Work progresses on digital legal information portal

Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs, Marlene Malahoo Forte, during her contribution to the 2024/25 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives on Tuesday (June 11).

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Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs, Marlene Malahoo Forte, says work has commenced to develop a comprehensive digital information portal for Jamaica’s laws.

Funding is being provided by the World Bank under its Foundations for Competitiveness and Growth Project (FCGP).

“I am pleased to report that the contract for the development of the Jamaica Legal Information Portal was awarded to the European consulting firm, Softengi. Work commenced in February of this year, and a draft design of the portal has already been completed,” Malahoo Forte informed.

“The firm appears to be ahead of schedule and if it continues at that rate, user acceptance and testing can commence as early as the end of this calendar year. The ministry intends to use the website portal to engage on law-reform issues. All who are calling for more engagement, this infrastructure is being put in place to facilitate that in this digital age,” she added.

The minister was making her contribution to the 2024/25 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives on Tuesday (June 11).

Malahoo Forte said the engagement will seek to inform both the public and the ministry about concerns that are to be considered in the development of law reform proposals.

The portal is intended to improve public access to Jamaica’s laws, educate the public about all aspects of legal information and provide a facility for persons to express their views on and query the status of any law.

It will provide advanced search functionality and expanded availability of laws in various forms, with particular focus on facilitating access to the Jamaica Gazette publications as well as content providing notification of various seminal judicial and legislative developments.

“The introduction of this transformational tool will obviate the need for extensive time and effort to be expended to identify gazette notices and laws. The portal will [also] include judgements of the court,” Malahoo Forte stated.

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