MANILA -- The Supreme Court (SC) announced that it will be allowing free public access soon to its electronic library (e-Library).
The High Court, on the recommendation of Assistant Court Administrator and SC Public Information Office chief, lawyer Brian Keith F. Hosaka, opened the SC e-Library to 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.”
Hosaka said the actual opening of the SC e-Library to the public will coincide with the launch of the Court’s redesigned and improved website (sc.judiciary.gov.ph) on or before the High Court’s 118th Anniversary on June 11.
In Memorandum Order No. 17-2019 issued Monday, Hosaka was also tasked 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.”
The memorandum was signed by Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin, chairperson of the SC 1st Division; and the two other Division chairpersons, Senior Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio of the 2nd Division and Justice Diosdado M. Peralta of the 3rd Division.
Launched in 2004, the SC e-Library, a brainchild of Carpio when he was chairperson of the SC Committee on Library, Records Managements, Legal Research, and Printing Services (CLRMLRP), is a searchable database of jurisprudence, including SC decisions and resolutions from 1901 to the present.
This includes laws in the present and past Constitutions; SC issuances, such as present and past Rules of Court; resolutions on administrative matters; and other references, such as bench books, book catalogues of court libraries, index to Philippine periodicals, and a “Memorabilia Room” of past and retired SC Justices. (PNA)
