Thomson Reuters has recently enhanced inter-linking in the extensive legislation reproduced in many of our court practice and procedure titles, including:

• Uniform Evidence Law
• Criminal Law New South Wales
• Federal Court Practice
• Victorian Courts
• Criminal Law, Investigation and Procedure Victoria
• Federal Offences

This improved legislation-to-legislation linking enhances the user experience for our Westlaw AU and ProView customers – offering around 20,000 extra moves a customer can make when using these commentary services.

Reading a section which cross-refers to other parts of the Act, regulation or rule, or a provision within another piece of legislation, a reader can navigate to that related reference immediately.  Once a user has accessed the associated link, they can then navigate quickly back to the original provision using the back button in their browser.

 Example: Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 (Cth), s 58DE

58DE Bail undertakings etc.

(1) If the Court grants bail to the accused, then the accused can only be released on bail if:

             (a) the accused has signed an undertaking (a bail undertaking) containing the matters set out in subsection (2) and made in accordance with the Rules of Court; and

             (b) each other person (if any), who as a condition of bail has agreed to provide security, has signed an undertaking (a third party security undertaking) made in accordance with the Rules of Court; and

             (c) subsection 58DC(3) is complied with in relation to any security required as a condition of bail.

In this example, if the user clicks on 58DC(3), they are promptly directed to this subsection, which provides:

(3) Money or other property deposited with the Court, or otherwise provided, as security in accordance with a condition of bail must be dealt with by the Court in accordance with the Rules of Court.

Our online and eBook solutions are designed to offer a simple and comprehensive portal for your legal research.  We welcome your feedback on how we can further optimise the legislation experience for users in 2013 via the Comments field below.

This post was co-authored by Anita Sibrits, Commercial Manager – Product Development and Kylie Beveridge, Managing Editor - Legislation.