Introduction
Length of Citation
Date of Decision
Decision Numbering
Country or Region Code
Court Hierarchy Code
Jurisdiction Code
Court Code
Examples of Court Codes
    Canada: Supreme Court
    Canada: Federal Courts
    Canada: Provincial / Territorial Courts
    United States: Supreme Court
    United States: Federal Courts
    United States: State Courts
    Australia
    United Kingdom
    Europe
Opinion Number
Revised Opinions
Paragraph Numbers
Non-precedential Opinions
Case Names
Publication Bans

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Introduction

1. The dissemination of court opinions on the Internet is increasing at a rapid rate. Proposals have been made in several countries respecting the adoption of a media-neutral citation system for court opinions. Generally, it is proposed that the citation should be assigned by the court before the opinion is released and that the court should assign paragraph numbers to the text before the opinion is released.
   
   
2. For example, the American Bar Association has proposed a system of official citation for court opinions. URL: http://www.abanet.org/citation
   
   In the proposed ABA examples below, the first number after the court code represents the opinion number within the calendar year. The second number represents a paragraph number.
   

US Supreme Court	Smith v. Jones, 1996 US 15, 124
US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit	Smith v. Jones, 1996 4Cir 22, 85
US District Court for the District of Maryland	Smith v. Jones, 1996 DMD 17, 923
US District Court for the Southern District of New York	Smith v. Jones, 1996 SDNY 15, 922
Federal court patent case	Smith v. Jones, 1996 EDVA 34, 23
Maryland Supreme Court	Smith v. Jones, 1996 MD 15
Maryland Court of Appeals	Smith v. Jones, 1996 MD App 16

3. It is respectfully suggested that although the proposed systems may work admirably within a country, they are not always crystal clear to researchers from other countries.
   
   
4. It has been suggested by several commentators that an international citation system is needed so that the origin of a court opinion posted on the Internet and referred to in later research can be easily and accurately determined.

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Length of Citation

5. Legal researchers and law publishers generally prefer brief citations because the citing of earlier cases is a central requirement of legal writing in many jurisdictions.
   
   
6. On the other hand, non-legal researchers have commented that legal citations are so cryptic that they are particularly difficult to decipher. They wish legal citations conformed more closely to the bibliographic citation standards used by the majority of other disciplines. Those standards generally require that a citation be self-explanatory.
   
   
7. With the proliferation of court opinions on the Internet, non-legal researchers increasingly are able to locate court opinions and make references to them in their research papers on environmental issues, human rights issues and so on.
   
   
8. To assist all researchers who need court opinions, it is suggested that courts should place two citations at the top of each court opinion placed on the Internet:
   1. A full bibliographic reference in accordance with ISO (International Standards Organization) Draft International Standard 690-2 for electronic documents.
   2. A "legal" citation for use by legal writers in court briefs, court opinions, texts, articles, commentaries and other legal literature.
      
      
9. For example, an electronic citation is needed for the following hypothetical case placed on the Internet: Jones v. Smith. Washington State (USA) Court of Appeals, Division 2 (Tacoma). Opinion of Justice Black dated April 21, 1997. Court of Appeals opinion number 25 of 1997.
   
   
10. The ISO citation might look something like this: Jones v Smith [online]. Tacoma (Wash., USA): Washington State Court of Appeals, Division 2, 21 March 1997. 1997 opinion no. 25. [noted 1997-05-13]. Available from Internet: URL: http://www etc. and URL: http:www etc.
    
    
11. Commentators who are more familiar with the ISO standards for electronic documents will very likely suggest a better form of citation than the one above. For the remainder of this paper the comments will focus on the format of 'legal' citations.

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Date of Decision

12. Traditional legal citations, when they did include a date of decision, generally indicated only a year—either the year the opinion was released or the year the opinion was published.
    
    Jones v. Smith (1977), 80 D.L.R. (3d) 634 (B.C.S.C.)
    Jones v. Smith, [1984] 5 W.W.R. 538 (Man. C.A.)
    Jones v. Smith, 287 U.S. 103
    Jones v. Smith, 676 F.2d 468 (11th Cir. 1982)
    Jones v. Smith (1993) 117 ALR 455
    
    With the exception of the highest court in a country, relatively few opinions were selected for publication in printed law report volumes. Also, the volume numbering of law report volumes allowed researchers to locate a decision quickly.
    
    
13. With courts now releasing on Internet sites a much broader selection of opinions, it is a certainty that two or more opinions involving the same parties can be released within the same year and even on the same day. For this reason it has been suggested that any date which forms part of an electronic citation should be the full decision date, not simply the year of the decision: 19970321 (year month day) rather than 1997.
    
