JuriBurkina's day-to-day publishing operations and to increase their efficiency were provided by LexUM. These include:

• LexEDO - a web legal publishing platform designed to create and support websites for the dissemination of legal documents.
• Polyglotte – a client-server document conversion system based around common word processors, meant to be used by people who have large distributed document repositories and need to be able to convert those documents to HTML and PDF.
• NOME - a software application that assists editors in the anonymization process of court decisions, which consist in removing personal data from documents in order to protect privacy.

Choice of FOSS

Burkina Faso does not have advanced telecommunications and ICT infrastructure. In view of this, a fairly lightweight software implementation was sought. Towards this end, a FOSS solution was found to be ideal as FOSS Internet and web solutions do not require too much hardware and Internet resources.

Furthermore, with FOSS, the development and ongoing operation costs could be kept affordable. The availability of the source code for the legal publishing and management tools from LexUM meant that the local ICT professionals could learn to operate and adapt the entire system. This allowed the local experts to take over and fully maintain and support the system once it becomes operational. A FOSS solution also allows easy customization, better security, avoidance of lock-ins and ease of use.

Development and Implementation

LexUM provided the technology and software, as well as its expertise in legal publishing and guided the local partners accordingly during the implementation.

The JuriBurkina website makes use of LexEDO as its content management platform which allows for distant content management through secure web interfaces. With this, a decentralized team of editors may remotely add, remove or modify content according to their respective access rights. LexEDO combines centrally hosted documents and decentralized processes. The platform also uses syndication mechanisms based on Resource Description Framework (RDF) technologies to synchronize relevant data and documents between the websites of distant partners.

LexEDO supports internationalization for its database and interface. This is achieved by separating computer code from displayed information. This allows for the rapid addition of any language version.

On the website, documents are published in HTML and PDF file formats and are accessible by alphabetical and chronological order. A search engine allowing for fast and efficient information retrieval is also provided.

Deployment

The JuriBurkina web portal is deployed on a dual Intel Xeon processor machine with hard disks redundancy facilities. Two systems are used, the first one providing an environment for the publication of jurisprudence by the Bar of Burkina Faso and the other one for the publication of statutes by the Secretariat General of the Government of Burkina Faso.

There are basically two types of users who need access to the system, the editors in charge of the creation and operation of the online legal information resource and public users who need to access information. Editors access the system through a secure web interface and are entitled to full control over the resource configuration and content. The public users access the resulting legal information resource openly and freely on the web.

JuriBurkina is deployed externally and independently of LexUM. It is fully supported by its recipients - the local judicial institutions, the Burkina Faso bar and ZCP Informatique. This deployment represents the initial effort in the creation of a multinational legal information resource grouping comprising Burkina Faso, Niger and Senegal. Similar systems are in the process to be deployed for these other countries.

Impact

Until recently, legal publishing was a field of activity dominated almost entirely by commercial concerns. In many of the economically advanced countries, and increasingly more so in developing ones, legal texts are only available for a fee. Consequently, not all interested parties can have easy access to these legal documents and the technology and tools for legal publishing are also not readily available. The deployment of JuriBurkina changed all this. The local people have been trained to use and maintain the legal publishing and management tools from LexUM and the local legal community now has access to free and open publications of jurisprudence and legislation. All this will in turn have an impact in producing greater transparency of the local judicial system, leading to better governance in the public institutions of Burkina Faso.

JuriBurkina is the first electronic legal information centre in West Africa and the project has, to a certain point, enhanced the visibility of the country at the international level.

Lessons Learned

In a project that involves deployment in a foreign environment, it is important to team up with the best local partners. To provide sustainability, local institutions and businesses that are committed to the project need to actively collaborate with the technology providers.

Current Status of Project

The project has been fully operational for over two years and is managed, operated and supported by the local Bar Association. From the success of this project, an international legal information network is being set up together with two other countries, Niger and Senegal.

Benefits and Challenges

The JuriBurkina project benefits the local legal community and people by making the jurisprudence and legislation of Burkina Faso freely available and accessible, thereby facilitating access to judicial decisions. This will help ensure greater transparency of the judicial system and promote better governance in the government and public institutions of Burkina Faso.

The usage of FOSS has benefited the project due to its low cost, availability, collaborative development environment, stability and the freedom to learn from, modify and distribute the software used.

From the LexUM standpoint, the biggest challenge of JuriBurkina was to set up a self-sustaining legal publishing project outside of Canada, beyond the control of its technical team, and to transfer the required know-how and technology in a way that permits completely autonomous publication by the local recipients. This has been done successfully.

The project also found that some of the local ICT professionals are better equipped and had been trained to use proprietary software and this is a challenge that has to be overcome as FOSS is used extensively throughout the project.

Conclusion

The JuriBurkina project has allowed Burkina Faso to put its jurisprudence and legislation online and improve access to legal information for the benefit of the legal profession and the public-at-large by making information freely available over the Internet. The use of FOSS to develop and implement this website is important as the local people have benefited from the affordability and availability of source code made possible by FOSS. This has led to local capacity building in ICT as well as forging local expertise in legal technology. The access to the legal information of the country will result in greater transparency of the local judicial system and lead to better governance in the public institutions of Burkina Faso.

Contact Information

Project: JuriBurkina

Organization: LexUM
Contact Person: Pierre-Paul Lemyre
Street Address: Université de Montréal, 3525, Chemin Queen Mary, Montréal (Quebec), Canada H3V 1H9
Postal Address: LexUM, Faculty of Law, Université de Montréal, P.O. Box 6128, Station Centre-Ville, Montréal (Quebec) Canada H3C 3J7
Phone: +1 514 343 2140
Fax: +1 514 343 7359

Organization: Order des Avocats du Burkina Faso
Contact Person: Hermann Sorgho
Street / Postal Address: Maison de l’Avocat, 01 B.P. 4091, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
Phone: +226 50 30 22 90
Fax: +226 50 30 22 90

Websites

The JuriBurkina website
http://www.juriburkina.org

LexUM website
http://www.lexum.umontreal.ca