Authorised Law Reports Research GuideJudges’ decisions are available in two forms: - Reported – these decisions are published in law reports and are reported because they raise significant points of law or further expand on the points of law already published. These decisions are usually made in superior courts.
- Unreported Judgments – these decisions are not published in law reports usually because they are either very recent judgments or they do not contain significant points of law or expand further on points of law already published.
Reported decisions fall into two broad categories – authorised and unauthorised. - Authorised: Official law reporting councils in each jurisdiction give official approval to a series of reports and these become the official series of reports for that jurisdiction e.g. Queensland Reports (QdR) and Commonwealth Law Reports (CLR).
- Unauthorised: These reports generally appear quicker than authorised series as they do not go through the same review process. Cases may appear in both authorised and unauthorised series.
Wherever possible, an authorised series should be cited in preference to an unauthorised series. According to Practice Note 9of the Federal Court: “The authorised reports of cases decided in other courts are to be preferred to reports that are not authorised.” Practice Note 19 confirms this: “If a case … has been reported in an authorised series of reports, the reference must be to the report in that series.” The following is a list of authorised reports of various jurisdictions:
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