    
14. One difficulty with the format 19970321 is that a researcher who generally knows the year and part of the Title of the case would need to remember to always use a truncation feature when searching the year. For example: 1997! or 1997****. On some retrieval systems too many search terms would be generated by such a search. Consequently, it is suggested that this proposed format requires further thought. For the purposes of the present discussion, the simple form 1997 will be used.
    
    
15. In the case of an oral ruling rendered from the bench, followed by written opinion(s) released at a later date, the date in the citation should be the date of the oral ruling unless the rules of court of the jurisdiction specify otherwise.

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Decision Numbering

16. Most proposals respecting electronic citations suggest that a court should number decisions sequentially as they are posted on the Internet site. What constitutes a "court" if the court sits in two or more divisions, districts, circuits or other administrative areas? For example, the Washington State Court of Appeals sits in three Divisions, in Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane.
    
    
17. It is suggested that the format chosen for the court abbreviation (an essential part of the electronic citation) will depend on the administrative arrangements set up within a court system for the posting of their decisions on the Internet.
    
    
18. If the opinions are provided to a central location for posting on the Internet, just one opinion numbering system is needed and the Court's Division number need not form part of the court abbreviation unless the court so desires.
    
    
19. On the other hand, if each Division posts its own decisions on the Internet and numbers its decisions sequentially, the Division number would need to be retained as part of the court abbreviation.
    
    
20. For purposes of the following examples of legal citations, it is assumed that most court systems will adopt a central numbering system for their opinions.

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Country or Region Code

21. It is proposed that the international citation contain the standard country or region code as the first element in the court abbreviation. For example:
    
    

    UK AU US CA ZA JM EU IN INT

    United Kingdom (Great Britain and Northern Ireland) Australia United States of America Canada South Africa Jamaica European Community and Council of Europe Courts India International Courts and Tribunals

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Court Hierarchy Code

22. It is suggested that a Court Hierarchy Code would assist researchers in understanding the relative importance of the court within the country's court structure.
    
    
23. For example, in U.S. states the highest court is often called the Supreme Court, while the court below that court in the hierarchy is called the Court of Appeals. In Canadian provinces and territories the reverse is true. The highest court is called the Court of Appeal (or Cour d'appel) while the court immediately below is called the Supreme Court, Court of Queen's Bench, Cour supérieure or General Division / Divisional Court. A hierarchy code would clarify the position of each court within the country's court structure.
    
    
24. It is conceded that assigning court level codes is an imprecise business when a court has both a trial and appellate jurisdiction. Two courts within a country which carry the same hierarchy code may not have equal powers. However, it is suggested that an approximate court level would provide valuable assistance to researchers.

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Jurisdiction Code

25. In countries with a federal level of courts as well as state, provincial, territorial or regional courts, it is useful to indicate this structure within the court abbreviation. For example, there may be "District" courts at both the federal and state level. There may be "Labour" courts at both the federal and state level.
    
    
26. The code F could denote a court within the federal jurisdiction. For state/provincial/territorial courts, 2 or more characters for the State, Province or Territory (usually a postal code) could be used, for example:
    
    

    NY AB NSW

    The State of New York (United States) The Province of Alberta (Canada) The State of New South Wales (Australia)

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Court Code

27. This code would be an abbreviation of the Court Name.
    
    
28. The American Association of Law Libraries has suggested that the abbreviation "Ct" is superfluous: (http://www.aallnet.org/committee/citation/task_force.html#10).
    
    
29. In the present proposal, "Ct" has been retained in most instances, to achieve the goal of making the citation clear to researchers from all countries.
    
    
30. In devising court codes, the convention of "greater unit" followed by "smaller unit" is used. For example, the High Court of Australia is processed as Australia High Court. The suggested code for the Southern District of New York is NYSD rather than SDNY.
    
    
31. Cryptic abbreviations should be avoided if any possible confusion may arise. For example, in the Australian federal (Commonwealth) jurisdiction, IRC and IRT should be avoided in favour of IndusRelCt (Industrial Relations Court) and ImmRevTrib (Immigration Review Tribunal).

