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February 23, 2009

Simon Chester

Is This the Worst Government Legal Information Website?

Over the years, legal users have seen their fair share of badly designed websites, pages whose very design obstructs access. The wayback machine can draw cringes when we look back at sites that looked wonderful at the time.

However, a piece in today's Korea Times led me to a site that reaches a new level in this dubious competition.

At the outset, we must commend the South Korean government for recognizing the need for having legal information accessible in a language other than Korean – Korean users could always click here.

But this site is extraordinary when it announces the intentions of the Minister for Government Legislation to readers thus:

The Customized Legal Information Service Project builds a new statutory information infrastructure, which regroups complicated statutory relationships and presents them in the context of plausible scenarios, and provides clear interpretations of complicated laws and regulations.

MOLEG will continue to provide practical law information services so that users may conveniently address the common legal issues that occur in everyday life, without the necessity of resorting to legal experts.

The welcome from Seokyeon Lee – not that Sook-Yin Lee – is a classic:

In this vein, the ministry introduced this practical law information service in five pilot areas of opening and running restaurants; traffic information and driving; hiring the disabled; childcare and foreign investment. We have now added ten more areas including such areas as subscription to apartment allotments and compulsory installation of fire-fighting systems, thereby initiating a full-fledged service of practical legal information.

The site is oriented to three user categories, foreign investors, foreign workers' employment and married immigrants.

One user Art Curtis, an American English teacher, commented: "The biggest problem is that it doesn't do what it is supposed to do. It is supposed to provide simple, easy to understand legal advice for foreigners here. But I find it pretty difficult to understand nearly everything on the site. Its has quite obviously been written by lawyers for lawyers."

Simon Chester's involvement with legal information goes back to the Seventies when he taught legal research at Osgoode Hall and served on CLIC's board - that was the Canadian Law Information Council. He has practiced law on Bay Street for almost thirty years and speaks and writes widely on legal, technology, ethical and professional issues.
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2 Comments on “Is This the Worst Government Legal Information Website?”

  1. Thomas R Bruce says:
    February 24, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    Simon:

    To answer the question posed by the title: No. ;-).

    The competition is just too overwhelming.

  2. Simon Chester says:
    February 24, 2009 at 7:27 pm

    Ah Tom, you're just too tactful. More Dutch beer might loosen an answer!

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