Law report

A ' or ' is a compilation of judicial opinions from a selection of case law decided by courts. These reports serve as published records of judicial decisions that are cited by lawyers and judges for their use as precedent in subsequent cases.
Historically, the term "reporter" was used to refer to the individuals responsible for compiling, editing, and publishing these opinions. For example, the Reporter of Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States is the person authorized to publish the Court's cases in the bound volumes of the United States Reports. Today, in American English, "reporter" also refers to the books themselves. In Commonwealth English, these are described by the plural term "law reports", the title that usually appears on the covers of the periodical parts and the individual volumes.
In common law jurisdictions, such as the United States, the doctrine of stare decisis requires courts to follow precedent by applying legal principles established in prior decisions by higher courts within the same jurisdiction. The system of precedent relies heavily on written opinions issued by appellate and supreme courts, and occasionally by trial courts, as these opinions enable judges and lawyers to reference and compare reasoning in cases involving similar factual circumstances.

Official and unofficial case law reporting

Official law reports or reporters are those authorized for publication by statute or other governmental ruling. Governments designate law reports as official to provide an authoritative, consistent, and authentic statement of a jurisdiction's primary law. Official case law publishing may be carried out by a government agency, or by a commercial entity. Unofficial law reports, on the other hand, are not officially sanctioned and are published as a commercial enterprise. In Australia and New Zealand, official reports are called authorised reports—unofficial reports are referred to as unauthorised reports.
For the publishers of unofficial reports to maintain a competitive advantage over the official ones, unofficial reports usually provide helpful research aids, like the editorial enhancements used in the West American Digest System. Some commercial publishers also provide court opinions in searchable online databases that are part of larger fee-based, online legal research systems, such as Westlaw, Lexis-Nexis or Justis.
Unofficially published court opinions are also often published before the official opinions, so lawyers and law journals must cite the unofficial report until the case comes out in the official report. But once a court opinion is officially published, case citation rules usually require a person to cite to the official reports.

A good printed law report in traditional form usually contains the following items:

The citation reference.
The name of the case.
Catchwords.
The headnote.
A recital of the facts of the case.
A note of the arguments of counsel before the judge.
The judgment.

It is only the last item that is authoritative. The others, although useful for its understanding, are only the law reporter's contribution. Thus, law students are warned that the headnote is not part of the decision rendered, since headnotes occasionally contain misinterpretations of the law, and are not part of the official judgment.

Open publication on the Internet

The development of the Internet created the opportunity for courts to publish their decisions on Web sites. This is a relatively low cost publication method compared to paper and makes court decisions more easily available to the public. Because a court can post a decision on a Web site as soon as it is rendered, the need for a quickly printed case in an unofficial, commercial report becomes less crucial. However, the very ease of internet publication has raised new concerns about the ease with which internet-published decisions can be modified after publication, creating uncertainty about the validity of internet opinions.
Decisions of courts from all over the world can now be found through the WorldLII Web site, and the sites of its member organizations. These projects have been strongly encouraged by the Free Access to Law Movement.
Many law librarians and academics have commented on the changing system of legal information delivery brought about by the rapid growth of the World Wide Web. Professor Bob Berring writes that the "primacy of the old paper sets is fading, and a vortex of conflicting claims and products is spinning into place". In theory, court decisions posted on the Web expand access to the law beyond the specialized law library collections used primarily by lawyers and judges. The general public can more readily find court opinions online, whether posted on Web-accessible databases, or through general Web search engines.
Questions remain, however, on the need for a uniform and practical citation format for cases posted on the Web. Furthermore, turning away from the traditional "official-commercial" print report model raises questions about the accuracy, authority, and reliability of case law found on the Web. The answer to these questions will be determined, in large part, through changing government information policies, and by the degree of influence exerted by commercial database providers on global legal information markets.

Design and cultural references

Reports usually come in the form of sturdy hardcover books with most of the design elements on the spine. The volume number is usually printed in large type to make it easy to spot. Gold leaf is traditionally used on the spine for the name of the report and for some decorative lines and bars.
In lawyer portraits and advertisements, the rows of books visible behind the lawyer are usually reports.