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Examples of Court Codes

32. The following is a proposed international 'legal' citation: 1997 US.3.WA.CtApp no25 para34-36.
    
    

    	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
    Jones v Smith,	1997	US	. 3.	WA.	CtApp	no25	para34-36

    
    

    A = Year opinion was released B = Country or Region Code C = Court Hierarchy Code D = Jurisdiction Code

    E = Court Code F = Opinion Number G = Pinpoint reference to paragraph numbers

    
    

    CANADA: Supreme Court
    English language decisions:
    CA.1.SupCt	= Supreme Court of Canada
    CA	= Canada
    1	= Hierarchy code. Highest level in Canada
    SupCt	= Supreme Court of Canada
    French language decisions:
    CA.1.CoSupr	= Cour suprême du Canada

    
    

    CANADA: Federal Courts
    English language decisions:
    CA.2.F.FedCtApp	= Federal Court of Appeal
    CA	= Canada
    2	= Level 2 court in Canada
    F	= Court of federal jurisdiction
    FedCtApp	= Canada Federal Court of Appeal
    CA.2.F.CtMartApp	= Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada
    CA.3.F.FedCtTrDiv	= Federal Court of Canada, Trial Division
    CA.4.F.TaxCt	= Tax Court of Canada
    French language decisions:
    CA.2.F. CoAppFéd CA.2.F. CoAppMar CA.3.F. CoFédPremInst CA.4.F. CoImpôts	= Cour d'appel fédérale = Cour d'appel des cours martiales = Cour féderale, division de première instance = Cour canadienne des Impôts

    
    

    CANADA: Provincial/Territorial Courts
    CA.2.BC.CtApp	= British Columbia Court of Appeal
    CA	= Canada
    2	= Level 2 court in Canada
    BC	= Province of British Columbia
    CtApp	= Court of Appeal (highest within province)
    CA.3.BC.SupCt	= British Columbia Supreme Court
    CA.4.BC.ProvCt	= British Columbia Provincial Court
    CA.2.ON.CtApp	= Ontario Court of Appeal
    CA.3.ON.DivCt	= Ontario Court, General Division, Divisional Court
    CA.4.ON.GenDiv	= Ontario Court, General Division
    CA.4.ON.UnifFamCt	= Ontario Unified Family Court
    CA.5.ON.ProvDiv	= Ontario Court, Provincial Division
    CA.2.QC.CoApp	= Cour d'appel du Québec
    CA.3.QC.CoSupér	= Cour supérieure du Québec
    CA.4.QC.CoQué	= Cour du Québec
    CA.4.QC.TrTrav	= Tribunal du travail
    CA.4.QC.TrProf	= Tribunal des professions
    CA.4.QC.TrDrPer	= Tribunal des droits de la personne

    
    

    UNITED STATES: Supreme Court
    US.1.SupCt	= United States Supreme Court

    
    

    UNITED STATES: Federal Courts
    US.2.F.CtApp4Cir	= United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
    US.2.F.CtAppDC	= United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
    US.2.F.CtAppFed	= United States Court of Appeals for the Federal District
    US.3.F.DistCtNYSD	= United States District Court for the Southern District of New York

    
    

    UNITED STATES: State Courts
    US.2.WA.SupCt	= Washington State Supreme Court
    US.3.WA.CtApp	= Washington State Court of Appeals
    US.4.WA.SupCt	= Washington State Superior Court
    US.5.WA.DistCt	= Washington State District Court
    Note: How to distinguish "Supreme" and "Superior" Court?

    
    

    AUSTRALIA
    AU.1.HighCt	= High Court of Australia
    AU.2.F.FedCt	= Federal Court of Australia
    AU.2.F.IndusRelCt	= Industrial Relations Court of Australia
    AU.3.SA.IndusCt	= South Australia Industrial Court
    AU.3.F.ImmRevTr	= Immigration Review Tribunal
    AU.2.NSW.SupCt	= New South Wales Supreme Court
    AU.3.Vic.CoCt	= Victoria County Court

    
    

    UNITED KINGDOM
    UK.1.HLords	= House of Lords
    UK.1.PrivyC	= Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
    UK.2.E&W.CtApp.CivDiv	= England & Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    UK.2.E&W.CtApp.CrimDiv	= England & Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)
    UK.3.E&W.ChDiv	= England & Wales High Court of Justice, Chancery Division
    UK.3.E&W.QB.CommCt	= England & Wales High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, Commercial Court
    UK.2.NI.CtApp	= Northern Ireland Court of Appeal
    UK.3.NI.HighCtJust	= Northern Ireland High Court of Justice
    UK.3.NI.CrownCt	= Northern Ireland Crown Court
    UK.4.NI.CoCt	= Northern Ireland County Court
    UK.5.NI.MagCt	= Northern Ireland Magistrates Court
    UK.2.Scot.CtSess	= Scotland Court of Session
    UK.1.Scot.HighCtJust	= Scotland High Court of Justiciary
    UK.3.Scot.SherPr	= Scotland Sheriff Principal Court
    UK.4.Scot.SherCt	= Scotland Sheriff Court

