Law and Legal Studies

Case law refers to the legal principles established through judicial decisions. It encompasses court rulings and judgments in specific cases and serves as a fundamental source for legal research. It plays a crucial role due to the doctrine of precedent, where past judgments can influence future cases, based on the court's authority.

Law reports are responsible for publishing case judgments, and a law report citation is useful for locating a specific case judgment.

Here is an example of a law report citation using the OSCOLA referencing system (see the referencing section of this guide for more information about referencing systems):

Riordan v Ireland

[2009] IESC 44, [2009] 3 IR 745

The primary categories of law reports are as follows:

• Full-text law reports, which includes the complete court judgment, a summarising headnote, and various additional sections.
• Summary reports, which are also referred to as case summaries,  digests, case notes, etc., offering a condensed version or abstract of the judgment.

Key Law Reports include:

• Irish Law Reports Monthly (accessible online via Westlaw IE)
• Irish Law Times Reports via Westlaw IE (accessible online via Westlaw IE)
• Law Reports (UK) (accessible online via Westlaw UK)
• Weekly Law Reports (accessible online via Westlaw UK)
• All England Law Reports (accessible online via Westlaw UK)

Every piece of primary legislation originates as a Bill, which represents a proposal for new legislation. Legislation, in this context, refers to laws or a collection of laws that have received approval from Parliament (Oireachtas). The term 'legislation' is also employed to describe the process of creating a new law.

To understand more about the legislative process in Ireland, just click on this guide: Guide to the legislative process in Ireland.