Free Case Law Resources on the web

The next row contains three sponsored links for legal publishers. They are not free but you may need them at some point!
Lawtel - join the 80,000 professionals who rely on Lawtel every day WestlawUK - the UK's Online legal information service JustCite - the only provider-neutral search engine & citator service

Last updated on April 16th.

The UK Statute Law Database is the official revised edition of the primary legislation of the United Kingdom made available online. It was developed by the Statutory Publications Office (SPO) and is now provided by the Ministry of Justice. Here is what the press release on the DCA site says:
"The database offers users a range of advanced search and navigation functions across over 30,000 items of UK primary and secondary legislation. The database contains primary legislation that was in force at 1 February 1991 and primary and secondary legislation that has been produced since that date. New legislation is published on the website as soon as possible after it has been issued. The SPO is responsible for maintaining the UK Statute Book by incorporating new legislation on to the database and keeping primary legislation up-to-date by applying the effects contained within subsequent legislation. The primary legislation has been revised to 2002 and is expected to be completely up to date with revisions by the end of 2008. The SLD also contains Tables of Effects for 2002 onwards that will help users to establish currency on any particular item of primary legislation that they select."

BAILII (British and Irish Legal Information Institute) provides access to the most comprehensive free and up-to-date collection of British and Irish primary legal materials on the internet with 74 databases covering 7 jurisdictions. A user can pick individual courts, tribunals or collections of legislation to search or search across the whole seven jurisdictions in one go. Some of these are the Court of Appeal of England and Wales; the Irish Supreme Court; the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal; Scottish Court of Session and High Court; Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and the House of Lords and the European Union as well as full-text legislation databases from Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the United Kingdom. Also on BAILII are Law Commission publications and tribunal decisions from tribunals such as the Employment Appeals Tribunal, the Immigration Appeals Tribunal and VAT & Duties Tribunals. In many instances BAILII has these documents available days before any other source.

BAILII is legally constituted as a public trust incorporated in the UK. It is hosted in the UK and Ireland by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London and the Law Faculty, University College Cork.

The databases on BAILII are derived from a number of sources. Some of the data comes from existing free sites. Most of the databases are based on published and unpublished CD-ROMs or rely upon direct and indirect feeds by relevant courts, government departments and other organisations. All of the data has been converted into a consistent format and a generalised set of search and hypertext facilities have been added.

Her Majesty's Courts Service provides a large number of recent selected judgments since 1996 on its site (take the "Legal/Professional" link and then "Judgments". It has now passed on the longer term archiving and managing of its judgments database to BAILII; as above.

JustCite 2.0 is a multi-source legal search engine and citator service from independent publisher Justis. It is the only provider-neutral service that links to content from a range of publishers and includes extensive links to full-text material on leading online services, including BAILII, Casetrack, Informa Law, Justis, LexisNexis and WestLaw. Further information on the facilities provided by the new version JustCite 2.0 can be found here. There is a free version of JustCite 2.0 (designed to be genuinely useful whilst not provided so many resources in the search as the full version) below.

e.g. 1989 AC 177; newspaper NOT times;
"fair and reasonable"; 2004 child*
(valid reference formats)

infolaw finder enables the user to search all the important UK sources (Acts, SI's, cases, forms and precedents and other official documents) in so far as these resources are on the web without charge - around 100,000 documents. What the process is actually doing is setting up the "right" search for each of the significant resources available online, firing it off to the respective resources, and then collecting and collating the results, so that the user does not have to know where the resources are or how to carry out those particular searches. To use the infolaw finder you need to register for a 30 day free trial.

The Incorporated Council of Law Reporting offers a service called WLR Daily (previously called Daily Law Notes) with summarised reports of cases heard at House of Lords and Privy Council, Court of Appeal - Criminal and Civil Divisions, Chancery Division, Queen's Bench Division, Family Division and Court of Justice of the EU. There is also a monthly index but, once they have been reported in the printed (and paid for) WLR, the free summary seems to be withdrawn.

There is also a free facility on the ICLR site called "Industrial Cases Reports Express" with previews of the Industrial Cases Reports before they are available in printed form. The reports cover employment law, discrimination and competition.

The Scottish Courts Web Site provides many recent Court Opinions of importance. As it says in more details: "This site provides an access point to information relating to all civil and criminal courts within Scotland, including the Court of Session, the High Court of Justiciary, the Sheriff Courts and a number of other courts, commissions and tribunals as well the District Courts. The information includes location details, contact numbers, advice and details of recent significant judgments. The site is regularly updated with any changes and other relevant information."

