Law Reports

The doctrine of precedent Court hierarchy Structure of a law report Which judgments are reported? Which law report should you read? Neutral citations and unreported judgments How to cite law reports Decoding law report abbreviations

 

First, what are primary and secondary sources?

Legal research relies upon the use and application of primary sources of information. Primary sources are those which are direct, authoritative and not influenced by anybody's opinion. Examples are legislation, treaties, law reports, resolutions of governmental and non-governmental bodies, transcripts of debates, parliamentary papers etc. They are free from opinions and are usually prepared as a necessity. They contain the law itself.

Secondary sources are those which are not primary in nature. They are opinions, commentaries, discussions. They are useful for building an opinion on a particular topic, as a means of reflection, an argument or a description, but they do not have the same value as primary sources of information. We will be looking at both primary and secondary sources of information throughout this programme.

The doctrine of precedent

Case law provides the bulk of law in the United Kingdom and acts as a source of law through the mechanism of the doctrine of precedent. For a case to be cited in court it must have been reported in a Law Reports series by a barrister. According to the doctrine of precedent a court is bound by the decisions of a court above it and, usually, by a court of equivalent standing. Superior courts have the power to overrule decisions of lower courts and in certain cases to overrule their own decisions.

It important to know in which court a decision was made, and to know that a House of Lords decision is worth more than a decision made in a County Court. It is also necessary to assess the chances of a particular court not following one of its own decisions, as the rules on the application of the doctrine of precedent on this point may vary from court to court.

Usually, judges in the civil and appellate courts (both criminal and civil) will reflect upon a case before reaching a final decision. They therefore hold back or reserve judgment until a later date. In criminal cases after the jury has reached a verdict in the trial court, the judge may sentence immediately or call for reports and sentence at a later date.

Law reporting became more efficient in the middle of the nineteenth century. Prior to 1865, barristers attended hearings and wrote up and published a reports of cases. These reports are generally referred to as 'nominate reports'. The proliferation of these reports, and uncertainty about what consituted the authoritative report of the judgment, led to the establishment of the Law Reports. The older reports were collected together and published in 172 volumes as the English Reports.

The Judicature Acts of 1873-1875 created a court hierarchy, which was completed when the House of Lords became the final Court of Appeal following the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876. The modern doctrine of the binding force of judicial precedent only fully emerged when there was good law reporting and a settled judicial hierarchy.

As well as the binding precedent discussed above, there is also persuasive precedent from a high court in another jurisdiction. Persuasive precedent is often argued where there are no similar cases in a jurisdiction. In new areas of law, such as virtual property and IVF, persuasive prededent may be the only precedent available.

 

Court hierarchy

This diagram shows the hierarchy of the UK courts in a simplified form. Note that the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights stand alongside the UK courts hierarchy. Reference can be made to the European Court of Justice from any court in the system. The European Court of Human Rights enforces the European Convention on Human Rights. The UK Supreme Court opened in October 2009 The Supreme Court replaced the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords in early October 2009. The Supreme Court is housed in Middlesex Guildhall on Parliament Square in London.

 

Structure of a law report

One of the first things a law student has to do is learn how to navigate and interpret a law report quickly. A law report is more than just the judgment. It begins with the names of the parties, the date of the hearing and the names of the judge or judges, and, usually, the court. Then follow catchwords, which are indexing terms and the headnote, which is a summary of the facts and the judgment by the barrister reporting the case. The Law Reports (Appeal Cases, Queens Bench, Chancery, Family etc) include the arguments of counsel.

The judgment sometimes begins several pages after the beginning of the report. The judgment is often preceded by the abbreviation cur adv vult (curia advisari vult, 'the court wishes to consider the matter') or 'Their Lordships took time for consideration' or 'The following judgments were handed down'. Judgments in the Supreme Court (and, previously, House of Lords) are generally 'handed down' in print form. In other courts, decisions of judges are delivered orally (extempore) and recorded verbatim by the court stenographer. Official and unofficial law reporters attend court and take shorthand notes.

The following is a typical law report, with the various parts indicated on the right.

	Parties, date of judgment, judges
	Catchwords used for indexing
	Headnote, summarising the issues, and, after Held, summarising the judgment
	Cases cited in the judgment
	A summary of the pleading & facts may be given
	Names of Counsel; the Law Reports also give their argument
	The Judgment(s). 'Cur. adv. vult.' or Their Lordships took time for consideration.
	Consequent orders of the court
	Instructing solicitors

Which judgments are reported?

