Case citation
a system for uniquely identifying individual rulings of a court
Case citation is a system used by legal professionals to identify past court case decisions, either in series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a neutral style that identifies a decision regardless of where it is reported. Case citations are formatted differently in different jurisdictions, but generally contain the same key information.
A legal citation is a "reference to a legal precedent or authority, such as a case, statute, or treatise, that either substantiates or contradicts a given position." Where cases are published on paper, the citation usually contains the following information:
Court that issued the decision
Report title
Volume number
Page, section, or paragraph number
Publication year
In some report series, for example in England, Australia and some in Canada, volumes are not numbered independently of the year: thus the year and volume number (usually no greater than 4) are required to identify which book of the series has the case reported within its covers. In such citations, it is usual in these jurisdictions to apply square brackets "[year]" to the publication year (which may not be the year that the case was decided: for example, a case decided in December 2001 may have been reported in 2002).
The Internet brought with it the opportunity for courts to publish their decisions on websites and most published court decisions now appear in that way. They can be found through many national and other websites, such as WorldLII and AfricanLII, that are operated by members of the Free Access to Law Movement.
The resulting flood of non-paginated information has led to numbering of paragraphs and the adoption of neutral citation systems to identify decisions independently of medium or publisher. These usually contain the following information:
Year of decision
Abbreviated title of the court
Decision number (not the court file number)
Rather than utilizing page numbers for pinpoint references, which would depend upon particular printers and browsers, pinpoint quotations refer to paragraph numbers.
Pronunciation of case titles
In common law countries with an adversarial system of justice, the names of the opposing parties are separated in the case title by the abbreviation v (usually written as v in Commonwealth countries and usually as v. in the U.S.) of the Latin word versus, which means against.
The public source identifies “Case citation” as a system for uniquely identifying individual rulings of a court. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Case, citation and system.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Case citation”, the useful work is to connect “a system for uniquely identifying individual rulings of a court” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q908639. The first chronological checks are 2001 and 2002.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Case citation”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Case citation primary sources, Case citation archive and Case research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Case citation”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Case citation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.