History and case reporting by country

Africa

Kenya

Kenya's first output of law reports was in the form of volumes under the citation E.A.L.R. They were first published between 1897 and 1905. Seven of these volumes were compiled by the Hon Mr Justice R. W. Hamilton, who was then the Chief Justice of the Protectorate and the reports covered all courts of different jurisdictions.
The 1922–1956 period saw the emergence of some twenty-one volumes of the Kenya Law Reports. These reports included the decisions of the High Court only and were collated, compiled and edited by different puisne judges and magistrates.
Then came the period covering 1934 to 1956 which saw the birth of the famous Court of Appeal for Eastern Africa Law Reports. These reports comprised twenty-three volumes altogether which were also compiled by puisne judges and magistrates, a Registrar of the High Court and a Registrar of the Court of Appeal for Eastern Africa. These volumes reported the decisions of the then Court of Appeal for Eastern Africa and of the Privy Council. They covered only those appeals filed from the territories.
The East Africa Law Reports were introduced in 1957 and were published in nineteen consecutive volumes until 1975. These reports covered decisions of the Court of Appeal for East Africa and the superior courts of the constituent territories, namely, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Aden, Seychelles and Somaliland. They were published under an editorial board consisting of the Chief Justices of the Territories and the presiding judge of the Court of Appeal for Eastern Africa. Following the collapse of the East African Community, under whose auspices the reports were published, the reports went out of publication.
The period before the resumption of the East Africa Law Reports saw sporadic and transitory attempts at law reporting. Firstly, with the authority of the then Attorney-General, six volumes named the New Kenya Law Reports covering the period between and including the years 1976 to 1980 were published by the East African Publishing House. These reports included the decisions of the High Court and Court of Appeal of Kenya and were compiled by the Late Hon Mr Justice S. K. Sachdeva and were edited by Mr Paul H Niekirk and the Hon Mr Justice Richard Kuloba, a judge of the High Court of Kenya. The publication of these reports ceased when the publishing house folded them up ostensibly on account of lack of funds.
Later, two volumes of what were known as the Kenya Appeal Reports were published for the period 1982–1992 by Butterworths, a private entity, under the editorship of The Hon Chief Justice A.R.W. Hancox who had the assistance of an editorial board of seven persons. These reports, as their name suggested, included only the decisions of the Court of Appeal of Kenya selected over that period.
Law reports relating to special topics have also been published. Ten volumes of the Court of Review Law Reports covering the period 1953 to 1962 and including the decisions on customary law by the African Court of Review were published by the Government Printer. There was no editorial board and it is not known who the compilers of these reports were. Their apocryphal origin notwithstanding, they were commonly cited by legal practitioners and scholars.
In 1994, the Kenyan Parliament passed the National Council for Law Reporting Act, 1994 and gave the Council the exclusive mandate of:
"publication of the reports to be known as the Kenya Law Reports which shall contain judgments, rulings and opinions of the superior courts of record and also undertake such other publications as in the opinion of the Council are reasonably related to or connected with the preparation and publication of the Kenya Law Reports".
The Kenya Law Reports are the official law reports of the Republic of Kenya which may be cited in proceedings in all courts of Kenya.

Asia

Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, the law reports are published according to the provisions of the Law Reports Act, 1875. There are many law reports now in Bangladesh. The most widely known being the Dhaka Law Report which started publication in 1949. Published monthly, the Apex Law Reports provides timely treatment of significant developments in law through articles contributed by judges, leading scholars and practitioners. The Law Messenger is an internationally standard law report which started publication in 2016. It is the first law journal in Bangladesh which specifically publishes law decisions of Supreme Court of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan only. Mainstream Law Reports is the most-cited law journal and it ranks among the country's most-cited law reviews of any kind. Published monthly, the MLR provides timely treatment of significant developments in law through articles contributed by judges, leading scholars and practitioners. Bangladesh Legal Decisions is published under the authority of the Bangladesh Bar Council. The other law reports include Bangladesh Law Chronicles, Lawyers and Jurists, BCR, ADC, Bangladesh Legal Times and Bangladesh Law Times.
The online law report in Bangladesh is Chancery Law Chronicles, which now publishes verdicts of Supreme Court of Bangladesh.
After the Supreme Court of Bangladesh was established in 1972, its online law report is Supreme Court Online Bulletin and it initially published a law report, containing the judgments, orders and decisions of the Court. Another widely used law report in the country is the Bangladesh Legal Decisions which is published by the official regulator of the enrolled lawyers of the country; the Bangladesh Bar Council. Various others for example, Bangladesh Law Chronicles, Bangladesh Legal Times, Lawyers and Jurists, Counsel Law Reports, Legal Circle Law Reports, Bangladesh Legal Times, BCR, and ADC are also in operation. The decisions of the lower judiciary are not reported in any law report.