Emory Law School Website

Guide created by Amy Flick

Law in the United Kingdom

• Emory Law collection:  Ranges 375-378 (Hansell Room)
• Common Law System
• No written constitution, no official codification
• Parliamentary statutes not subject to review by courts
• Trial courts:  Queen's Bench, Chancery
• Two-tier Appeals System:  Court of Appeal, House of Lords
• New U.K. Supreme Court assuming jurisdiction as final court of appeal currently with the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords as of Oct. 2009
• EC law binding on English courts
• Separate reporters for Scotland and Northern Ireland
• Separate Scottish parliament and Welsh Assembly (devolution), separate Scottish courts

Reporters

• Official:  The Law Reports
  • Coverage:  1865-present
  • Slip opinions:  Weekly Law Reports
• Unofficial:
  • English Reports, Full Reprint:  1220-1865
  • All England Law Reports:  1558-present, with headnotes
  • Include House of Lords, Court of Appeal, Chancery, Queens Bench, Family Court
  • Selden Society Publications:  Selected cases from nominative reports (1535-1865)

Statutes and Regulations

• Public General Acts and Measures (1831-present):  Index, alphabetical and chronological tables of acts.
• Halsbury's Statutes of England and Wales:  Unofficial compilation of statutes in force.  Annotations, references to regulations.  Tables and Index volume with chronological and alphabetical lists of statutes.
• Is it in Force?:  Establishes the commencement date of statutes in England and Wales passed 1968-present.  Annual publication.
• Statutes at Large:  1225-1867.  Volumes by year of reign.  Volumes 15-43 in Hansell Room, earlier volumes in Special Collections.  Find volumes up to 1800 in pdf in Eighteenth Century Collections Online.
• Regulations:  Halsbury's Statutory Instruments.  Subject arrangement of regulations.  Some full-text, some abstracts.

Other English Law Sources

• Encyclopedias
  • Halsbury's Laws of England.  Alphabetical by topic, with emphasis on statutes.
• Guides
  • Duke Law Library:  Guides to English law and English legal history
  • NYU Law:  Finding English law
• Finding Aids and Updating
  • The Digest:  Annotations of reported case law from England and selected cases from other Commonwealth countries
  • Current Law:  Monthly.  Summaries of cases and legislation.  Track by subject or citation.  Contains a citator.
  • Halsbury's Statutes Citator:  Current status of statutes
  • Is It In Force?  Statutes in force with enactment dates (part of Halsbury's Statutes)
  • Current Law Case Citator, Current Law Statute Citator

English Law Online

• Lexis
  • England & Wales or United Kingdom.  Includes UK Cases Combined courts, The Law Reports, Halsbury's Laws of England Monthly Review.
• Westlaw
  • United Kingdom.  Includes UK Reports, All Law Reports, Weekly Law Reports, UK Law in Force, UK Law in Force PDF Statutes, UK Statutes, UK Statutory Instruments, IP Reports All (UK & EPO Decisions)
• Office of Public Sector Information http://www.opsi.gov.uk/legislation/about_legislation.htm
  • U.K. legislation as enacted and with revisions, plus new legislation
  • Includes legislation 1267-current still in force, as revised
• UK Statute Law Database http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/
  
  • Official revised edition of UK primary legislation.  Find original date, changes, amendments not yet in force, concurrent versions, status, new legislation
  • A-Z and chronological indexes
• BAILII http://www.bailii.org/
  • British and Irish caselaw and legislation
• House of Lords Judgments 1996-current http://www.parliament.uk/judicial_work/judicial_work5.cfm
  • New U.K. Supreme Court (2009):  http://www.justice.gov.uk/whatwedo/supremecourt.htm
• English Reports (1220-1867) in LLMC-Digital
  
• English Reports Full Reprint (1220-1865) in Hein Online
  • Includes a Citation Navigator and Case Locator for finding cases by case name, English Reports citation, nominative citation, or keyword
  • Includes Statutes of the Realm 1235-1713
• English Reports cd-rom (1220-1865):  Periodicals index table.  Searchable English cases.
• Statutes at Large
  • Statutes from the 18th century and earlier available in Eighteenth Century Collections Online