Case law refers to the decisions made by the courts which can both establish and refine legislative law. Case law is also referred to as “common law”.
Before judgments are published, many courts make them available online as Unreported judgments, sometimes referred to as medium neutral citations.
Significant cases are chosen to be published in law reports. There are two types of law reports:
Cases which demonstrate significant points of law may be published in a number of report series, so there may be multiple citations for the one case.
Always cite from an authorised report if it is available, in preference to an unauthorised report. Cite unreported judgments only if the case has not been otherwise reported.
Finding a Case from a Citation
Use an abbreviations guide to find out the full title of the report series:
Then search for the law report series in Primo Search. If the library subscribes to the report series, follow the link to view online and navigate to the correct volume.
Finding Cases on a General Topic
To identify the appropriate Case law, use secondary sources (encyclopaedias, textbooks, commentary or journal articles) to direct you to the major cases in a particular area of law
Legal databases publish some case law. Once you know what you are looking for, search in these databases:
Case Citators may help you find a case if you don't have the full citation. They can also give useful information around a case, such as whether it has been reported as an authorised version, judicial consideration, other cases that have considered it and legislation that has referred to it
For a more comprehensive list of International Law resources, see the International Law Library Guide
WorldLII - World Legal Information Institute - independent information about law from over 200 countries, as well as international law.
CommonLII - Commonwealth Legal Information Institute - legal information from all Commonwealth countries
SAFLII - South African legislation and cases
AfricanLII - Case law from the countries of Africa.
Ravel - from the USA. Some parts of this database are freely available
FindLaw - From the USA. Cases and Codes for both State and Federal laws of the USA.
Lauterpacht Centre for International Law - International cases and reports published at the University of Cambridge
BAlLII - British and Irish Legal Information Institute - case law and legislation from Britain, Ireland and the European Union
Find Case Law - Court judgments from the England and Wales High Court, the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court and tribunal decisions from the Upper Tribunals stored in the National Archives. Judgments date back to 2003 for Court Judgments, and to 2016 for Tribunal Decisions
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