Legal Sources

Contents

• Recent Acts
• Acts (Before 1963)
• Bills
• Statutory Instruments
• Legal Cases in England and Wales since 2001 with a neutral citation
• Legal Cases in England and Wales before 2001
• Official Journal (OJ) of the European Union Legislation
• International Treaties and Conventions
• Cases and Legislations from other jurisdictions

Recent Acts

You may have viewed the full-text of an act of parliament through a subscription site such as Lexis or WestLaw, or directly through the UK Government's legislation website. 

Reference an act by its short title and date. Acts are divided into sections, subsections, paragraphs and sub-paragraphs. In addition, many acts contain schedules that may themselves be divided into paragraphs and sub-paragraphs. In your work, it will normally be sufficient to refer to the section number or schedule number and paragraph. To refer to a particular element of the act use s or ss (section or sections) Pt (Part) or Sch and para (Schedule and paragraph within a schedule).

• Act Title and Year,
• c. chapter number.
• Available at: URL
• [Accessed date].

Example:

 

In-text

Acts of the Senedd Cymru (and the Welsh Measures which were the primary legislation of the former National Assembly of Wales) are cited by short title and year, followed by the acts of the Senedd Cymru (asc) number (or the acts of the National Assembly of Wales (anaw)).

Examples:

In-text

 

Cite acts of the Scottish Parliament by short title and year. Each Act is also given an ‘asp’ number, consisting of a lower-case abbreviation of the words ‘Act of the Scottish Parliament’ and a running number.

Example:

In-text

When citing acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly, which was established in 1998, put ‘Northern Ireland’ in brackets between the short title and the year.

Example:

In-text

↑ Return to the top of the page

Acts (before 1963)

For Acts prior to 1963, the regal year and parliamentary session are included.

• Act Title and Year
• (Regal year(s), abbreviated monarch name, c. chapter number).
• Place of publication:
• Publisher.

Examples:

For acts published earlier than 1889, which was when HMSO was granted letters patent to print all acts of Parliament, supply the source you used to view the act.

• Act Title and Year
• (Regal year(s), abbreviated monarch name, c. chapter number).
• In: Title (optional)
• Edition (if not first).
• Place of publication:
• Publisher.

↑ Return to the top of the page

Bills

Bills are proposals for a new law or to change an existing law. They are introduced in either the House of Commons or House of Lords for debate before Parliament.

Cite a bill by its title, the House in which it originated, the Parliamentary session in brackets, and the running number assigned to it – convention is to use square brackets for House of Commons Bills. A bill is given a running number once it has been presented, its first reading. However, many private members’ bills may not be fully drafted in their early stages so there may not be a number and few of these actually become law.

When a bill is reprinted at any stage it is given a new running number. Include the location and date accessed.

• Bill Title HC Bill
• (Parliamentary session)
• [running number].
• Available at: URL
• [Accessed date].

• Bill Title HL Bill
• (Parliamentary session)
• running number.
• Available at: URL
• [Accessed date].

Examples:

↑ Return to the top of the page

Statutory Instruments

Subordinate (delegated) legislation is issued in a series called Statutory Instruments (SIs) which have been published in paper form since 1894. They should be cited by their designated title which includes the year they were passed followed by SI year/number.

• Title,
• SI Year/Number.
• Available at: URL
• [Accessed date].

Example:

In-text:

↑ Return to the top of the page

Legal cases in England and Wales since 2001 with a neutral citation

The BCU Harvard format for legal cases follows the 4^th edition of the OSCOLA standard.

1. Reported judgements

Where judgements have been reported, give the neutral citation followed by a citation of the most authoritative report, separated by a comma in the format:

• Case Name
• [Year]
• Court
• Number,
• [Year] / (Year)
• Volume
• Report Abbreviation
• First page

Since 2001, neutral citations have been used by the House of Lords, Privy Council and the Supreme Court which are independent of any law report. Citations appear in the format:

• Case Name
• [Year]
• UKHL / UKPC / UKSC,
• [Year] / (Year)
• Volume
• Report Abbreviation
• First page

Examples:

This practice was extended to all divisions of the High Court (EWHC) in 2002. These appear in the format:

• Case Name
• [Year]
• EWHC
• Number
• (division abbreviation),
• [Year] / (Year)
• Volume
• Report abbreviation
• First page

…where division abbreviation is either Ch (for Chancery) QB (for Queen’s Bench) Fam (for Family) Admin (for Administration), Comm (for Commercial) and so on for all 12.

