In most of the world other than the United States, official gazettes are government publications in which new statutes, regulations, and selected court decisions are published. If you are researching the law of a foreign jurisdiction, you will therefore need to confirm whether the country has an official gazette (as previously mentioned, most do), determine the title of the gazette, and identify how to access it. Many, but not all, are freely available on government Web sites. Use the following tools to find the answers to these questions.
Westlaw and Lexis offer limited access to legislation from jurisdictions outside the United States.Your first step should be to consult a reference work such as Foreign Law Guide or GlobaLex to find an entry regarding the jurisdiction in question to see where legislation is published. Some countries have an official electronic platform where legislation is published (for example, the French government operates a site called Legifrance). Note that English translations may not be readily available.
As with legislation, Westlaw and Lexis offer limited access to judicial decisions from jurisdictions outside the United States, so your first step should be to consult a reference work such as Foreign Law Guide or GlobaLex to find an entry regarding the jurisdiction in question to see if and where they are published. Some countries have an official electronic platform where cases are published (for example, the French government operates a site called Legifrance which includes the texts of decisions from some cases). If you know the name of the court that issued the decision you are looking for, you might try running a Google search to find its official site, as some courts will make their decisions available on their sites. English translations of judicial decisions can be very difficult to find and may not exist, depending on the jurisdiction and the level of court that issued it.
Be aware that in many countries (such as civil law jurisdictions), judicial decisions do not have the importance that they do in common law jurisdictions, and far fewer are published.
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