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Information Sheet

Authorised law Reports

Judges’ 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 9 of the Federal Court: “The authorised reports of cases decided in other courts are to be preferred to reports that are not authorised.” Practice Note 19confirms 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:

CITATION	SERIES	JURISDICTION	SHELF	DATABASE
Australia
CLR	Commonwealth Law Reports	High Court	KH 41 COML	Westlaw Lawbook Co.
FCR	Federal Court Reports	Federal Court	KH 41 FEDC	Westlaw Lawbook Co.
ALD	Administrative Law Decisions	Administrative Appeals Tribunal	KH 42 ADML	Lexis
CAR	Commonwealth Arbitration Reports	Australian Industrial Relations Commission	KH 42 COMA
RPD	Repatriation Pension Decisions	Veterans’ Review Board	KH 48 REPP
Australian Capital Territory
ACTR	Australian Capital Territory Reports	Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory	Published as part of the Australian Law Reports   KH 41 AUSL	Lexis
New South Wales
NSWLR	New South Wales Law Reports 1970 -	Supreme Court of New South Wales	KH 75 NEWL
SR NSW	The State reports, New South Wales (1901 – 1970)	Supreme Court of New South Wales	KH 75 STAR
Northern Territory
NTLR	Northern Territory Law Reports	Northern Territory	KH 195 NORT
Queensland
QdR	Queensland Reports	Queensland	KH 95 QUER	LexisNexis AU
South Australia
SASR	South Australian State Reports	South Australia	KH 115 SOUA	Westlaw
Tasmania
Tas R	Tasmanian Reports	Tasmania	KH 135 TASR
Victoria
VR	Victorian Reports	Victoria	KH 155 VICR	Lexis
Western Australia
WAR	Western Australian Reports	Western Australia	KH 175 WESR
New Zealand
NZLR	New Zealand Law Reports	Court of Appeal High Court	KH 341 NEWL	Lexis
United Kingdom
Law Reports Series:
Ch D or Ch	Chancery Division	High Court	KF 55 LAWR	Lexis Westlaw
P or P D	Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division	High Court	KF 55 LAWR	Lexis Westlaw
Fam D	Family Division	High Court	KF 55 LAWR	Lexis Westlaw
QB or KB	Queen’s/King’s Bench Division	High Court	KF 55 LAWR	Lexis Westlaw
AC	Appeal Cases	House of Lords and Privy Council	KF 55 LAWR	Lexis Westlaw