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	Case law on BAILII
You are here: BAILII >> About BAILII >> Case law on BAILII URL: https://www.bailii.org/bailii/summary-cases.html

BAILII receives a regular feed of cases from the Courts of the four jurisdictions of the United Kingdom and from the Courts of Ireland. The table below shows the numbers of cases decided since 1 January 1996 which are held in the database.

In April and May of 2003 arrangements were made for all the substantive judgments of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal and the Administrative Court to be posted on the BAILII website. Judgments on permission applications, and other preliminary applications, will only be published there if a judge so requests. This arrangement was backdated to 1st January 2003. All these judgments are now on BAILII. The number of judgments from the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal and the other Divisions of the High Court have been steadily increasing, and it is hoped that even more progress will be achieved during 2005.

There is still a restriction on the number of English cases from Divisions of the High Court which can be added to the BAILII database which arises from the fact that the shorthand-writers who transcribe judgments which have been given verbally (as opposed to judgments handed down on paper) own the copyright in the transcribed version of the judgment. This prevents the judgment being added to the BAILII database without the consent of the shorthand-writer. BAILII, being a free web site, has no funds with which to acquire a licence to copy and display the transcript. (Enquiries for copies of unreported English judgments which are not available on BAILII should be directed to the Courts Transcription & Recording Unit (RCJ Room WB14; tel: 020 7947 7820; fax: 020 7947 6662; email: rcj.cratu@hmcts.gsi.gov.uk .)

BAILII continues to press for the system to be changed so that all judgments may be freely available. A large number of transcribed judgments of the Court of Appeal and the Administrative Court for the period July 1996 - August 1999 were kindly provided by the official shorthand writers Smith Bernal. All handed down English Court of Appeal cases decided since July 1996 should be on BAILII.

Handed down first-instance decisions of the England and Wales and Northern Ireland High Courts are generally only provided to BAILII where the Judge giving the judgment indicates that they are of sufficient interest to be made available for publication on the Internet.

The official version of English judgments of the Court of Appeal and High Court are the Approved Judgments in .rtf format. In most cases the .rtf version is also available on BAILII. When the .rtf version is not available the BAILII web version is not to be taken as official.

Decisions of the Irish Supreme Court and High Court are reasonably comprehensive since February 2001. The official version of Irish judgments is the hard copy version.

BAILII has few Northern Ireland cases decided prior to 2000.

BAILII has few Scottish cases decided prior to 1999.

Full coverage of House of Lords and Privy Council cases commmenced during 1996.

Users of BAILII are reminded that the judgments of any court below the highest level may have been the subject of an appeal, and that they should satisfy themselves that the judgment has not been the subject of an appeal before relying on it as an authority. The Court of Appeal has recently adopted this practice, although it is not yet being universally followed in the judgments of that court. This should facilitate an automated noter-up function to display an indication that a judgment has been the subject of an appeal.

An orange highlight to a row denotes a court that is no longer active.