To find a case by name, citation or subject use a case citator. Citators track a case's history and its treatment by subsequent courts, as well a providing links to relevant cases, legislation and secondary sources. Examples are
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This link opens in a new windowFree legal database that collects the recent decisions of selected Australian Courts and Tribunals. Current law students may register for a free premium subscription.
Australian State and Territory Judgments on the web.
(Full text of judgments are not available through these sources.)
Understanding all of the elements to a case citation is the first step to locating the report and understanding the court judgments. The table below will explain how to read the citation Mabo v Queensland [No 2] (1992)175 CLR 1 to locate the correct source:
| Mabo v Queensland | [No 2] | (1992) | 175 | CLR |
1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
These are the names of the principal parties. The v is read as" and " in Australia |
This number distinguishes |
This is the year of the report |
This is the volume number of the report series |
This is the abbreviation of the law report series. CLR is the Commonwealth Law Reports. |
This is the first page of the case report. |
The following videos provide guidance on how to search for cases using the specific law databases:
Legal citations use abbreviations for publications and the courts themselves - For example, HCA for High Court of Australia and CLR for the Commonwealth Law Reports.
Find the official abbreviations for legal publications:
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