Authorised Law Reports

Authorised reports contain judgments that have been reviewed by a Judge or their Associate, prior to the law report's publication. They are therefore considered to be an accurate record of the judgment. 

Unauthorised reports are a legitimate record of court decisions. In some cases, the unauthorised report may be the only source for certain cases, particularly with matters that are dealt with in local courts and tribunals, where specialised areas of law are covered.

Watch the Authorised Reports video for an overview of case citators, authorised reports and advanced search forms.

Unreported judgments are decisions of courts that have not been published in a law report. The decision may not have been published for a number of reasons, such as the case being too recent, the case not adding any additional authority to the body of case law or because the case may have been considered of little significance at the time.

In Australia, if a decision appears in an authorised report series, this is the version that must be cited in student essays and scholarly publications - see Rule 2.2.2 in AGLC4.

In all Australian courts, there is a convention that the authorised report of a judgment be cited and handed up in court in preference to other versions. In a number of jurisdictions, this convention has been formalised by Practice Direction:

Not all courts have explicit practice directions on the citation of authorities – but the use of authorised reports is a preference in all courts, whether specified by Practice Direction or a matter of convention.

Search for Australian cases by party name/s in Lexis+ and Westlaw Australia and the result should show all citations, including reported, unreported and medium neutral. To check if one of the reported versions is in an authorised report series, check the list on the Australia tabs on this Research Guide.

For example: Pape v Commissioner of Taxation has the following parallel citations: (2009) 238 CLR 1; (2009) 257 ALR 1; (2009) 83 ALJR 765; (2009) 72 ATR 580; 2009 ATC 20-116; [2009] HCA 23; BC200905831. The CLR (Commonwealth Law Reports) is the authorised report series.

The following databases list parallel citations:

At the Melbourne Law School the Australian Guide to Legal Citation 4th edition (AGLC4) is used. It contains detailed information on the correct citation style for law reports and unreported decisions from Australian and overseas jurisdictions.

For further information about accessing AGLC4 and for citation styles used in other jurisdictions and from other publishers, please refer to the Citation Guides page on the Law Library website. 

Example: Pape v Commissioner of Taxation has the following parallel citations: (2009) 238 CLR 1; (2009) 257 ALR 1; (2009) 83 ALJR 765; (2009) 72 ATR 580; 2009 ATC 20-116; [2009] HCA 23; BC200905831.

In Australia, the following citation convention applies (refer to AGLC Rule 2.2.2):

• if the case is reported in an authorised report series, this version must be used.

• if the case is reported, but not in an authorised series, the unauthorised report series should be cited in the following order of preference:

  1. generalist report series such as ALR (Australian Law Reports); ALJR (Australian Law Journal Reports); FLR (Federal Law Reports)

  2. specialist report series such as A Crim R (Australian Criminal Law Reports); ATR (Australian Taxation Reports)

• If the case is unreported (refer to AGLC Rule 2.2.2): the order of preference is:

  1. the medium neutral citation assigned by the Court eg: [2009] HCA 23; or if the case has no medium neutral citation the citation convention used in AGLC Rule 2.3.2  

  2. the number assigned by eg: Lexis+ Australia which assigns a BC number eg: BC200905831

  3. the AustLII version

Note that in the Pape example given above, the order the citations appear is generally the order of citation preference. This is taken from Lexis+ Australia. Westlaw Australia does not provide this type of order - so may cause confusion.

This order of preference generally applies in other jurisdictions also.

The Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations (open access) allows you to search for the meaning of abbreviations for English language legal publications, from the British Isles, the Commonwealth and the United States, including those covering international and comparative law. A wide selection of major foreign language law publications is also included. Publications from over 295 jurisdictions are featured in the Index.

The Monash University Legal Abbreviations Guide (open access) is useful, particularly for some Australian material not covered by Cardiff. But this guide only converts abbreviations into full text, so you cannot search the full-text title and convert it to the abbreviation.