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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 2009 2010 total

England and Wales
England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions 465 840 2334 1972 1628 458 2036 1775 763 771 785 792 854 942 761 43 17219
England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions 68 1799 3417 3531 2262 130 145 154 156 227 267 308 299 427 329 14 13533
England and Wales County Court (Family)                             3   3
England and Wales Care Standards Tribunal               14 34 53 57 47 66 71     342
England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions 30 397 1176 1139 833 195 230 241 624 509 520 504 519 688 734 39 8378
England and Wales High Court (Admiralty Division) Decisions           1 7 7 4 4 2 1 2 6 8   42
Court of Common Pleas 5                               5
England and Wales High Court (Chancery Division) Decisions 29 1 5 14 43 38 84 88 158 213 246 293 336 322 324 25 2219
England and Wales High Court (Commercial Court) Decisions 1   3 9 17 43 53 68 113 103 102 119 125 120 128 14 1018
England and Wales High Court (Senior Courts Costs Office) Decisions           13 18 36 45 41 19 19 28 24 24   267
England and Wales High Court (Exchequer Court) Decisions 13                               13
England and Wales High Court (Family Division) Decisions 5     1 4 2 11 6 35 35 32 48 67 67 57 4 374
England and Wales High Court (King's Bench Division) Decisions 28                               28
Mercantile Court             1             1 2   4
England and Wales High Court (Patents Court) Decisions     9 28 15 16 6 11 16 16 15 29 35 39 41 3 279
England and Wales High Court (Queen's Bench Division) Decisions 23 3 6 9 13 25 35 49 69 84 148 167 202 216 204 12 1265
England and Wales High Court (Technology and Construction Court) Decisions     11 25 30 45 19 36 48 65 80 89 98 97 95 6 744
England and Wales Lands Tribunal         2 72 65 29 60 45 66 67 63 88 28   585
England and Wales Magistrates' Court (Family)                             15   15
England and Wales Patents County Court                       2   3     5
English and Welsh Courts - Miscellaneous 10       1         3     7 5 9 3 38

Scotland
Scottish Court of Session Decisions 337 6 10 121 307 333 297 214 337 277 245 263 298 255 275 20 3595
Scottish High Court of Justiciary Decisons 71   4 30 259 115 124 121 67 70 128 111 83 84 104 12 1383
Scottish Sheriff Court Decisions       3 27 35 24 27 60 91 90 104 76 41 36   614

Northern Ireland
Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland Decisions       2 13 36 56 52 59 49 61 47 60 48 56 2 541
Crown Court for Northern Ireland Decisions           2   8 17 10 21 35 51 41 68 2 255
Fair Employment Tribunal Northern Ireland Decisions       1     1 37 32 24 55 51 42 37 25 3 308
High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland Chancery Division Decisions       5 4 7 15 14 9 6 4 4 7 23 8   106
High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland Family Division Decisions           9 24 26 16 12 17 19 12 15 23 1 174
Northand Ireland High Court of Justice, Master's decisions           1 1     1 12 8 10 8 11   52
High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland Queen's Bench Division Decisions 1 2 2 2 12 44 50 19 79 90 86 97 120 150 92 8 854
Industrial Tribunals Northern Ireland Decisions               333 139 210 147 152 322 226 330 20 1879
Northern Ireland - Social Security and Child Support Commissioners' Decisions 116 84 66 70 73 39 31 61 99 88 52 57 46 31 64 4 981

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 17                 39 33 33 30 67 43 1 263
Irish Data Protection Commission Case Studies                     12 15 15 21     63
High Court of Ireland Decisions 580 61 234 232 252 213 230 179 184 300 451 380 423 410 456 5 4590
Irish Information Commissioner's Decisions       20 23 27 30 19 23 18 16 14 14 6 5   215
Supreme Court of Ireland Decisions 104 9 12 68 95 81 121 79 74 73 71 69 70 70 77 7 1080

United Kingdom
United Kingdom Competition Appeals Tribunal             1 1 2 6 40 35 36 40 36 2 199
Nominet UK Dispute Resolution Service             8 110 106 114 146 174 162 181 127 2 1130
Special Immigrations Appeals Commission                 11 17 6 14 11 6 8 1 74
United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal 2527 785 992 1059 1330 1248 1337 970 787 462 381 313 352 343 316 23 13225
United Kingdom Financial Services and Markets Tribunals Decisions               2 5 3 13 18 11 11 4   67
First-tier Tribunal (Health Education and Social Care Chamber)                           8 58 10 76
First-tier Tribunal (Social Entitlement Chamber)                           1     1
United Kingdom First Tier Tribunal (Tax)                             322 34 356
First-tier Tribunal (War Pensions and Armed Forces Compensation Chamber)                           1     1
United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions 525 21 59 54 53 72 70 50 72 56 75 59 58 74 45   1343
United Kingdom Asylum and Immigration Tribunal 4 2   2 2 11 24 245 216 341 180 96 98 93 56 2 1372
United Kingdom Information Tribunal including the National Security Appeals Panel 9     1 1 1 1 1 2   7 28 76 80 68   275
Privy Council Decisions 70 54 67 51 57 54 66 72 88 61 51 60 68 64 53 2 938
United Kingdom Supreme Court                             17 5 22
United Kingdom Special Commissioners of Income Tax Decisions         5 17 25 25 35 57 62 57 83 66 14   446
UK Social Security and Child Support Commissioners' Decisions 297 73 109 85 47 107 169 285 252 251 207 185 189 220     2476
Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber)                           38 208 13 259
United Kingdom Upper Tribunal (Finance and Tax)                             2   2
United Kingdom Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber)                             54 5 59
United Kingdom VAT & Duties Tribunals Decisions 1           1 11 283 446 500 555 537 391 77   2802
United Kingdom VAT & Duties Tribunals (Customs) Decisions           1 1 8 10 5 18 20 19 17 5   104
United Kingdom VAT & Duties Tribunals (Excise) Decisions             1 32 200 239 100 69 70 82 10   803
United Kingdom VAT & Duties Tribunals (Insurance Premium Tax) Decisions         2 1       1 1   1 1     7
United Kingdom VAT & Duties Tribunals (Landfill Tax) Decisions         1   1   2 2 1 2 1 2     12

Europe
European Court of Human Rights 782 99 133 118 189 705 893 853 712 728 942 1180 1157 1838 2102 143 12574
Court of Justice of the European Communities (including Court of First Instance Decisions) 4932 351 406 480 358 529 495 534 546 587 613 657 511 556 602 44 12201
Updated 9 February 2010
Total cases 114752


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