UK Legal Research

How to locate UK law generally Start with a secondary source Best: Halsbury’s Laws of England A legal encyclopedia arranged by topical subject--each topic is subdivided into parts, sections, subsections, and paragraphs with appropriate footnote references to cases, statutes, and statutory instruments In print: KD 310 .H34 (stack 1) Theoretically on LexisNexis, although not covered by our subscription

UK Case law research Top 5 things to know about UK case law Majority of UK cases are unreported No official reporter in the UK Neutral Citation now preferred No corollary to our KeyNumber/Headnotes But you can use a Digest No corollary to our KeyCite/Shepard’s But you can use JustCite on Justis

How to find UK cases If you don’t have a citation, use The Digest In print only: KD296 .E5 Works very much like our Digest system Use the Index to look up a topic Go to that volume/paragraph for that topic Read general description and use citations to primary materials listed therein

Noting-up This phrase is used by practitioners in most Commonwealth jurisdictions to refer to the process of updating a case or statute It would be synonymous with “Shepardizing” in the US for cases Because we codify our statutes and regulations, we do not have a similar tool for our legislation, although a somewhat like using the Federal Register to update the CFR to the current day

Example #1 Can a football club claim copyright infringement over a reproduction of a list of matches compiled by the club? Since you have no cite or name, use The Digest to locate a case on point Use the Index to the Digest to locate an entry on point Locate the entry in the main volume and read the case description, citing to the primary source (case) if its good

Where to find UK cases If you do have a citation or know the names of the parties, try Bailii (http://www.bailii.org/) It’s FREE and COMPREHENSIVE and EASY Justis (subscription database, access through our catalog) coverage: The Law Reports, Weekly Law Reports, Times Law Reports LexisNexis: UK Cases, Combined Courts coverage: All England Law Reports Westlaw: UK-RPTS-ALL coverage: The Law Reports and other specialized Sweet and Maxwell reporters

Example #2 Locate [1998] QB 294. This is a neutral cite (QB = Queen’s Bench) so we cannot be sure where it will be reported, but the best bet is to first start with Bailii

Since you have a cite, go to the guided search box for case law

Enter the cite EXACTLY how they instruct you to do it—it should resemble that already

No luck in Bailii, but at least it was free to check No luck in Bailii, but at least it was free to check. Next try Lexis/Westlaw/Justis (I’ll demo Justis)

To access Justis, just do a keyword search for it in FULLPAC and then link into it through our catalog record

Since you have a cite, you can search for it – OR – use the guided search boxes by clicking “Cases” above to search by other parameters

“Noter-up” this case by using JustCite, which are essentially all these tabbed features— “Subsequent Cases” would be the equivalent to the Shepardize button

16 cases have cited our case—but be sure to check the jurisdiction (note the 2nd and 3rd entries are not from the UK) and the treatment in the “How Cited” column before using them

UK Statutory Research Top 4 things to know about UK statutory research UK legislation is not codified Because it is not codified, you have to “noter-up” any legislation you find to ensure currency Subsequent amendments may be made by other Acts or Statutory Instruments Acts of Parliament may or may not apply to the whole of the UK—Scotland and Northern Ireland can make their own

How to find UK statutes Use a Secondary Source (i.e., Halsbury’s Laws of England) if you do not know the title of what you’re looking for Use the index or table of contents (if one exists) for the statutory database you are using

UK Statutory Instruments Secondary legislation issued as orders, rules, and regulations, promulgated by the Ministers under authority delegated to them by Parliament Statutory instruments = US regulations Enacted in order to reduce the length and complexity of statutes and increase their flexibility—SIs work WITH statutes, not separate to them

Where to find UK Statutory material Statutes and statutory instruments Legislation.gov.uk http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ Justis Lexis: Statutes and Statutory Instruments of England and Wales Westlaw: UK-ST

Example #3 Locate section 8 of the Local Government Act 1992 (c.19). What is the status of this section (i.e. is it in force, has it been repealed or amended, etc.)? Since you want to be sure of the status, why not try the free Statute Law Database first? It may involve a few more steps than Lexis/WL but will be much cheaper!

Always remember, you can browse if you’re not sure of exact title Plug in whatever information you have—in this example, we have all the relevant information, so any combination will work

Jump to the relevant section Authentic PDF version!

Some amendments/changes have not yet been incorporated to this version—you will need to consult the amending legislation not yet incorporated to read the “current” version of the law Always check the extent note to see which jurisdictions the section applies to—i.e., this section only applies to Scotland

**SCROLL DOWN THE PAGE…** This section was REPEALED for England and Wales (E.W.) by a law (c.27) in 1999 (probably in relation to Scotland’s devolution)

UK Parliamentary Publications Similar to US legislative history documents Helps trace the development and enactment of legislation before Parliament

Command Papers Command Papers are papers of interest to Parliament on subjects that may be major policy proposals (White Papers) and consultation documents (Green Papers), diplomatic documents such as treaties, Government responses to Select Committee reports, reports of major committees of inquiry or certain departmental reports or reviews. Similar to a US Congressional Committee Report

Hansard Common name for the publication of Parliamentary Debates—first printed in 1803 by William Hansard, so the name stuck “Hansard” = Congressional Record Most parliamentary systems have a Hansard, although it may be called “Official Record of Parliamentary Debate” List of Hansards: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansard (yes, I did just send you to Wikipedia)

Where to find UK Official Documents Hansard http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/pahansard.htm Coverage since 1988/89 session for Parliament, 1994/95 for House of Lords Bills currently before Parliament http://services.parliament.uk/bills/ Command Papers TSO: http://www.official-documents.gov.uk Coverage: full since 2005/06, select papers for the period 1994-2005

The Northern Ireland Legal System

NI Court System Court of Appeal High Court Crown Court Court of last resort in NI—appeal further to Supreme Court of the UK High Court Three divisions: Queen’s Bench, Family and Chancery Crown Court Serious criminal cases

NI Legislation Legislation can be created by both the NI Parliament or Westminster (UK) Judicature (Northern Ireland) Act 1978 c.23 “Northern Ireland” comes before the “Act”, therefore created by Westminster to apply only to NI Interpretation Act (Northern Ireland) 1954 c.33 “Northern Ireland” comes after the “Act”, therefore made by NI Parliament/Assembly

NI Legislation Areas in which Westminster has authority 1. Excepted matters – these are areas in which Westminster legislates for the whole of the United Kingdom. They include foreign policy, defence, taxation and the Armed Forces and are all listed in the Northern Ireland Act 1998 c.47 Sch.2. 2. Reserved matters – these are areas in which Wesminster may devolve the power to legislate to the NIA. At the time of writing, negotiations are ongoing as to whether policing and criminal justice matters should be transferred to the NIA. The complete list of reserved matters is contained in the Northern Ireland Act 1998 c.47 Sch.3. 3. Transferred matters – these are functions of Government which are devolved to the NIA and include education, health, environment and agriculture.

If you want to search on NI materials, you can start off by accessing only NI databases by following this link and then selecting the relevant database—statutes, case law, etc.

PDF copies of all NI statutes from 2007-on are available on BAILII—note the position of “Northern Ireland”, signifying the Act was promulgated by the NI Parliament