Legal Knowledge Platform Free Research Access
Limited access for public-interest research using African legal information.
Laws.Africa supports public-interest research that helps improve access to African legal information, legal education, the rule of law, public administration, and responsible legal technology.
Researchers at universities, public research institutions, NGOs, and similar non-commercial bodies may apply for limited free research access to Laws.Africa legal information collections.
Free research access is discretionary. It is granted only where the project has a clear public-interest purpose, a defined research question, appropriate safeguards, and a commitment to publish the research output.
What we may support
We may support projects such as:
- legal informatics and access-to-justice research
- citation, metadata, or legal network analysis
- comparative legal research across defined collections
- public-interest text mining of legislation or judgments
- academic research into legal data, courts, public administration, or legal technology
Approved access is normally limited to a specific country, content type, format, and time period. Where data access is needed, we usually provide a one-off dataset copy or a short API access window so the approved data can be collected.
We do not normally provide ongoing Content API access for research projects.
Basic conditions
Researchers must:
- use the data only for the approved non-commercial research purpose
- publish the research output publicly, where possible
- credit Laws.Africa in resulting publications, reports, presentations, datasets, and code
- not redistribute Laws.Africa source content, credentials, or API responses
- not use the data for commercial products, private client work, model training, or fine-tuning unless separately agreed in writing
- comply with applicable national data protection and privacy laws
- protect the data and delete it, or confirm continued safeguarding, when the project ends
Free research access is not available for commercial product development, private client work, undisclosed sponsored work, or projects where the output will remain private.
In some cases, access may also depend on permission or approval from relevant authorities in the country concerned.
Apply
If your project meets these conditions, complete the research access request form. We review requests periodically and may ask for additional information before making a decision.
Submitting a request does not guarantee access. If your project is commercial or requires ongoing production access, please use the Laws.Africa Legal Knowledge Platform instead.