Citing law reports

Both the High Court and Court of Appeal have indicated, in the Practice Direction (Judgments Form and Citation) [2001] 1 WLR 194, that where ‘a case has been reported in the official (sic) Law Reports published by the Incorporated Council … it must be cited from that source’.

Although in this respect the Practice Direction was merely repeating a long established principle, it also broke new ground for the Administrative Court and the Court of Appeal by introducing what are called neutral citations of, together with paragraph numbering within, judgments, in order to facilitate reference to their published versions on the Internet. Neutral citation has since been extended throughout the High Court by the Practice Direction (Judgments: Neutral Citation) [2002] 1 WLR 346, and it was also adopted by the House of Lords and, now, the Supreme Court. Where a neutral citation exists it should be cited first followed by a citation of the best available law report. The following examples show how neutral citations work:

Gregg v Scott [2005] UKHL 2

Austin v Southwark London Borough Council [2010] UKSC 28

Awberry v Marley Building Materials [2005] EWCA Civ 16

Gill v Sandhu [2005] EWHC 43 (Ch)

The number in each citation indicates the number of the judgment in each court in the relevant year. The UK element of the House of Lords and Supreme Court citations indicate that the courts were exercising their United Kingdom-wide jurisdictions (final appeals in Scottish criminal cases having always been heard by the Scottish courts). The courts in the other examples have jurisdiction only in England and Wales – hence the EW element of their citations.

The convention when citing law reports in print is to italicise the name of the case and to provide the full citation at least once. You should apply the italicising convention to any word-processed work that you are required to submit.

In examinations, which will, of course, be handwritten, the whole script will be in a form of italics. The convention here is that you should underline case names. In coursework, you should apply the convention of providing a full citation at least once for each case. In examinations, however, no one will expect you to have memorised case references. Beyond this, it is difficult to be dogmatic, since some lecturers will expect you to know the year of the case, while others will regard even this as being an unnecessary burden on your memory.

Sometimes you may wish to be more specific in your citation by providing what are called pinpoint citations or pinpoints. The pinpoint will be a paragraph number (which is cited using square brackets) or a page number. For example, if you needed to cite the fifteenth paragraph from Gregg v Scott (above) and had not cited the case previously, you would write: Gregg v Scott [2005] UKHL 2, [2005] 2 AC 176 [15]. If you had already fully cited the case you would simply write: Gregg v Scott [15]. In judgments delivered before the introduction of neutral citations which lack paragraph numbers, you will have to cite the case as published in the law report you consulted; the pinpoint will be the page number. So, for example, if you wanted to cite Lord Atkin’s famous ‘neighbour test’ in Donoghue v Stevenson, instead of simply citing the report and expecting the reader to work through all sixty pages, you would write: Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 (HL) 566. Where you quote from a judgment and need to identify the judge, this detail can be added in round brackets as in, Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 (HL) 566 (Lord Atkin). In these examples we have followed the Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (known as OSCOLA and available at www.law.ox.ac.uk/publications/oscola.php) and included the abbreviation for the court in which the case was decided in round brackets.

A point of general importance when citing law reports is the distinction between square brackets and round brackets.

Sometimes a date in a reference is in square brackets, as in [2004] 3 WLR 113, and sometimes it is in round ones, as in (2004) 39 EHRR 15. Where the date is in square brackets, it is an essential part of the reference: the reference 3 WLR 113 is useless, because the Weekly Law Reports have been published since 1953, and each year has a volume 3 with a page 113. A date in round brackets, however, is not an essential element of the reference. Therefore, although it is usual practice to include the year, as in (2004) 39 EHRR 15, the reference 39 EHRR 15 would be completely adequate to locate a case since each annual volume of the European Human Rights Reports is numbered, so there will only ever be one volume bearing the number 39.

Other jurisdictions follow their own conventions; the full version of OSCOLA provides comprehensive guidance on citing international materials. Because of their impact on English law, the decisions of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the European Court of Human Rights require particular mention here. Judgments of the ECJ should be cited using the assigned case number followed by the case name and (where it is reported) the case reference in the official European Court Reports (ECR). Since 1989, following the creation of the Court of First Instance, cases are numbered and prefixed by court, with ‘C’ indicating the ECJ and ‘T’ indicating the Court of First Instance (now the General Court). The European Court Reports are similarly divided, with ECR I indicating a decision of the ECJ and ECR II indicating a judgment of the Court of First Instance (or now the General Court). Thus, a citation such as C-98/01 EC Commission v United Kingdom [2003] ECR I-4641 indicates (from the ‘C’ prefix to the case number and the ‘I’ following ECR) a decision of the ECJ.

Citing decisions of the European Court of Human Rights is more problematic. The guidance and usage of the court is that cases are cited by name, application number, the abbreviation ECHR and the year and volume number of the relevant official report. Where a paragraph number within a judgment is cited, it is preceded by the ‘§’ symbol. Thus, Pretty v United Kingdom no. 2346/02, § 61, ECHR 2002-III would be a reference to paragraph 61 of application number 2346/02 reported in volume 3 of the official reports for 2002. In practice, however, you are likely to find that if a case is reported in the European Human Rights Reports (EHRR) that citation is given, and where the case is not reported in the EHRR the application number is cited. The Pretty case would therefore be cited as Pretty v United Kingdom (2002) 35 EHRR 1 or (if it were not reported in EHRR) Application 2346/02 Pretty v United Kingdom.

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Source: Askey Simon, McLeod Ian. Studying Law. Macmillan Education,2014. — 239 p.. 2014

Citing law reports

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