Examples:

It was also extended to the two divisions of the Court of Appeal (EWCA) in 2002. These appear in the format:

• Case Name
• [Year]
• EWCA
• Civ / Crim
• Number,
• [Year] / (Year)
• Volume
• Report abbreviation
• First page

…where "Civ" stands for "Civil" and "Crim" stands for "Criminal".

Examples:

Examples of citing law reports are given in the next section.

2. Unreported judgements

Where a judgement with a neutral citation has not been reported, give only the neutral citation as in the formats above. But check these cases before you submit your work as they may have subsequently been reported. In civil appeals, Practice Direction 6 advises that transcripts of unreported judgements should only be cited when they contain an authoritative statement of a relevant principle of law not to be found in a reported case or when they are necessary for the understanding of some other authority. Despite the move to digital, 78.4% of cases heard in the appeal courts from 1999 to August 2017 were unreported (Gerami and Hawes, 2018).

Example:

Transcripts of judgements with neutral citations are generally freely available on the British and Irish Legal Information Institute website and so appear online quicker than printed versions. The cases are numbered consecutively throughout the year.

The abbreviations used are standard legal abbreviations for sources. You can find these using the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations.

↑ Return to the top of the page

Legal cases in England and Wales before 2001

The BCU Harvard format for legal cases follows the 4^th edition of the OSCOLA standard. This document advises that in England and Wales the Law Reports series published by the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting should be regarded as the most authoritative reports.

Different series of the Law Reports cover judgments of the House of Lords/Supreme Court and Privy Council (Appeal Cases), the Chancery Division, the Family Division, the Queen’s Bench Division and so on. These law reports are always cited with square brackets because there is more than one volume in the year.

In 2001, the House of Lords, Privy Council, Court of Appeal and Administrative Court began issuing judgments with a neutral citation which identified the judgment independently of any law report. This was adopted by all divisions of the High Court in 2002. See the above section for how to reference these.

For cases before 2001, if a judgment was not reported in the Law Reports, cite the Weekly Law Reports or the All England Law Reports. Only if a judgment was not reported in one of these general series should you refer to specialist sources such as Housing Law Reports, Construction Law Journal or Butterworths Medico-Legal Reports. The dates for these specialist series, such as in the example of Vadera v Shaw below, are cited in round brackets because the volume number is different to the year.

In your Table of Cases the format for cases before 2001 is:

• Case Name
• [Year] or (Year)
• Volume (where required)
• Report abbreviation
• First page

Examples:

In-text:

Notes:

When citing and referencing Law Reports, case names should always be in italics. When a particular passage is being quoted or referred to, the specific page reference must be included, e.g. The facts of the case outlined in Jones v Tower Boot Co Ltd [1997] 2 All ER 406 at 411 show that…

When referring to a case for the first time, give its full name (exactly as it appears in the report). However, in subsequent references, a case can be referred to by a shortened name, e.g. Murphy v Brentwood District Council may be referred to as the Murphy case.

When the judge is being quoted or referred to in a particular passage, the judge’s name should be provided as part of the citation, e.g. That was the opinion of Lord Mackay LC in Pepper v Hart [1993] 1 All ER 42 at 47…

↑ Return to the top of the page

Official Journal (OJ) of the European Union Legislation

The primary legislation of the European Union consists of the founding treaties. Secondary legislation consists of regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions.

The full reference will be to the authoritative text in the Official Journal (abbreviated to OJ) of the European Union where the secondary legislation was first published, together with the title, date and page number.

• European Union body
• (Year)
• Article title.
• OJ,
• Volume details,
• Day and Month,
• pp. pages.

Examples:

In-text:

↑ Return to the top of the page

International treaties and conventions

There are over 560 major multilateral treaties deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations. You are best advised to cite from the UN Treaty pages using the following guidance:

• Title of Treaty
• (Year)
• Volume
• UNTS
• First page

Examples:

You may also find that these documents are reproduced on various UN agency web pages, in which case cite as a web page, but this leads to anachronisms with the dates:

Examples:

In the text of your work, cite the Treaty or the article of the Convention to which you are referring, for example:

For European treaties, follow the guidance in the Official Journal (OJ) of the European Union legislation above.

↑ Return to the top of the page

Cases and legislation from other jurisdictions

Cite legislation from other jurisdictions as it is cited in its own jurisdiction without any full stops or abbreviations. Give the jurisdiction for clarity. Use the quick style guide of The Bluebook: A uniform system for legal citation for American legislation. Include a translation where the original is in a language other than English.

• Act Title and Year
• (Jurisdiction).
• Available at URL
• [Accessed date].

Examples:

↑ Return to the top of the page