Blog

New and Improved Look from the Research and Development Department

By the Research and Development Department

 

Who is Kenya Law?

Kenya Law is the brand name of the National Council for Law Reporting, an award-winning service state corporation in the Judiciary, established under the National Council for Law Reporting Act, Cap.1A.

The mandate of Kenya Law is:

- To monitor and report on the development of Kenyan jurisprudence through the publication of the Kenya Law Reports;

- To revise, consolidate and publish the Laws of Kenya; and

- To undertake such other related publications and perform such other functions as may be conferred by law.

Kenya Law is led by Council of Members chaired by the Chief Justice and has a secretariat with members of staff led by a Chief Executive/Editor.

The Kenya Law Journal… (formerly known as the Kenya Law Review Journal)

This is Kenya’s official law journal, a platform for the scholarly analysis of Kenyan law and interdisciplinary academic research on the law. It is published at least annually and seeks to establish itself as the reference of choice for both international and local readers in discussions on Kenyan law.

What is the Focus of this Journal?

The focus of the journal is on studies of the legal system and analyses of contemporary legal issues with particular emphasis on the article’s
substantive contribution to understanding some aspect of the country’s legal system. The Editorial Policy of the Journal is non-ideological and
with a multi-disciplinary outlook, to include articles showing the interplay between the law and other disciplines.

How can this Product be Accessed?

The Journal is available online free of charge. The online database is designed for universal access. It is based on an open and interoperable technology (XML), can be accessed using a variety of devices and technology platforms and has features that make it easily accessible to persons with visual disabilities.

A hard copy volume of the same is 3,500/- ksh.

The Kenya Gazette

This is the official publication of the government of Kenya that publishes notices of new legislation, notices that require publication by law or policy, announcements of general public information. Presently, the Government Press publishes the Kenya Gazette every week, usually on Friday, with occasional releases of special or supplementary editions within the week.

            On what Platform does the Kenya Gazzette online Repository Run?

It is built on open source architecture with a relational database. This allows it to be accessed on any web browser. It offers better performance, and scalability, meaning that it can hold millions of records without degrading its performance.

            What are the Available Features of this Platform?

Users are now able to access the entire full text of the Kenya Gazette with anchored table of content for easy navigation. It also has a customized search, where users can search using full text and are able to refine their search results based on different meta-data filters. It is also search engine friendly.

What is our Community Page?

This is where our Kenya Law Forum and our Blog are contained. This page is updated weekly and is managed by the Research and Development department.

What is the Kenya Law Forum?

This is an online discussion board where registered users can initiate and/or carry out discussion on the various topics posted by other registered users. Members of the Research and Development department moderate this forum.

What Platform does the Forum Run On?

The Forum is built on Vanilla Open Source Content Management System. This emphasizes on discussions, is free and runs on just bout every web server out there.

What about our Blog?

This is an interactive space where the research and Development department posts write-up and articles generated and submitted by the Academia, Judiciary, Legal Fraternity as well as members of staff on emerging jurisprudence in the legal field. Registered users can comment on the individual articles as well s share the same via social media. The Research and Development department also moderate this space.

What platform does the Blog Run On?

WordPress Content Management System is the most popular blogging system in use on the web. Some of its features include; being search engine friendly, the ability to assign nested, multiple categories to articles; and support for tagging of posts and articles. Automatic filters are also included, providing standardized formatting and styling of text in articles (for example, converting regular quotes to smart quotes).

What is Creative Commons and what is its association with Kenya Law?

Creative Commons (CC) (www.creativecommons.org) is a non-profit organization dedicated to expanding the range of creative works available for others to share and build on legally. The organization has released a number of information labels (called licences) designed to enable the publishers and creators of other works to communicate with clarity and simplicity what copyright restrictions, if any, apply to their work.

Kenya Law is an affiliate and partner of Creative Commons and a member of the Creative Commons-Kenya team. Kenya Law is also a member of the Free Access to Law Movement (www.worldlii.org).  In these two roles, Kenya Law embraces and champions the open sharing of information, knowledge and creativity.

What Copyright Restrictions Apply to our Online Content?

As a  member of the Free Access to Law Movement, at Kenya Law we believe that:

• Public legal information is part of the common heritage of humanity and maximizing   access to this information promotes Justice and the Rule of Law;
• Public legal information is common property and should be accessible to all;
• As an organization that has the public mandate to publish public legal information, we should not impose unfair restrictions on the use and reuse of that information by other persons.

By law, no person may claim copyright to the text of the Laws of Kenya. In that regard, while the text of the Laws of Kenya is in the public domain, the design, structure, metadata and format of the Laws as presented by Kenya Law is subject to a few restrictions and it is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

This means that:

You are free:

• to Share - to copy, distribute and transmit the work
• to Remix - to adapt the workto make commercial use of the work

 

Under the following conditions:

• Attribution - You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
• Share Alike - If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

With the understanding that:

• Waiver - Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
• Public Domain - Where the work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.
• Other Rights - In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license:

1. Your fair dealing or fair use rights, or other applicable copyright exceptions and limitations;
2. The author’s moral rights;
3. Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.

Notice - For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.

For more information go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/  

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