    
    

    EUROPE
    EU.1.EuCtJus	= European Court of Justice
    EU.2.EuCtFirstInst	= European Court of First Instance
    EU.1.EuCtHumRights	= European Court of Human Rights
    EU.2.EuCommHumRights	= European Commission on Human Rights

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Opinion Number

33. Traditionally, a number preceding a law report citation indicates a volume number. It is suggested that this practice should not be disturbed. Printed law report citations will be used for many years to come and it is not advisable to introduce confusion into citing systems. In the present proposal, the opinion number follows the court code and is accompanied by "no" so that the opinion number is never mistaken for a volume number, page number or paragraph number. Thus:
    
    Smith v Jones, 1997 US.3.WA.CtApp no25
    
    Smith v Jones, 1997 AU.3.NSW.DistCt no25
    
    
34. Each court should begin each calendar year with a new sequence of numbers commencing at 1.

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Revised Opinions

35. The American Bar Association proposal suggests that when the Court revises and re-issues an opinion or releases an errata, the revised document or errata should receive a new number (the next available number in the court's sequence):
    
    (http://www.abanet.org/citation/). ABA example:
    
    Smith v Jones, 1996 MD 15, modified, 1996 MD 47
    
    Smith v Jones, 1996 MD 15, errata 1996 MD 47
    
    
36. It is suggested in the present proposal that there are perhaps two disadvantages to the ABA proposal. Firstly, all future references to the opinion will require that both numbers (or perhaps 3 or more numbers) must be included if researchers are not to be misled. Thus the complete citation for the case will always be very long. Secondly, if researchers have the cite for the first version and seek to note up the case, it is possible that they will miss references to later versions. It is proposed that only one number be assigned to an opinion and that revisions, errata and supplementary reasons be handled as follows:
    
    Jones v Smith, 1997 US.2.WA.SupCt no25
    
    Jones v Smith, 1997 US.2.WA.SupCt no25-rev-19970403
    
    Jones v Smith, 1997 US.2.WA.SupCt no25-rev-19970522
    
    
37. The use of the hyphen will ensure that if an online researcher types no25, all references to revised versions will automatically be retrieved.

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Paragraph Numbers

38. Most commentators have recommended that Courts should assign internal paragraph numbers before releasing opinions. Paragraph numbers should be assigned to all text except quoted excerpts, footnotes and summaries (unless they are official court summaries). Where there are two or more opinions in the same case, the numbering should be continuous from the beginning of the first detailed majority opinion to the end of the final minority opinion.
    
    
39. Recommendations on how to cite paragraph numbers differ. Proposals include: 50, p50, ¶50. Since plain numbers following a law report citation traditionally denote page numbers, and since "p" has traditionally signified "page" and continues to do so, it is proposed that to avoid confusion, the term "par" or preferably "para" should be used. This practice ensures that a paragraph number is never mistaken for a page or decision number. Example:
    
    Smith v Jones, 1997 US.3.WA.CtApp no17 para11-15

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Non-precedential Opinions

40. The American Bar Association has posed the question of how a Court may identify opinions which are non-precedential or uncitable. That question has not been addressed in this proposal. The ABA proposes the adding of a code such as NP or U to whatever other codes are used by the Court.

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Case Names

41. It is suggested that the Court should provide on the first screen of every case posted on the Internet, in addition to the full Title of the case, an abbreviated Title which should be used by all researchers when referring to the case. This will ensure that all future references to the case will carry the same, consistent case name.
    
    
42. The abbreviated Title should use, for person's names, the surname only of the first named party (if there are two or more plaintiffs or defendants). The use of "et al", "and others" or other designation is unnecessary.
    
    
43. Persons acting in an official capacity should be identified by their official title rather than their personal name. The short Title for cases involving persons acting in a representative capacity should state the party being represented, rather than the personal name of the representative.
    
    
44. When government entities are parties, the name of the jurisdiction should be included. The jurisdiction name should normally precede the name of the government department or agency. For example, the long Title "Roger David Smith v. Department of Social Security" should have the abbreviated Title "Smith v. Australia (Department of Social Security)".

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Publication Bans

45. Courts should take care not to disclose, in opinions posted on the Internet, the identity of persons when there is a legal requirement to protect their identity by the use of initials or by other means. Such a requirement could be imposed by statute, as in proceedings involving young offenders, child protection proceedings, affiliation proceedings and adoption proceedings or imposed by judicial order as in criminal and civil proceedings involving victims of sexual offences.