SAFLII

What SAFLII is

SAFLII is a free online legal information repository for searching judgments, legislation, and related materials. Its collection includes court rules, journal articles, commission reports, government gazettes, Rule 16A notices, and court rolls, as well as legal materials from other countries in the region through partnerships and links to other Legal Information Institutes. SINO search can cover all databases or selected ones and rank results by relevance. Search options include words, exact phrases, legislation names, case names, and document titles, with Boolean and proximity operators. Results can be sorted by relevance, date, title, or database, with 10, 20, 50, or 100 entries per page. RSS feeds are offered for selected courts and databases in several countries. SAFLII says judgments come directly from courts and materials such as court rules come from government gazettes. Free public access requires no login and is not a subscription service. Individuals may read, print, and copy materials for personal use and other uses permitted by copyright law. Automated collection, including scraping, crawling, API access, and bulk querying, is prohibited by its terms.

Who it suits

SAFLII describes its collection as useful to legal practitioners, journalists, labour and human resources practitioners, employers, employees, and employee representatives. It can also suit readers seeking legal materials across the countries and databases it covers.

Limits

The free public access plan allows individual users to read, print and copy materials for personal use and other uses permitted by copyright law. Its terms prohibit automated or programmatic collection, including scraping, crawling, API access and bulk querying; SAFLII may block or rate-limit violations.

Getting started

1. Visit https://www.saflii.org/.
2. Search across all databases or select particular databases.
3. Use words, exact phrases, names, titles, Boolean operators or proximity operators to refine a search.
4. Sort results by relevance, date, title or database and choose a results-per-page setting.
5. Read, print or copy materials for personal use and other uses permitted by copyright law.

Verdict

SAFLII combines a broad collection of legal documents with configurable search and result controls. Its terms restrict automated collection, and users needing specific legal advice should consult a suitably qualified professional.