Acts, Cases & the Library Catalogue Bodleian Law Library 4 & 5 August 2009

Structure of session  Part One : Acts  Part Two : Case law  Part Three: The library catalogue

Part One Introduction to Acts of Parliament

How an Act is made  Bill (draft legislation - debate)  Act (when the Bill receives Royal Assent)  Commencement (the date when Act becomes law)

1. Bills  Drafts of Acts: the text will change  Debated in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords  Listed on the UK Parliament website:

List of Bills

Procedure for passing Bills  First reading  Second reading  Committee stage  Report stage  Third reading  Passage through the other House  Royal Assent

2. Acts of Parliament  When a bill is adopted it receives the Royal Assent  When a Bill receives the Royal Assent it becomes an Act and is given a Chapter number

3. Commencement  An Act is not law until it has been brought into force = “Commencement”  Date of commencement = the date that an Act becomes law  Always remember to check that an Act is in force

Where to find statutes (1)  Printed volumes in the Library  Chronological order  Without amendments

Where to find statutes (2) Halsbury’s Statutes  Arranged by subject  Amendments included

Where to find statutes (3) UK Statute Law Database  Free online source  Amendments included

UK Statute Law Database Search by: Title Year Number Legislation type

Example of search Search for Title: Human Rights Act Year: 1998

Type the title of the Act here Click Go Type the year of the Act here

Click here for the Act Click here for the first Commencement Order

The Act

The Commencement Order

Useful web sites  United Kingdom Parliament  Information on bills at:  UK Statute Law Database

Part Two Introduction to Case Law

Case Law  Case law - body of law made up of court judgments  Cases interpret the law  Doctrine of Precedent  Earlier judgments are important in deciding later cases  In general the decisions of higher courts bind lower courts

Court structure  Taken from HMCS website

Law Reporting  The most important cases are published  The Law Reports - available in print and online  Less important cases are not reported and are referred to as unreported.  However, recently many unreported cases have been published online

Finding Law Reports in Print  To find a law report in print you need to know the citation  e.g Pepper v Hart [1993] AC 513  You will find this report in the 1993 volume of the Appeal Cases starting at page 513 The year of publication is also the volume number. You need this information to choose the correct volume This tells you which series of law reports to use. AC stands for Appeal Cases. Other abbreviations include: Ch – Chancery Fam – Family QB – Queens bench This is the page number on which the report starts

Finding cases online Bailli – Free web site Includes:  UK cases 1996 –  Key historic judgments – the most important judgments from British history  Cases from the European Court of Justice  Cases from the European Court of Human Rights 1960-

Quick search box – searches the full text of all the materials on Bailii. Can be useful but returns lots of hits! Cases listed by party names (useful if you’re not sure of the exact spelling) Case law search - more flexible search options for finding cases by party name, citation and subject Subject lists of key cases Links to legal materials from around the World

To search for a case by party names use the case name search box e.g. Searching for Reynolds v Times Newspaper

Choose the correct result from the results screen. Some cases are heard by several courts e.g. This case was heard first by the Employment Appeal Tribunal. It then went on appeal to the Court of Appeal. Finally it went on appeal to the House of Lords. In this example I have chosen the House of Lords case.

Court Date of the judgment Judges Parties The judgment

Options for searching by subject You can use the tick boxes to restrict your search to a particular court e.g. The European Court of Justice

Lists of cases organised by subject

Part Three The Library Catalogue

The Library Catalogue  The Law Library’s collection is catalogued  The catalogue is called “OLIS”  “OLIS” covers other Oxford University libraries  “OLIS” can be searched via a system called “SOLO”:

When to use SOLO  Use SOLO to locate books NOT for the cases that you need to read – these are in the big black folders in the Library

Quick guide to SOLO  Search by title, author, subject heading  Look for books in the Law Library: Law Library LAW Reserve Law Library or LAW Main Libr

Put your search terms here

Click GO

Here is the record for the book Click Get It to find out where to find it

Scroll down

There is a copy in the Law Library at the Law Reserve

If you need more help…  The Bodleian Law Library website:  Please ask the Law Library staff!