1. Searching Judgments, Sentencing Remarks and Decisions
4. Browsing
10. Phrase Search
11. Searching by Judge or Magistrate
12. New Search
13. Search Operators
1. Searching Judgments, Sentencing Remarks and Decisions
Judgments, sentencing remarks and decisions may be found by browsing, searching the various fields or undertaking a free text search using the full text field.
Before commencing any new search, click the ‘Clear Search’ button to ensure that your search will not corrupted by previous search results.
ACT Court of Appeal and Supreme Court judgments, sentencing remarks and Magistrates Court decisions can be searched using the following fields:
- citation;
- party name;
- date range, and
- full text.
It is possible to combine various fields when carrying out a search. In the illustration below both the Party Name and Start Date and End Date fields have been populated. (It is also possible to combine Party Name with Citation.)
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Browsing by party name is not possible. However browsing by date is available. Note: Court documents such as judgments and decisions display according to the date on which they were delivered, with the most recent document appearing first.
5. Searching by Citation
When searching Court of Appeal and Supreme Court judgments by citation, ensure that the year is enclosed within square brackets. The citation need not be complete - a partial citation can also be entered in the Citation field.
The following citation variations may be employed to locate Supreme Court judgments:
- [2010] ACTSC 144
- ACTSC 144
- 144
The following citation variations may be employed to locate Magistrates Court decisions:
- [2010] cc09/6053
- cc09/6053
- 6053
When searching for Magistrates Court decisions with citations beginning with WC - such as WC 173 of 2009 - the correct forms to enter in the Citation field are:
- wc09/173
- 173
When searching by Party Name, only one keyword is required. Do not use more than one keyword as the search engine is unable to deal with multiple search terms.
To locate the Court of Appeal judgment, Owen v Musladin (No 2) [2010] ACTCA 24, either type in 'Owen' or 'Musladin' - do not enter in both search terms; also ensure that you type in the party's surname as first names do not appear in the Party Name field.
Common surnames such as Smith will result in multiple hits and it may not be possible to easily recognise the relevant judgment, sentencing remark or decision from the selection generated. To overcome this problem, enter in the party name then, when results display in the drop-down box, click the 'Search Decisions' button and scroll down the page to locate the relevant item.
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Locating a party by their full name is possible using the Full Text search field. When searching for the name of the person (or company) in a judgment, sentencing remark or decision enclose your search terms in double quotation marks. Be aware, though, that some Court documents may include the party's middle name or initial in which case the use of the wildcard operator is recommended.
Search examples using the Full Text search field include:
- "Fred ** Smith" for Fred Thomas Smith or Fred T. Smith
- Michael and Lynch (example of a keyword search)
- Lynch
- "Michael Lynch" (example of a phrase search)
- "Dixon Advisory"
- Dixon and Advisory and Limited
- Refshauge and "Richard Taylor" (a search example combining judicial officer and party name)
- Refshauge and Taylor
If you are unsure of the name of the party but know that a judgment was handed down within a certain date range then use the Date feature. When searching by date range ensure that your start date is your early date followed by the late date. See example below.
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Keywords and phrases may be entered in the Full Text search box. This search will look for your search terms throughout the whole of the judgment, sentencing remark or decision. All text within these documents are searchable including citation and judgment date.
The benefit in employing a full text search is that a more sophisticated search is possible through the use of the various Google operators listed below.
In addition to being able to find judgments and decisions by party name, the full text search field can also be used to locate court documents by their file number (e.g. SCC 318) as well as by catchword and even counsel.
The easiest way to search the Law Courts website is to type in a keyword or keywords either in the Full Text field (to search for judgments, sentences and decisions) or the search field found on the homepage of the Supreme Court or Magistrates Court.
A simple keyword search entails entering in individual words such as 'form' and 'robing' and 'guidelines'.
If your keyword search returns too many hits then consider a phrase search to help narrow down search results.
