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Legal Citation - OSCOLA: Cases

An online guide for citing commonly used legal resources.

Citing Cases

This session provides guidelines for citing cases from different jurisdictions, including Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, the People's Republic of China, the European Union, and International cases. We highly recommend familiarizing yourself with the General Principles for Case Citation before exploring the specific examples in each jurisdiction. These principles cover crucial aspects of case citation and can help you navigate the specific guidelines more efficiently.

General Principles for Case Citation

  • An authorised report should always be cited in preference.  An unauthorised report can be cited where no authorised report is available. Unreported cases should only be cited if there is no reported version available.
    Click to see some examples

  • If the year is necessary to identify the volume and there is more than one volume in a year, give the year in square brackets [ ].
    Click to see an example

    If the volume is unique and can be identified without the year, put the year in round brackets ( ).
    Click to see an example

  • You can exclude the parties' names in the footnote citation if you have mentioned them in the text.
    Click to see an example
  • When using a pinpoint reference:
    • Pinpoint to a particular paragraph by specifying the paragraph number in square brackets.
      Click to see an example

    • When pinpointing to a particular passage in a judgement, add the judge's name in brackets after the pinpoint.
      Click to see an example

    • If pinpointing to more than one paragraph, separate the paragraph numbers in square brackets with a comma.
      Click to see an example

    • When citing a range of paragraphs, use a dash between the first and last paragraph being cited.
      Click to see an example

    • If pinpointing a page number, use a comma to separate the page numbers.
      Click to see an example
  • You can cite one judgement citing another judgement with the following format.  
    The Case You Read | Pinpoint | citing | Original Case | .
    Click to see an example

Reported Cases

Post-2018 reported cases

The HKSAR Judiciary implemented neutral citations for all Hong Kong judgments in 2018 (see Practice Direction 5.5). A neutral citation should be included after the law report citation when citing a reported case:
Parties' Names in italics | [Year] OR (Year) | Volume | Report | First Page | , | [Year] | Court | Number | .
Click to see some examples

* The practice in Hong Kong is to give the full name of a natural person when citing cases, whereas only the surname is used for cases from overseas jurisdictions.


Pre-2018 reported cases - give a law report citation only.

The citation format of a reported case prior to 2018:
Parties' Names in italics | [Year] OR (Year) | Volume | Report | First Page | .
Click to see some examples

Unreported Cases

Post-2018 unreported cases - give the neutral citation.

The citation format of an unreported case since 2018:
Parties' Names in italics | [Year] | Court | Number | .
Click to see an example

* As the unreported judgment is usually available earlier than the printed report, it is important to check if a report has become available before finalizing your work.
 

Pre-2018 unreported cases

The citation format of an unreported case prior to 2018:
Parties' Names in italics | (Date of the Judgement  | , | Court | Number | /Year | ) | .
Click to see an example

* For a comprehensive list of court levels and case types, please visit: https://legalref.judiciary.hk/lrs/common/help/hlptopic.htm

Reported Cases

Post-2001 reported cases - give the neutral citation followed by the law report citation if available.

  • The citation format of a typical case:
    Parties' Names in italics | [Year] | Court | Number | , | [Year] OR (Year) | Volume | Report | First Page | .
    Click to see an example
  • The citation format of a judicial review case:
    R (Applicant) v Respondent | [Year] | Court | Number | , | [Year] OR (Year) | Volume | Report | First Page | .
    Click to see an example


Pre-2001 reported cases - give a law report citation only.

  • The citation format of a typical case:
    Parties' Names in italics | [Year] OR (Year) | Volume | Report | First Page | (Court) | .
    Click to see an example

  • The citation format of a judicial review case:
    R v Respondent ex p Applicant | [Year] OR (Year) | Volume | Report | First Page | (Court) | .
    Click to see an example


Reported cases before 1865 - refer to section 2.1.9 on page 20-21 in OSCOLA (4th Edition)

Unreported Cases

Post-2001 unreported cases - give the neutral citation.

The citation format of an unreported case in and after 2001:
Parties' Names in italics | [Year] | Court | Number | .
Click to see some examples

* As the unreported judgment is usually available earlier than the printed report, it is important to check if a report has become available before finalizing your work.
 

Pre-2001 unreported cases

The citation format of an unreported case prior to 2001:
Parties' Names in italics | (Court | , | Date of the Judgement) | .
Click to see an example

Guiding Cases

The citation format of a guiding case:
Parties' Names in italics | for Case | [Year] | Guiding Case No # of Supreme People's Court.
Click to see an example

Gazetted Cases

The citation format of a gazetted case:
Parties' Names in italics | for Case | [Year] | Volume | Gazette | Page | .
Click to see an example

Other Cases

The citation format of other types of cases:
Parties' Names in italics | Case | [Year] | Court and Case No #.
Click to see an example

European Court of Justice (ECJ) / General Court (EC)

The citation format for ECJ and EC:
Case number | Parties' Names in Italics | [Year] | Report | First page | .
Click to see some examples

  • Notes:
    • The prefix in case number is C for ECJ cases and T for GC cases.  Case numbers before 1989 do not carry a prefix.
    • The official report is the European Court Reports (ECR).  ECJ cases are reported in ECR I, and GC cases are reported in ECR II.
    • If an ECR reference is not available, you may cite the Common Market Law Reports (CMLR).

Unreported Cases

The citation format for decisions of the unreported cases:
Case number | Parties' Names in Italics | [Year] | Report | First page | .
Click to see an example

Decisions of the European Commission

The citation format for decisions of the European Commission:
Parties' Names in Italics | (Case number) | Commission Decision Number | [Year] | OJ L Issue/First page | .
Click to see an example

International Court of Justice Reports (ICJ Rep)

To cite decisions from the International Court of Justice Reports (ICJ Rep), use the following format:
Case Name in Italics | (Parties names in Italics) | (Phase of Proceedings) | [Year] | ICJ Rep | Page | .
Click to see some examples

International Law Reports (ILR) 

To cite decisions from the International Law Reports (ILR), use the following format:
Case Name in Italics | (Parties names in Italics) | (Court) | (Year) | Volume | ILR | Page | .
Click to see an example

World Trade Organization (WTO) Decisions

To cite the WTO decisions), use the following format:
WTO, | Title in Italics | (Date) | WTO Number | Pinpoint | .
Click to see an example

Square Brackets or Round Brackets?

Use square brackets [ ] if year is necessary to identify the volume:
Click to enlarge the picture:

Use round brackets ( ) if year is not necessary to identify the volume:
Click to enlarge the picture:

What is a Neutral Citation?

A neutral citation is a unique identifier assigned to a case by the court, which includes the year of judgement, a court identifier, and a unique serial number.

It provides consistent reference to the case that is independent of the traditional law report publishers.  This simplifies the process of locating and citing cases, especially for unreported cases.

The HKSAR Judiciary implemented neutral citations for all Hong Kong judgments since 2018 (see Practice Direction 5.5).