Only about 2,500 judgments (less than 2% of all judgments) are reported in law reports series. Decisions of the Supreme Court (previously House of Lords) and the Court of Appeal predominate because of the weight accorded them by the doctrine of precedent. Only a small proportion of the thousands of first instance cases in the High Court are reported. Judgments are reported by barristers.

When the Law Reports were proposed in 1863, it was suggested that they should include all cases which:

introduce, or appear to introduce, a new principle or a new rule materially modify an existing principle or rule. settle, or materially tend to settle, a question upon which the law is doubtful for any reason are peculiarly instructive.' (ICLR)

Judgments that interpret new statutes or interpret statutes newly are also often reported. Judges can recommend decisions for reporting, but this decision is generally made by the editors of the various law report series. This means that cases of specialist interest may be overlooked, whilst cases that add nothing new but give an impression of broad coverage may be included.

Which law report should you read? Many judgments are reported in several law reports. This can be confusing - which report should you read? There is a general hierarchy of law reports - for the fullest and most authoritative report read the Law Reports. Often All England or specialist reports will be cited on reading lists - generally speaking, the judgment should be the same in each report, bearing in mind that the judges will have checked the judgment as printed in the Law Reports series.

The Law Reports: Appeal Cases (AC), Queen's Bench (QB), Family (Fam), Chancery (Ch) and earlier series of the Law Reports are the most authoritative reports. The judgment is checked by the judge(s), and the arguments of Counsel are included. The Law Reports have been published by the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting (ICLR) since 1865. The Appeal Cases series report important judgments from the Supreme Court (and, previously, House of Lords) and Privy Council. Important decisions from the European Court of Justice, Courts of Appeal (Criminal and Civil Divisions), some tribunals, and the Queen's Bench, Chancery and Family Divisions of the High Court are reported in the Queen's Bench, Chancery, and Family series respectively. The Weekly Law Reports (WLR) are also published by the ICLR. Judgments in Volumes 2 and 3 of the WLRs probably will be republished in the Law Reports after the judgment has been checked by the judge. Judgments in Volume 1 of the WLRs probably won't be republished. The All England Law Reports (All ER) have been published by Butterworths/Lexis since 1936. The criteria for reporting a case in the All ER is similar to the criteria used for the Law Reports, however the All ER reports more judgments more quickly than the Law Reports series. The All ERs carry useful cross references to Halsbury's Statutes and Halsbury's Laws. There are many subject-based or specialist law reports, eg Criminal Law Reports (Crim LR). There may be good reason to cite specialist reports rather than the Law Reports. Legal journals, eg Law Quarterly Review (LQR), carry case comments and case notes by academics and other specialists. If you cite a case comment, include a citation of the 'best report'. Newspaper law reports, eg Times (TLR).

Neutral citations

A neutral citation identifies a judgment; it is perhaps mostly easily understood if thought of as a judgment number, even though it looks like a citation for a law report. The term 'neutral' is used to indicate that it is independent of any published report ('media neutral').

In 2001 the House of Lords, Privy Council, Court of Appeal and Administrative Court began issuing judgments with a neutral citations. This practice was extended to all divisions of the High Court in 2002, and later to tribunals and commissions. Transcripts of judgments with neutral citations are generally freely available on the British and Irish Legal Information Institute website (www.bailii.org), and on some court websites. The Supreme Court provides judgments as well as summaries of cases. Some online databases, such as Casetrack, Lawtel, Lexis and Westlaw, also provide transcripts of judgments, with neutral citations and often a citation for the database transcript as well.

Neutral citations give the name of the case, the year of judgment in square brackets, the court abbreviation and the judgment number. The judgments are numbered consecutively throughout the year. All cases with neutral citations have numbered paragraphs. Neutral citations from the High Court include the division in brackets after the judgment number.

Name of case Claimant v Defendent or Applicant v Respondent	Year	Abbreviation of Court	Judgment Number	High Court Division
A v Essex County Council	[2010]	UKSC	33
Jameel v Wall Street Journal Europe	[2006]	UKHL	44
R v Stewart	[2009]	EWCA Crim	593
University of Oxford and Ors v Broughton and Ors	[2008]	EWHC	75	(QB)

Court abbreviations

• UKSC: Supreme Court
• UKHL: House of Lords
• UKPC: Privy Council
• EWCA Crim: England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)
• EWCA Civ: England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division).
• EWHC: England and Wales High Court; the various Divisions are indicated in brackets after the judgment number. (QB), (Admin), (Pat) etc.

