In the case of Mrs Betty Darego v. A.G. Leventis (Nigeria) Ltd & 3 Ors, LER[2015] CA/L/481/2011,
the Court of Appeal PER Y.B. NIMPAR, J.C.A held on the meaning of the word
"PREPONDERATE" thus:
“Preponderate according to www.dictionary.com is
a verb and its, original meaning is “to weigh more than” and its source is the
latin word ‘praeponderare’ meaning “out weight”, “to exceed in force or power”.
Preponderance would therefore mean greater weight, a sense of greater
importance.”
Comments
In the above quote, it can be seen
that the court used a dictionary available on the web: dictionary.com,
to define the word "preponderate." It is good to note that our
Lordships are utilizing the Internet to research and cite same as sources of
information in their judgments. This is a welcome development and it's hereby
suggested that such practice should be emulated and maintained.
Before now many a lawyer thought that judges, especially justices of the Court
of Appeal and Supreme Court were old men and women who were Luddites (one who is opposed to especially technological change) or technophobes (a person who fears, dislikes, or avoids new technology) but it appears
the justices are now taking steps to change that perception and that is commendable.
This is hoping that lawyers too will
take up the cue by His Lordship Nimpar J.C.A by carrying out research using the
web and also citing web references or hyperlinks in their written briefs. I
read some briefs filed by lawyers in the US and judgments from there as well
and I see hyperlinks cited in support of arguments and submissions.
Difficulties
Citing web references in legal
documents has its down side because of link rot. Link rot is created when a Web
page is moved, taken down or reorganized. Clicking on a rotten link usually
results in a 404 error, which includes a message that the page cannot be found.
According to Tom Venetis:
"Link rot commonly refers to a situation in which a hyperlink that
links to a document or an online site no longer leads to the site or content.
Another related problem is reference rot where the hyperlink continues to work,
but the content of the site the link refers to has changed, but does not tell a
person where that site or document is now located. The problem in the same in
both cases. Information that one is looking for is now not easily found, or
cannot be found at all."
A study titled “Something Rotten in
the State of Legal Citation: The Life Span of a United States Supreme Court
Citation Containing an Internet Link (1996-2010)", published in the Yale Journal
of Law and Technology in 2013, found that nearly one-third of the websites
cited by the U.S. Supreme Court were non-functioning, many of which linked to
government or education domains.
Solutions
In the US, Michigan's Supreme Court
archives all its cited links through Perma.cc, a crowd sourced link
preservation site launched by the Harvard Library Innovation Lab. While anyone
can put links on the Perma.cc server, they have to be renewed every two years
in order to not expire. But links posted by universities, courts and journal
editors stay permanently in the database.
There is also Webcite (http://www.webcitation.org/) which
according to Wikipedia is:
"an on-demand archiving service,
designed to digitally preserve scientific and educationally important material
on the web by making snapshots of Internet contents as they existed at the time
when a blogger, or a scholar or a Wikipedia editor cited or quoted from it. The
preservation service enables verifiability of claims supported by the cited
sources even when the original web pages are being revised, removed, or
disappear for other reasons, an effect known as link rot."
WebCite is a non-profit consortium
supported by publishers and editors, and it can be used by individuals without
charge.
