Kenya's Legal Crossroads

Kenya’s National Council for Law Reporting, the agency behind the country’s expansive legal portal Kenya Law, is proposing a shift that could mark a turning point in the public’s access to legal knowledge. A planned premium subscription model would move advanced tools, such as structured legal databases, deep search capabilities, case tracking, and standard citation formats—behind a paywall.

While core legal texts would remain publicly available, the tools required to search, analyze, and understand them would be available only to paying users. This would reshape access not only for legal professionals but for students, activists, and everyday citizens who rely on open legal resources.

The proposal reflects growing pressures on public legal institutions to sustain operations in the digital era. But it also raises questions about equity, usability, and the role of technology in bridging, or widening access to justice.

The Tool Gap in Legal Access

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Legal information, when delivered as static documents or PDFs, often fails to be truly accessible. It is the digital infrastructure around that data, the search engines, citation systems, structured databases, and navigation tools—that transforms raw law into something citizens and practitioners can understand and use.

These tools don't appear out of thin air. They are the product of human expertise, engineering effort, and institutional maintenance. Building an intelligent search engine for legal documents, mapping precedents across decades, or designing a structured legislative database requires more than just data—it requires salaried professionals, dedicated infrastructure, and ongoing updates.

In this light, the decision by Kenya Law to consider a premium tier is not without rationale. For years, the platform has offered expansive legal resources at no cost to users. But sustaining and expanding those offerings, especially as user expectations evolve, inevitably comes with a price. The question becomes not whether payment is unfair, but how to balance institutional sustainability with equitable access.

A Parallel Movement: AI for Legal Empowerment

While some public institutions are shifting toward monetization, a parallel grassroots movement is gaining momentum across the continent, harnessing artificial intelligence to expand access to legal information.

One of the most focused examples is Sandura Sandbox in Zimbabwe. Developed by the Justice Code Foundation in collaboration with Midlands State University Law School Innovation Labs, Sandura is an AI-powered assistant designed to help users navigate the Zimbabwean Constitution.

Sandura isn’t a general legal search engine or chatbot—it’s tailored specifically to constitutional law. Its mission is to provide Zimbabweans with a clear, intuitive tool for understanding their rights and responsibilities under the country’s highest legal document. 

Through natural-language queries, users can receive explanations of constitutional provisions without needing formal legal training.

This model represents a citizen-centered approach to digital legal access: minimal barriers, locally grounded content, and institutional support from academia and civil society.

AI Legal Tools Across the Continent

Sandura is part of a broader wave of AI legal assistants emerging across Africa. These platforms are diverse in their focus but united in their goal of reducing legal complexity.

In Kenya, multiple platforms like Wakili, Wakili AI, Sheria AI, and LexChat, use AI to offer services ranging from legal chatbots and document drafting to case summarization and multilingual support. Some target legal professionals, while others aim to support self-represented litigants and the general public.

In Uganda, Legal AI Africaprovides AI-driven tools for students and law firms, while in Nigeria, Case Radar and Baobab Law deliver affordable legal advice through chatbots and curated lawyer marketplaces. In Namibia, Hornbill AI gives users access to legislative insights, including referenced legal texts in PDF format.

These tools are often created outside government institutions—by universities, private developers, and civic-tech organizations. Their reach may be modest compared to national platforms, but their flexibility and public orientation make them crucial in bridging legal divides.

Diverging Approaches to Justice

As legal systems across Africa go digital, a clearer distinction is emerging—not just between platforms, but between user bases. On one side are legal professionals, researchers, judges, and journalists who rely on deep, accurate, and fast tools for daily work. On the other are students, activists, small business owners, and citizens trying to understand their rights or navigate legal processes for the first time.

These groups don’t need the same thing. A lawyer preparing for court may need advanced case tracking, structured databases, and historical legislation search. A student or self-represented litigant, by contrast, may benefit more from simplified explanations, chatbot interfaces, or access to key legal texts.

Why should both experiences be designed and priced the same?

There is a tendency to treat any fee on public legal information as a betrayal of openness. But expecting high-performing digital systems to remain entirely free overlooks the reality that these platforms are built by people, maintained by teams, and continually improved through paid labor. 

There is no such thing as a costless interface. Charging for tools designed for professional use is not exclusionary, it’s realistic.

The real challenge is not whether to charge, but how to ensure that different users get the level of access they need. It’s not about paywalling the law. It’s about recognizing that not everyone needs the same tools to reach it.

Toward Inclusive Legal Innovation

Legal technology in Africa is evolving toward a layered ecosystem, where accessibility and specialization coexist, not compete. Free tools designed for the public can sit alongside premium tools tailored for professional use. Both are valuable. Both are necessary.

AI is helping make this distinction clearer. Public-facing platforms can focus on clarity, language access, and guided assistance. Institutional platforms can build toward depth, speed, and technical precision. When each set of users is considered in design, the result is a legal system that serves both everyday needs and high-stakes demands.

There is no contradiction in offering core legal information for free while charging for enhanced functionality. This is not commodification of justice, it is differentiation by use case. Not everyone is entitled to everything for free, just as not every tool is meant for every user.

The future of African legal tech will not be defined by whether platforms charge or not, but by whether they understand who they are building for. When systems are transparent about what they offer, and why, the ecosystem becomes more efficient, more fair, and ultimately more just.

Cover Image Credit: VOA News.