Make an identity card for the decision

Save the full case name, court, date, citation and case number when supplied. Then describe the procedural stage in one sentence. An application, a first-instance judgment and an appeal may concern the same parties while deciding different questions. A headline often leaves this structure out.

The official Akhter appeal record illustrates the value of identifiers. It supplies [2020] EWCA Civ 122 and identifies the earlier decision as [2018] EWFC 54. Those citations connect two records even though the later case name begins with the Attorney General.

Search in more than one direction

Search the citation for the full judgment and for later references. Search the party names for proceedings that may use a different citation or title. In the judgment itself, record the decisions cited and distinguish a court following a case from discussing or rejecting it.

Find Case Law provides search and browsing tools, while its coverage page explains that courts select material for publication and that an appeal may be absent. A failure to find a later decision in one service is a research limit, not proof that no later decision exists.

Record the jurisdiction and the stopping point

For European Union materials, EUR-Lex offers another official route to legislation and case law. Record the court and case identifier rather than relying on an abbreviated description of a European ruling. Different institutions have different powers, procedures and territorial settings.

End a research note with a dated statement of what you checked: the decision text, any located appeal, later citations and the relevant legislation. If a database could not be accessed, preserve that gap. The result is a bounded procedural history that another reader can extend, instead of a claim that a single search has settled the law.

References

  1. The National Archives: Find Case Law

    Search and browse judgments by court and tribunal.

  2. Find Case Law: Courts and coverage

    Explains collection limits, including the possibility that an appeal is absent.

  3. HM Attorney General v Akhter and Khan — official judgment record

    Court of Appeal, 14 February 2020, neutral citation [2020] EWCA Civ 122.

  4. EUR-Lex

    European Union legislation and case law. Search by case number as well as party names.

Filed under Law & society. Sources and corrections.