| 22/12/2020 6:45 | Updated: 12/21/2020 9:17 PM
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Despite the pandemic and the new strain “Brexit” that is closing the continent to the United Kingdom, this week we finalized this brief approach to the magical world of the cases and sentences of England and Wales, collected in the “Law Reports”.
As we have seen, before 1865 it was the “barristers” themselves who wrote and published their own “Law reports”, reports of the cases presented before the courts, which were often known by the name of the author.
The proliferation of these old “nominate reports”, prepared by hundreds of authors and the consequent confusion about the actual content of the sentence led to the founding of the “Incorporated Council of Law Reporting”(“ ICLR ”) by the“ barrister ” William Thomas Shave Daniel QC (by the way, from “Lincolns’s Inn”)
Since then, this charity has been collecting both most of the cases from 1220 to 1866 in the so-called “English Reports”, as well as the cases after 1865, which are included in the “Law Reports” that the ICLR publishes annually.
And it is that, although it may surprise, the government of the United Kingdom does not publish any official “Law report”, although the courts have promulgated certain norms that establish that ICLR reports must be cited when they are available, as we will see below. by considering it as “Official Law Reports”.
MY KINGDOM FOR A GOOD DATE
According to 2012 Authorized Appointment Guide prepared by the “Courts and Tribunal Judiciary” – something similar to the Judicial Power of England and Wales -, when a case must be cited and is found by the ICLR, that “Law Report” will be prevalent over others.
In other words, you can only go to other “Law Reports” when there is no “official Law Report” from the ICLR.
Let’s see other “Law Reports” also important and whose appointment is common:
The “All England Law Reports o “All ER”, are published by Butterworths and Lexis publishing houses since 1936, enjoying great recognition since the criteria of a case to be included are similar to those used by the ICLR. However, the “All ERs” contain more sentences and are published more quickly, so always keep an eye on these “Law Reports”.
The “Weekly Law Reports“Or” WLR “are also published by the ICLR but much faster than in the official” Law Reports “. In fact, the judgments contained in the “WLRs” are later officially republished after the judge has checked the text of the judgment and additional material such as the arguments of the “barristers” has been added.
Likewise, it must be taken into account that certain matters also have their specific “Law Reports”, as in criminal law cases with the “Criminal Law Reports” (“Crim LR”); he “Reports of Patent Cases” (“RPC“), On patents, designs and trademarks, or the famous”Lloyd’s Law Reports” (Lloyd’s Rep”) On commercial and maritime law cases.
Be careful, these are only a few of the “Law Reports” available, but there are many more.
QUOTE WELL OR NOT QUOTE, THAT’S THE QUESTION
By now they must have realized the importance of citing a case, so it is essential to follow a series of rules to cite and understand citations correctly, an art, something esoteric, only for initiates on the subject.
First of all, you have to start with the easiest thing: the calls “neutral citations“, that is to say, citations of cases that do not refer to any specific “Law Report” and that, on the contrary, they only refer to the court that heard the case and the case number.
The “neutral citations” were used for the first time by the courts from 2001, so they are not very abundant and will have to pull the citations from “Law Reports”.
Next, let’s look at an example of a neutral quote and all the information it can contain:
Johnson v Cameron [2016] EWCA Civ 666 [9]
As we can see, this quote refers to the case where “Johnson” and “Cameron“Were the parties in the process, (always in italics, be careful), the sentence is of the year 2016 and the judicial body that heard the case is the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, Civil Section (“Court of Appeal of England and Wchosen”, Civhe Division ”). 666 is the case number and the [9] refers to the number of the paragraph that you want to specifically allege.
Obviously, in order to decipher the citations, the abbreviations of the courts must also be taken into account, which will be, among others:
UKSC: “Supreme Court”;
UKHL: “House of Lords”;
EWCA Crim: “England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)”;
EWCA Civ: “England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division)”;
EWHC: “England and Wales High Court”.
Now do the test with the following neutral quote:
Jameel v Wall Street Journal Europe [2006] UKHL 44
Indeed: the parties to the cited case were Mr. or Mrs. Jameel, and the company “Wall Street Journal Europe”, In a sentence of the year 2006 and resolved by UK House of Lords (“United Kingdom”, “House of Lords”) en la sentence number 44, without reference to a specific paragraph.
Easy, right?
Well, we are going to complicate it a little more, now with the “Law Reports”.
When a “Law Report” is cited then we must go to the list according to the hierarchy of “Law Reports” that begins with those of the ICLR, indicating the year of the volume, he number of that volume if there is, the abbreviation del “Law Report”, la first page of the “Law Report” to be cited and if there is no neutral quotation (which will be for cases before 2001), also indicate the court in parentheses at the end.
Let’s see an example:
El Ajou v Dollar Land Holdings [1993] 3 All ER 717 (CA)
Well here we have a quote from “All England Law Reports“Of the case between an individual,”El Ajou“, And society”Dollar Land Holdings”Before the Court of Appeal (“Court of Appeal ”) contained in the volume of the year 1993, volume third, finding that “Law Report” in particular in the page 717.
From here the appointments can get even more complicated, including the different publication dates, citation of one or more paragraphs, whether or not they are numbered, if they are different or correlative, the abbreviations of the different “Law Reports”, etc.
Anyway, here you have a fairly complete list of the most used initials and abbreviations in the law of England and Wales, in case they want to continue enjoying the sentences during these Christmas holidays.
Have a happy holiday season and you know: next week, more.
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