By Rey Panaligan, March 27 2019; Manila Bulletin
Image Credit to Manila Bulletin
The Supreme Court (SC) has decided to open its e-Library to the public for easier access to its decision, resolutions, and issuances from 1901 to the present.
Lawyer Brian Keith F. Hosaka, deputy court administrator and head of the SC’s public information office (PIO), said the actual opening of the e-Library to the public will coincide with the launching of the SC’s redesigned and improved website, sc.judiciary.gov.ph, on or before the court’s 118th anniversary on June 11.
Hosaka recommended the public’s access to the e-Library and its was approved by the full court in Memorandum Order No. 17-2019 signed by Chief Justice Lucas P. Bersamin, and Senior Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio and Associate Justice Diosdado M. Peralta, heads of the second and third divisions, respectively.
The e-Library project was launched in 2004 and was the brainchild of Justice Carpio when he was chair of the SC Committee on Library, Records Managements, Legal Research, and Printing Services (CLRMLRP).
It is a searchable database of jurisprudence including SC decisions and resolutions from 1901 to the present, laws including present and past constitutions, issuances such as present and past Rules of Court as well as resolutions in administrative matters, and other references like benchbooks, book catalogues of court libraries, index to Philippine periodicals, and a “Memorabilia Room” of past and retired SC Justices.
He explained that the e-Library can be accessed by the public “upon proper registration and documentation to enhance transparency and provide better access for lawyers, law professors, law students, and legal researchers to decisions, resolutions, issuances, and rules of the court.”
The SC, as a full court, directed Hosaka to coordinate with the Management Information Systems Office (MISO) and the SC Library to oversee the implementation of the free public access and to “ensure that proper measures are in place to guarantee system security once the use and access of the e-Library are made public.”