1. EU Legal Databases: an overview Ian Mayfield, University of Portsmouth

2. Overview of session
Eur-Lex: official legislative database
Summaries of legislation: SCADplus
OEIL and Pre-Lex: tracking progress of legislation
Other useful sources
A look at commercial sources

3. Eur-Lex: background Celex - 1967 - French only
Public English web late 90s
Mainly fee-based - source of commercial services e.g. Context, ILI
‘Openness & transparency’ Celex free
‘New EUR-Lex’ launched November 2004
Celex not updated after withdrawn December 2006
Cobbetts 14/10/2008 3

4. Eur-Lex: Contents Official Journal L & C (pdf 1998 →)
Proposed, current & withdrawn legislation
Directory of Legislation in Force
COMdocs (1999 →)
Cases (1954 → but incomplete)
Parliamentary questions
Background information / links 4

5. Eur-Lex: Functionality
Chronological access to OJ, COM docs, cases
Browse legislation via Directory of Legislation in Force
Simple and advanced search
Simple search by number, reference, sector or use general search
Search histories and saved searches
Bilingual display

6. Eur-Lex: still to come LexAlert (e-mail updates)
Personal profile (saved searches)
Search case law by party

7. OEIL The EP’s ‘Legislative Observatory’
Covers procedures dating from start of 4th Parliamentary session in July 1994
Tracks procedure through legislative stages
Identifies ‘actors’
Outlines background and history of the legislation
Identifies documentation
Personal alerts through ‘Observatory tracker’
Simple and advanced search
Now has fact sheets outlining financial, socio- economic and environmental impacts

8. PreLex
Commission website (now managed by Official Publications Office)
‘Monitoring the legislative process’
Introduced in late ’90s but has data back to 1976
Similar to OEIL but has
No histories or background material
More links to documentation
More search options relating to institutional structure

9. Other useful sources SCADplus: summaries of legislation
Document registers
Merger cases

10. Why use commercial sources?
Reliability
Content
Add-ins e.g. merger cases, press releases, register documents, EFTA docs, implementation…
Value added e.g. commentaries, notes, nicknames etc.
Added functionality e.g. linking, cross-searching, profiles
Support

11. Commercial sources - examples
OJ Online (Ellis), OJ Daily (Justis),
Eurolaw (SAI Global), Celex (Justis),
Lawtel, Westlaw (Ellis), Justis EU
Caselex (Justis), EU Competition Law Online (Ellis)
European Sources Online (Cardiff University)