South Africa gazettes tons of laws, declarations and more every year.

Most of them fly under the radar and digging through them is a chore. But now, they’re just a click away.

A collaboration between Code for South Africa (Code4SA), the Southern African Legal Information Institute (SAFLII), and the African Networks of Centers for Investigative Reporting, recently saw the launch of a new project called Open Gazettes, which has made official government gazettes available for free online.

“While government gazettes have always been made available somewhere, access to the information is not as easy or straightforward as it sounds, especially for regular citizens. This is especially worrying when the onus is on the public to ‘keep up to date with all legislation published in the government gazette’, according to the Official Publications Depository Manual,” Code4SA said on its blog.

Open Gazettes means you no longer have to sift through or download heaps of publications to source legal notices, calls for comments on national and provincial matters, and updates on civic issues, especially if the information pertains to you in any way.

Code4SA added that Open Gazettes aims to promote citizen access to government information and increase civic participation in government processes.

The gazettes available are divided into national and provincial documents dating back to 2012 and Open Gazettes is looking for help from anyone who can submit gazettes between 1980 and 2012.

“As the official mouthpiece of government, the Government Gazette is the one platform that citizens can use to make sure that government is acting in our best interests. But we can only do this if we can access it,” Code4SA said.

Submissions can be made in any format.