CaseCheck offers registered users free access to a continually updated archive of Scottish Court case summaries and also summaries of UK Employment Appeal Tribunal cases. Presently the archive contains summaries dating back to 2005. The archive is split up into a number of clearly defined categories and each case summary links directly to the full, original judgment. The content of the site is user generated and the current reports are drafted by an advocate, an employment lawyer and a professional support lawyer. Registered users can add comments and can also receive a weekly email bulletin with details of recently added reports. The service builds upon and takes over the Intersettle Scottish Courts Newsletter which was a subscription only service and was delivered to approximately seventy firms in Scotland. It is also interesting because it is built as a "Web 2.0 service" using an open source blog platform and should become, in time, something of a wiki. RSS is available.

The Northern Ireland Court Service was established in 1979, by the Judicature (Northern Ireland) Act 1978, as a separate civil service in Northern Ireland. The Court Service reports to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. There are selected Judgments and Practice Directions on the site. House of Lords Judgments are available since 1996, sorted by title within year. The most recent judgments are shown at the top of the page.

Tribunals

There are just a few described here. For a full list, look at The Court Service list of tribunals.

Care Standards Tribunal relates to the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults under various Childrens Acts and related legislation. There are decisions on the site.

Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) is a specialist judicial body with cross-disciplinary expertise in law, economics, business and accountancy. Under United Kingdom law, the function of the CAT is to hear and decide appeals and other applications or claims involving competition or economic regulatory issues. It came into force on 1 April 2003.

Employment Appeal Tribunal offers Judgments in full text, indexed by type of case (Sex Discrimination, Transfer of Undertakings, Unfair Dismissal etc), Appellant, Respondent or Judge. These are available in html format. Other parts of the site are available in pdf format, including Cause Lists and forms. There is also a good section written for non-lawyers, on whether there is cause for appeal and what the procedures are.

Finance and Tax Tribunals include the Vat and Duties Tribunals, Special Commissioners and Financial Services & Markets Tribunal. The site has been designed to meet the needs of those wishing to appeal against decisions of HM Customs & Excise and the Inland Revenue or to refer matters relating to certain decisions of the Financial Services Authority. The Tribunals are part of the Department for Constitutional Affairs. There are decisions on the site which can be searched by categories of VAT, Customs Duties, Excise Duties, Insurance Premium Tax, Landfill Tax and Special Commissioners.

Immigration Services Tribunal is part of the Court Service, an executive agency of the Department for Constitutional Affairs. The site provides information on how to appeal and procedures generally. There is also a database of decisions.

The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal is the successor to the Immigration Appellate Authority and the Immigration Appeals Tribunal. The Tribunal was set up under the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc) Act 2004 and came into being on 4th April 2005. The purpose of the Tribunal is to hear and decide appeals against decisions made by the Home Office in matters of asylum, immigration and nationality. The site contains the information needed to pursue an appeal to the Tribunal and also provides information about procedures and hearing centres, daily court lists, a case law database and links to related legislation. The case law section includes Country Guideline Determinations and a List of Starred Determinations (although this is not complete yet).

Lands Tribunal Website is designed to assist claimants and their representatives. It includes information on the functions and powers of the Lands Tribunal, an explanation of our rules and procedures and a searchable database of decisions. The Lands Tribunal was established by the Lands Tribunal Act 1949 to determine questions of disputed compensation arising out of the compulsory acquisition of land; to decide rating appeals; to exercise jurisdiction under section 84 of the Law of Property Act 1925 (discharge and modification of restrictive covenants); and to act as arbitrator under references by consent. Under the 1949 Act other jurisdictions may be added, and a number have been since the Tribunal came into existence on 1 January 1950. The Tribunal’s jurisdiction is exercised in England and Wales.

Pensions Appeal Tribunals hear appeals from ex-servicemen or women who have had their claims for a War Pension rejected by the Secretary of State for Defence. The jurisdiction of the Tribunals only includes England & Wales - Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate Tribunals. The Pensions Appeal Tribunals are independent of the Veterans Agency. The Tribunals have been set up in their present form since 1943, although they have been in existence as part of the Lord Chancellor's responsibility since the War Pensions Act 1919. Selected Decisions are due to go on the site during April 2005.

Social Security and Child Support Commissioners, the specialised part of the Judiciary appointed to determine appeals on law under the Social Security and Child Support Acts. Decisions since 1972 are on the site.

Transport Tribunal has three jurisdictions. It was originally set up to hear appeals against decisions of Traffic Commissioners in connection with the Heavy Goods Vehicles & Public Service Vehicles Operators Licensing Systems. It also hears appeals against decisions of The Registrar of Approved Driving Instructors. In addition, it is able to resolve disputes under the Postal Services Act 2000. Members of the Transport Tribunal also act as the London Service Permit Appeals Panel. The site has decisions since 2000.

