Sabahans now have access to law reports

KOTA KINABALU: The legal profession is essentially a rulebased discipline where the written law is the primary source.

A good law library is the lifeline of a legal practitioner as well as his indispensable workshop. The Bar Council Library was set up to fulfil the research and information needs of the practitioners.

The Malaysian Bar Library was established in 1979 and housed in the then Bar Council secretariat at Wisma Central, Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur. When the Bar Council purchased its own premises in 2003, the library was relocated to the fourth floor of the building at Leboh Pasar Besar, Kuala Lumpur where it remains till today.

In Sabah, with the exception of the library in the High Court building in Kota Kinabalu which is primarily for the judiciary but allows access to lawyers, there is a lack of library facilities or materials solely for practitioners and other researchers of the law, including law students and the public.

To remedy the situation, a group of local lawyers have banded together to make legal materials available for research.

The lawyers and friends have joined forces to pool their resources books, law journals and reading materials and make them available for public research.

The list of their books and resources will be posted on the website. Members of the Sabah Law Association and those studying law in universities or local colleges can benefit from this service.

On the other hand the law books are housed in the offices of the participatings lawyers. A subscriber to the service can request to borrow a particular book by filling up the online order form. The administrator of the website “lexborneo.com” checks the availability of the resource. Upon confirmation the item is collected and despatched to collection centres set up by Zenithway Sdn Bhd at its bookstores at Jalan Pantai, Megalong Shopping Complex and Central Shopping Plaza.

The subscriber picks up the book and returns to these centres. By using this method, access to law reports of Malaysia, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and the Commonwealth can now be made available to Sabahans.

Besides law reports, there are also textbooks and law CDs.