Neutral citations have also been adopted by Tribunals. Judgments from the UK Immigration Appeals Tribunal are indicated by UKIAT, for example. There is more information about abbreviations in neutral citations on bailii and on Justcite.

Unreported judgments

Unreported judgments delivered prior to the introduction of neutral citations are cited by court and date of judgment. Unreported judgments can be read in court transcripts. Some transcripts of older judgments are on provided in the Open Law project on www.bailii.org/openlaw. The neutral citations used to identify these judgments were not provided by the courts. A published law report should be cited in preference where possible.

Unreported judgments not available electronically are sometimes available from a limited number of courts and deposited in the court libraries.

Unreported judgments sometimes become authorities, however they must be used with caution. In the Supreme Court (previously House of Lords), if counsel wish to cite an unreported judgment, they must seek prior leave which will only be granted upon the assurance that it contains an authorative statement of a relevant principle of law not to be found in a reported case (House of Lords Practice Directions and Standing Orders, Jan 1992).

How to cite law reports

For cases before the introduction of neutral citations, cite the 'best' law report in which a report of the judgment can be found. Generally, these citations are as follows:

Name of case Claimant v Defendent or Applicant v Respondent	Year	Volume	Abbreviation of series	First page of report	Court
Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co	[1893]	1	QB	256	(CA)
Donoghue v Stevenson	[1932]		AC	562	(HL Sc)
El Ajou v Dollar Land Holdings	[1993]	3	All ER	717	(Ch)
Bailey	(1983)	77	Cr App R	76	(CA)

Where such a judgment has been reported and has a neutral citation, give the neutral citation first, followed by a citation of the best report, separated by a comma, as shown in the example below.

R (Roberts) v Parole Board [2004] EWCA Civ 1031, [2005] QB 410

Corr v IBC Vehicles Ltd [2008] UKHL 13, [2008] 1 AC 884

Court v Despalliers [2009] EWHC 3340 (Ch), [2010] 2 All ER 451

Ali v Birmingham City Council [2010] UKSC 8, [2010] 2 AC 39

About square brackets and round brackets

Round brackets ( ) are used around the year in a legal citation when the series has consecutive volume numbers and the year is not essential for finding the case. For example, to find the report cited as (1983) 77 Cr App R 76 you don't need the date because the volume number - 77 - indicates where you will find the report.

Square brackets [ ] are used where the series has no consecutive volume numbers and the year is essential for finding the correct volume. So, the report of Donoghue v Stevenson is in the 1932 volume of the Appeal Cases, beginning at page 562. Neutral citations also use square brackets for the year.

The Law Reports, the All Englands, and some other reports series that use the year as a volume number often have more than one volume each year. In these cases, there will be a number to indicate which of the annual volumes to consult. These annual volume numbers rarely go above 5.

Square brackets and round brackets are used in the same way in legal journal citations.

Pinpoints

A pinpoint is a reference to a particular page or paragraph. If the judgment has paragraph numbers, use that as a pinpoint, in square brackets at the end of the citation, as shown with the [45] in square brackets at the end of the citation in R v G. If citing more than one paragraph, separate them with commas, eg [45], [49], or if citing several paragraphs in a row, join them with a hyphen or em dash, eg [45]-[48].

R v G [2003] UKHL 50, [2004] 1 AC 1034 [45]

If there are no paragraph numbers, cite the page number after the first page of the report, or after the court, to refer particular parts of a judgment. The pinpoint in the following example is 714.

Beattie v E & F Beattie Ltd [1938] Ch 708 (CA) 714

Decoding law report abbreviations

Abbreviations are commonly used when referring to law reports and law journals. Sometimes it can be impossible to find a law report or article if you don't know what the abbreviation in the citation stands for. Two key sources for finding out what legal abbreviations mean are the Cardiff Index (online) and Raistrick (a book).

Finding out about abbreviations online

The Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations is a web-based service that allows you to search for the meaning of abbreviations for English language legal publications (UK, Commonwealth and US) and major foreign language law publications. The database indexes law reports and journals, and some legislative publications and major textbooks. Westlaw, Lexis and other databases also have information about abbreviations.

Finding out about abbreviations in books

D. Raistrick, Index to Legal Citations and Abbreviations (3rd ed. Sweet & Maxwell, London 2008) is at the Enquiry Desk in the Bodleian Law Library and at Ref Bibl Cw UK R159c3.

In the Bodleian Law Library , the card catalogue includes an extensive list of abbreviations with shelf marks so you can easily locate the report or journal you have to read. The Digest, Current Law and various other publications also include information about legal abbreviations.