The Oxford University Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA) is a style guide that provides the modern method of legal citation in the United Kingdom; the style itself is also referred to as OSCOLA. First developed by Peter Birks of the University of Oxford Faculty of Law, and now in its 4th edition (2012, Hart Publishing, ISBN 978-1-84946-367-6), [1] it has been adopted by most law schools and many legal publishers in the United Kingdom. An online supplement (developed for the third edition) is available for the citation of international legal cases, not covered in the main guide. [2]
Cases are to be cited without periods in the names or the report names. If there is a neutral citation, which is generally the case after 2001 or 2002, cite it before the "best" report: the Law Reports (AC, QB, Ch etc.), or the WLR or the All ER.
Use round brackets if the year is not needed to identify the report, but square brackets when it is. For example, the All England Reports are identified by year then volume, meaning you should use something such as "[2005] 1 All ER". [3]
When you cite something for a second time, an abbreviation can be used. In a footnote referring back to a particular page and another footnote, this would be,
For European Union cases,
For European Court of Human Rights cases,
Journal articles, books etc. should be cited with the author's name as shown in the work being cited. Journal abbreviations are in roman, with no periods (full stops). If the journal does not have consecutive volume numbers, the year should be shown in square brackets, as in the second example.
Books follow a similar pattern. Note the order is Author, Title (Edition, Publisher Year) page.
If a title and a subtitle have nothing in between, a colon should be used to separate them. A chapter in an edited book would be cited as follows.
The title of UK legislation should always be written in Roman with the year at the end. The section is abbreviated without any periods.
EU legislation should be as follows.
In law, a citation or introductory signal is a set of phrases or words used to clarify the authority of a legal citation as it relates to a proposition. It is used in citations to present authorities and indicate how those authorities relate to propositions in statements. Legal writers use citation signals to tell readers how the citations support their propositions, organizing citations in a hierarchy of importance so the reader can quickly determine the relative weight of a citation. Citation signals help a reader to discern meaning or usefulness of a reference when the reference itself provides inadequate information.
English law is the common law legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly criminal law and civil law, each branch having its own courts and procedures.
A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of acknowledging the relevance of the works of others to the topic of discussion at the spot where the citation appears.
Ibid. is an abbreviation for the Latin word ibīdem, meaning "in the same place", commonly used in an endnote, footnote, bibliography citation, or scholarly reference to refer to the source cited in the preceding note or list item. This is similar to Idem, literally meaning "the same", abbreviated id., which is commonly used in legal citation.
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.
In English law, natural justice is technical terminology for the rule against bias and the right to a fair hearing. While the term natural justice is often retained as a general concept, it has largely been replaced and extended by the general "duty to act fairly".
Reference management software, citation management software, or bibliographic management software is software that stores a database of bibliographic records and produces bibliographic citations (references) for those records, needed in scholarly research. Once a record has been stored, it can be used time and again in generating bibliographies, such as lists of references in scholarly books and articles. Modern reference management applications can usually be integrated with word processors so that a reference list in one of the many different bibliographic formats required by publishers and scholarly journals is produced automatically as an article is written, reducing the risk that a cited source is not included in the reference list. They will also have a facility for importing bibliographic records from bibliographic databases.
Thomas Henry Bingham, Baron Bingham of Cornhill, was a British judge who was successively Master of the Rolls, Lord Chief Justice and Senior Law Lord. On his death in 2010, he was described as the greatest judge of his generation. The Baroness Hale of Richmond observed that his pioneering role in the formation of the United Kingdom Supreme Court may be his most important and long-lasting legacy. The Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers regarded Bingham as "one of the two great legal figures of my lifetime in the law". The Lord Hope of Craighead described Bingham as "the greatest jurist of our time".
The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation is a style guide that prescribes the most widely used legal citation system in the United States. It is taught and used at a majority of U.S. law schools and is also used in a majority of federal courts. Legal publishers also use several "house" citation styles in their works.
Obiter dictum is a Latin phrase meaning "other things said", that is, a remark in a legal opinion that is "said in passing" by any judge or arbitrator. It is a concept derived from English common law, whereby a judgment comprises only two elements: ratio decidendi and obiter dicta. For the purposes of judicial precedent, ratio decidendi is binding, whereas obiter dicta are persuasive only.
Human rights in the United Kingdom concern the fundamental rights in law of every person in the United Kingdom. An integral part of the UK constitution, human rights derive from common law, from statutes such as Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights 1689 and the Human Rights Act 1998, from membership of the Council of Europe, and from international law.
In certain jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and other Westminster-influenced jurisdictions, as well as the United States and the Philippines, primary legislation has both a short title and a long title.
Legal citation is the practice of crediting and referring to authoritative documents and sources. The most common sources of authority cited are court decisions (cases), statutes, regulations, government documents, treaties, and scholarly writing.
Parenthetical referencing is a citation system in which in-text citations are made using parentheses. They are usually accompanied by a full, alphabetized list of citations in an end section, usually titled "references", "reference list", "works cited", or "end-text citations". Parenthetical referencing can be used in lieu of footnote citations.
The doctrine of legitimate expectation was first developed in English law as a ground of judicial review in administrative law to protect a procedural or substantive interest when a public authority rescinds from a representation made to a person. It is based on the principles of natural justice and fairness, and seeks to prevent authorities from abusing power.
Citation of United Kingdom legislation includes the systems used for legislation passed by devolved parliaments and assemblies, for secondary legislation, and for prerogative instruments. It is relatively complex both due to the different sources of legislation in the United Kingdom, and because of the different histories of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom.
Judicial review is a part of UK constitutional law that enables people to challenge the exercise of power, usually by a public body. A person who contends that an exercise of power is unlawful may apply to the Administrative Court for a decision. If the court finds the decision unlawful it may have it set aside (quashed) and possibly award damages. A court may impose an injunction upon the public body.
The Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC) is published by the Melbourne University Law Review in collaboration with the Melbourne Journal of International Law and seeks to provide the Australian legal community with a standard for citing legal sources. There is no single standard for legal citation in Australia, but the AGLC is the most widely used.
An ouster clause or privative clause is, in countries with common law legal systems, a clause or provision included in a piece of legislation by a legislative body to exclude judicial review of acts and decisions of the executive by stripping the courts of their supervisory judicial function. According to the doctrine of the separation of powers, one of the important functions of the judiciary is to keep the executive in check by ensuring that its acts comply with the law, including, where applicable, the constitution. Ouster clauses prevent courts from carrying out this function, but may be justified on the ground that they preserve the powers of the executive and promote the finality of its acts and decisions.
Citation of Canadian legislation is the system of citing Canadian statutes and regulations in court decisions, briefs of law, and articles in law journals. The purpose of a citation is to allow the reader to understand the source of the legislative principle being cited, and to find the law in question. It is a type of legal citation, namely a "reference to a legal precedent or authority, such as a case, statute, or treatise, that either substantiates or contradicts a given position".