Enclosing your search terms within double quotation marks means that the search will retrieve your terms as a group and in the order that they entered. Ensure that the phrase that you use appears naturally in the document or website. For example, the phrase "criminal law" is a naturally occuring (or commonly used) phrase while "the law of criminal jurisdiction" is not; the latter search is less likely to produce useful results than the former search.
Finally it is also possible to combine a phrase with a keyword search in the Full Text field. An example would be combining the phrase '"criminal law" with the keyword, 'defence'.
Although a specific field for searching by judge or magistrate is not available, nevertheless it is possible to call up those judgments, sentencing remarks and decisons displaying a particular judge or magistrate by entering in the name of the judicial officer in the Full Text search field.
To carry out such a search, select the database you wish to interrogate (for example, the ACT Court of Appeal judgments or ACT Supreme Court judgments, sentencing remarks or Magistrates Court decisions) and in the Full Text field enter in the name of the judge or magistrate.
ACT Supreme Court judgments
When searching for ACT Supreme Court judgments by judge it is recommended that a phrase search be carried out that includes the judge's surname and designation. So, when searching for judgments delivered by Chief Justice Higgins, your search string will be "higgins cj".
Other search examples include:
- "gray j"
- gray
- "refshauge j"
- refshauge
- "penfold j"
- "master harper"
- "mathews aj" (for Acting Judge)
ACT Court of Appeal judgments and ACT Magistrates Court decisions
When searching for ACT Court of Appeal judgments by judge and ACT Magistrates Court decisions by magistrate it is recommended that surname only be used. So, when searching for judgments written by Justice Gray the search form will be 'gray'.
For decisions handed down by Chief Magistrate Burns the search form will be 'burns'.
Sentencing remarks
Searching for sentencing remarks by judge is similar to locating Supreme Court judgments. However there are slight differences - the designation is not abbreviated but spelt out in full and placed at the beginning of the surname. So, when searching for sentencing remarks the correct form to follow is "justice [name of judge]". Searching by surname only is also possible.
Other search examples include:
- "chief justice higgins"
- higgins
- "justice gray"
- gray
- "justice refshauge"
- "acting justice mathews"
To quickly commence a new search after viewing a judgment, sentence remark or decision, either click your Internet brower's back button or the website's breadcrumb.
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13. Search Operators
Since the search engine that is used to retrieve webpages from Supreme and Magistrates Court sites is Google Search, the search operators that you normally use when using Google can also be used when searching for information on the Supreme Court and Magistrates Court websites.
Some of the most common Google operators are listed below, along with search examples and their symbols.
|
Google Operator |
Symbol |
Example |
Result |
|
Phrase |
“ “ |
“independent review” |
Only those results with search terms in the order specified will display. |
|
Not
|
- |
rights -human |
Only those pages displaying the word ‘rights’ will be returned. Any webpage with the word, ‘human’, will not be retrieved. |
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Proximity The wildcard operator is used when you want your keywords to be close to each other rather than scattered throughout the webpage.Using this operator should result in more relevant hits since the query is specific rather than broad. It is recommended for locating legal information in judgments, sentencing remarks and decisions.
|
*
|
“annual * includes”
|
The word, ‘agreement’, is found between the two keywords, 'annual' and 'includes'. |
|
Or |
OR |
Corbell OR attorney |
Records displaying either ‘Corbell’ or ‘attorney’ will be retrieved. |
|
And |
AND |
Corbell AND attorney
|
Only those records displaying ‘Corbell’ and ‘attorney’ in the same page will be retrieved. |
|
Allintitle |
allintitle: |
allintitle:supreme |
Only those records displaying ‘supreme’ in the title of the webpage are retrieved. |
|
Intitle |
intitle: |
intitle:attorney Walker |
Only those records displaying ‘attorney’ in the title and ‘Walker’ in the webpage are returned. |
For further explanation of the above search features refer to Google search basics: More search help.