Legal Skills and Research: Citation

 Example:

 Reported

 Barrett v Enfield LBC [2001] 2 AC 550 

 Example :

 unreported

 Using Square and Round Brackets

You need to make sure that you use the right brackets when citing law reports

Barret v Enfield LBC [2001] 2 AC 550

 Here the year is in square brackets, this means that the year is the primary method of finding the book on the shelf.    Within in the law report series(AC) you would have to look for the year and then look for volume 2 within that year.  Use  square brackets for any series that uses the year as a volume number.

DPP v Ottewell (1968) 52 Cr.App.R. 679 

 With this example the year is in round brackets.  This means that the year is not necessary to find the correct volume and that you use the volume number to find the book within the series (there is only one volume 52 in the law report series).   Use round brackets for series that use consecutive volume numbers for the whole series

 Neutral Citations

 Since 2001/02 all cases in the UK have been given a neutral citation which is designed to aid the use of electronic sources in court.

 A neutral citation is constructed as follows:

The first element is the calendar year, put in square brackets [  ].
Next are the abbreviations for the court which heard the case.  You may come across the following.

• UKHL House of Lords (from 2001-2009)
• UKSC Supreme Court (from 2009)
• UKPC Privy Council (from 2001)
• EWCA Civ Court of Appeal Civil Division (from 2001)
• EWCA Crim Court of Appeal Criminal Division (from 2001)
• EWHC High Court (over 2001/2002 see more detail below)

 The third element is  the unique (case) number - without brackets.
R v H [2003] EWCA Crim 13

 If the citation is to a High Court decision as a whole, the Practice Direction states that the appropriate divisional abbreviation should be placed in ( ) after the case number. The HC divisions are below: 

• Administrative Court  (Admin) (from 2001)
• Admiralty Court (Admlty) (from 2002)
•  Chancery Division (Ch) (from 2002)
•  Commercial Court  (Comm) (from 2002)
•  Family Division  (Fam) (from 2002)
•  Mercantile (Mercantile) (from 2002)
•  Patents Court (Pat) (from 2002)
•  Queen's Bench Division  (QB) (from 2002)
•  Supreme Court Costs Office (Costs) (from 2002)
•  Technology and Construction Court  (TCC) (from 2002)

Which Law report should you cite?

For a lot of cases you come across there will be a number of different law reports of that case.  It is important to try and cite the most authoritative law report.  For many countries there is an official series but in the UK there are a large number of different report series.  To find the most authoritative series for the UK you can use an online case citator tool such as Westlaw Case Analysis, JustCite or Lexis Library's Case Search which will have the list of law reports in order of authority.  The Law Reports series (published by ICLR) is seen as the most authoritative series and following a Practice Direction by Lord Woolf in 2001 ([2001] 1 WLR 194) it is the report to cite.  More information can be found in the UK Libguide on this series.

      Human Rights Act 1998 ch.42

 The Freedom of Information (Additional Public Authorities) Order 2005, SI 2005/3593

 Hollow-ware and Galvanising Welfare Order 1921, SR & O 1921/2032

Author(s), | 'Article title' | (year) or [year] if no volume | volume number| (issue number) if relevant | journal title or   abbreviation|  page number.

 Some examples are:

 Paul Craig, 'Theory, "Pure Theory" and values in Public Law' [2005] PL 440

 Alison L Young, 'In Defence of Due Deference' (2009) 72 MLR 554

 Author,/title/(additional information,/edition,/publisher/year)

 Example: Timothy Endicott, Administrative Law, (OUP 2009)