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Case law on BAILII


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URL: http://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 Mechanical Recording Department of the High Court (RCJ Room WB14; tel: 020 7947 6154; fax: 020 7947 6662; email: HighCourt.NeutralCitation@courtservice.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.

Database pre-1996 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 total

England and Wales
England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions 454 832 2334 1972 1613 433 2034 1756 754 760 780 789 833 606 15950
England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions 68 1796 3419 3530 2258 113 124 138 137 208 255 279 265 161 12751
England and Wales Care Standards Tribunal               14 34 53 57 47 66 48 319
England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions 27 397 1175 1138 829 178 208 210 613 499 519 483 495 373 7144
England and Wales High Court (Admiralty Division) Decisions             2 6 4 2 2 1 2 3 22
Court of Common Pleas 5                           5
England and Wales High Court (Chancery Division) Decisions 29 1 4 12 30 31 75 82 144 200 238 282 316 167 1611
England and Wales High Court (Commercial Court) Decisions 1   3 3 14 34 36 61 108 99 97 114 118 77 765
England and Wales High Court (Supreme Court Cost Office) Decisions           13 18 36 46 42 18 19 28 12 232
England and Wales High Court (Exchequer Court) Decisions 13                           13
England and Wales High Court (Family Division) Decisions 5     1 4 2 10 6 32 32 29 48 61 27 257
England and Wales High Court (King's Bench Division) Decisions 26                           26
Mercantile Court                           1 1
England and Wales High Court (Patents Court) Decisions     8 28 14 16 5 11 15 15 14 27 36 25 214
England and Wales High Court (Queen's Bench Division) Decisions 23 2 6 5 7 24 23 42 62 72 135 158 183 131 873
England and Wales High Court (Technology and Construction Court) Decisions     11 23 27 41 11 32 38 65 81 90 94 54 567
England and Wales Lands Tribunal         2 71 65 29 60 45 66 67 62 58 525
England and Wales Patents County Court                       2   3 5
English and Welsh Courts - Miscellaneous 10       1         2     6 3 22

Scotland
Scottish Court of Session Decisions     7 116 307 333 297 213 333 273 240 263 294 181 2857
Scottish High Court of Justiciary Decisons     2 29 256 115 124 120 66 69 127 110 81 47 1146
Scottish Sheriff Court Decisions       3 27 35 24 27 60 91 90 101 76 19 553

Northern Ireland
Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland Decisions       2 13 36 56 52 59 49 61 49 56 32 465
Crown Court for Northern Ireland Decisions           2   8 15 10 19 35 49 24 162
Fair Employment Tribunal Northern Ireland Decisions       1     1 37 32 24 55 51 42 22 265
High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland Chancery Division Decisions       5 4 7 15 14 8 6 4 4 7 11 85
High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland Family Division Decisions           9 23 26 16 12 17 19 11 10 143
High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland Queen's Bench Division Decisions 1 2 2 2 12 44 50 19 79 89 85 97 118 71 671
Industrial Tribunals Northern Ireland Decisions               333 139 210 147 152 322 121 1424
Northern Ireland - Social Security and Child Support Commissioners' Decisions 116 84 66 70 73 39 31 61 99 88 52 57 46 23 905

Ireland
Irish Competition Authority Decisions 456 19 13 47 40 8 10               593
Irish Competition Authority Decisions (Notice Division)               6             6
Irish Court of Criminal Appeal 6                 39 33 33 28 16 155
High Court of Ireland Decisions 222 61 234 232 252 213 230 179 184 300 451 380 414 196 3548
Irish Information Commissioner's Decisions       20 23 27 30 19 23 18 16 14 14 1 205
Supreme Court of Ireland Decisions 67 9 12 68 95 81 121 79 74 73 71 69 70 52 941

United Kingdom
United Kingdom Competition Appeals Tribunal               1 1 6 40 35 36 19 138
Nominet UK Dispute Resolution Service             8 110 106 114 146 174 162 88 908
Special Immigrations Appeals Commission                 11 17 6 14 11 4 63
United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal 2527 784 991 1059 1329 1245 1336 965 778 456 377 311 348 207 12713
United Kingdom Financial Services and Markets Tribunals Decisions               2 5 3 13 18 11 5 57
United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions 410 18 58 52 52 70 70 50 71 56 75 59 58 60 1159
United Kingdom Asylum and Immigration Tribunal 4 2   2 2 10 23 244 216 341 180 95 98 61 1278
United Kingdom Information Tribunal including the National Security Appeals Panel 9     1 1 1 1 1 2   7 28 76 36 163
Privy Council Decisions 67 54 67 51 57 52 64 72 88 61 51 60 68 43 855
United Kingdom Special Commissioners of Income Tax Decisions         5 17 25 25 35 57 62 57 83 44 410
UK Social Security and Child Support Commissioners' Decisions 297 73 109 85 47 107 168 285 252 251 207 184 189 168 2422
United Kingdom VAT & Duties Tribunals Decisions 1           1 11 283 446 500 554 537 256 2589
United Kingdom VAT & Duties Tribunals (Customs) Decisions           1 1 8 10 5 18 20 19 13 95
United Kingdom VAT & Duties Tribunals (Excise) Decisions             1 32 200 239 100 69 70 56 767
United Kingdom VAT & Duties Tribunals (Insurance Premium Tax) Decisions         2 1       1 3       7
United Kingdom VAT & Duties Tribunals (Landfill Tax) Decisions         1   1   2 2 1 2 1 2 12

Europe
European Court of Human Rights 755 96 128 108 184 700 890 848 704 722 928 1164 1140 783 9150
Court of Justice of the European Communities (including Court of First Instance Decisions) 4932 351 403 477 354 529 494 534 546 586 613 651 505 302 11277
Updated 21 August 2008
Total cases 99489


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URL: http://www.bailii.org/bailii/summary-cases.html