Citation of Australian legal cases

 

Cases: General Rules

Case Names (AGLC4: 2.1)

A citation to an Australian legal case should include the parties' names in italics, separated by a 'v'

• Cite only their surnames for individual parties, eg Kramer v Kramer
• Cite only first plaintiff and first defendant if there are multiple parties
• Use Commonwealth, New South Wales, Queensland, etc for the Commonwealth and the states or territories
• Use 'R' to abbreviate the Crown as the first-named party; use The Queen or The King when the Crown is the respondent, eg

R v Reid [2007] 1 Qd R 64 

Honeysett v The Queen (2014) 253 CLR 122

• Use the name of the ship in an admiralty case
• Include the decision no in square brackets for multiple proceedings under the same name, eg  Bahr v Nicolay [No 2]
• Use full case citations in subsequent references except for popular cases (eg ‘Tasmanian Dam Case’) or other shortened case names
• Use ‘Ibid’ to refer to a source in the immediately preceding footnote, including any pinpoints
• The case name should be omitted in a footnote citation if the case name appears in full in the sentence accompanying the footnotes

 

Law Report Series and Citing Order(AGLC4: 2.2.2)

• The authorised version of the report should always be used where available.
• The version of a case to be cited should follow the preference order below (from top to bottom):

	Version	Examples
	Authorised report	CLR, FCR, NSWLR, VR,WAR
	Generalist unauthorised report	ALR, AJLR, FLR, ACTR
	Subject-specific unauthorised report	A Crim R, ACSR, IR, IPR
	Unreported (medium neutral citation)	HCA, FCA, NSWSC, VSC
	Unreported (no medium neutral citation)	See rule 2.3.2

 

 

Pinpoint References (AGLC4: 2.2.5)

• Where a report has both page numbers and paragraph numbers, page numbers should always be included in a pinpoint reference
• Where pages and paragraph numbers are included in pinpoint  references, both a page number and a paragraph number should be included after ‘ibid’ unless the same page(s) and paragraph(s) are referred to in the ‘ibid’ citation, eg Ibid 404 [32].
• For reported decisions, pinpoint references should adhere to rules  1.1.6–1.1.7

 

Parallel citations  (AGLC4: 2.2.7)

• Parallel citations should not be used in citations to Australian cases