Other Sources

One Crown Office Row's Human Rights Update is a database of 800 reports and commentaries on human rights dating back to 1998 with a weekly update co-ordinated by Chambers Academic Rosalind English. The cases are taken from domestic courts and the Strasbourg court involving human rights points that demonstrate the impact of the European Convention on domestic law and also explores the practical impact of these cases for practitioners. There is a good search engine and it is possible to sign up for a weekly update by email. As well as being a resource for practitioners, it will be widely used by students and less experienced lawyers, and possibly also members of the public, since it includes a practical guide to the Convention and the Act; what are "Incorporated Rights", "Procedures and Remedies" and so on.

Competition Commission is an independent public body established by the Competition Act 1998. The Commission replaced the Monopolies and Mergers Commission ("MMC") on 1 April 1999. The Commission has taken on the former MMC role of carrying out inquiries into matters referred to it by the other UK competition authorities concerning monopolies, mergers and the economic regulation of utility companies.

The Privy Council is online - take the Judicial Committee link from the front page. As it says on the site "The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is the court of final appeal for those Commonwealth countries which have retained the appeal to Her Majesty in Council or, in the case of Republics, to the Judicial Committee. It is also the final appeal court for the Channel Islands, Isle of Man and United Kingdom overseas territories. It also has certain domestic jurisdiction within the United Kingdom, including the function of being the court of final appeal for determining devolution issues under the United Kingdom devolution statutes of 1998."
The site gives the full text of "Key Judgments before 1999", Judgments 1999 and each year thereafter. The judgments are in chronological order, oldest first.

The Telegraph provides a selection of Law Reports from Westlaw UK each Thursday. These only stay on the site for a week and there is no way of finding past reports.

The Times provides the Law Reports online in association with LexisNexis. The reports are available free for 21 days but for access to older reports, a subscription is required. The (subscription) reports go back to 1988 and can be searched in various ways.

The Law Society Gazette provides its Law Reports on the site in the "In Practice" section although it does not seem to be possible to search for past reports.

David Swarbrick, now a consultant to Wrigley Claydon, provides an index of case reports from 1991 to 1999 (take the "Law-index" link"). This can be searched by statute, area of law, date and by court. There is now also a "professional" (and charged) version called Lawindexpro with additional features such as links to 35,000 full text decisions and 12,000 head-notes. However, the basic free area is still available in a limited form.

Other law reports and news services covering particular areas of law, and available free on the web, include the following:

Laurie West-Knights' offers an ongoing commentary on substantive legal sources. Look, in particular, for the What's New page and also the section on What There Is In the UK. There is also information on the BAILII site, of which he is one of the prime movers (see above). His site also has a comprehensive area devoted to up the the minute cases news questions and analysis on the Civil Procedure Rules.

elawstudent.com is a small company developing law courses and in particular, so far, an 'A' Level Law software programme (GCSE law and the core subjects for the first year of the LLB degree will follow later in the year). In the meantime, barrister Richard Priestley is making his database of significant edited transcripts of case judgments available to anyone interested. Take the Library option (you have to register). You can then search by keyword (e.g. negligence) or by name or part of name. I asked how the cases were chosen. Richard said "I choose the cases in accordance with the syllabi of AQA and OCR, who are the only two examining boards offering AS/A LEVEL LAW. Unfortunately, the areas covered are huge: crime, contract, tort, consumer protection, human rights and els. Frankly, in terms of depth, I would equate the course with a first-year LL.B."

Historical resource
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey is "A fully searchable online edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing accounts of over 100,000 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court." it is coming online in stages, with the first stage, 22,000 trials, from December 1714 to December 1759, available now. "The Proceedings" is the name of the original published version. Here is what it says about these: "The Proceedings contain accounts of trials which took place at the Old Bailey. The crimes tried were mostly felonies (predominantly theft), but also include some of the most serious misdemeanours. The first published collection of trials at the Old Bailey dates from 1674, and from 1678 accounts of the trials at each session (meeting of the Court) at the Old Bailey were regularly published. Inexpensive, and targeted initially at a popular rather than a legal audience, the Proceedings were produced shortly after the conclusion of each sessions and were a commercial success. With few exceptions, this periodical was regularly published each time the sessions met (eight times a year) for 160 years. In 1834 it changed its name, but publication continued until 1913." The site is beautifully prepared, with the full text available as well as digital images of the original reports. There are also some pictures from legal material of the time together with an extensive Introduction. There is a particular section for schools, with the site obviously seen as material for school projects. The project is funded by various grants so that access can be free.


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