Supreme Court of Judicature: High Court of Justice: Judgments

J 348

From 2003

This series contains judgments from the various divisions of the High Court of Justice, including:

• Administrative Court (EWHC Admin),
• Admiralty Division (EWHC Admlty),
• Chancery Division (EWHC Ch),
• Commercial Court (EWHC Comm),
• Senior Court Costs Office (EWHC Costs),
• Exchequer Division (EWHC Exch),
• Family Division (EWHC Fam),
• King's Bench Division (EWHC KB) and Queen's Bench Division (EWHC QB),
• Mercantile Court (EWHC Mercantile),
• Patents Court (EWHC Pat),
• Technology and Construction Court (EWHC TCC).

Judgments are formal legal decisions written and handed down (issued) by judges at the conclusion of cases. They typically include significant detail about the facts of the cases and the reasons for the decisions reached.

As of 2022, judgments are typically created as Microsoft Word documents. These are transformed into the XML format LegalDocML for publication online. For a small proportion of judgments, supporting documents, such as orders or press summaries, also exist.

Published judgments are available at caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk.

EWHC

Public Record(s)

English

• Supreme Court of Judicature, Chancery Division, 1875-1875
• Supreme Court of Judicature, Family Division, 1970-1970
• Supreme Court of Judicature, High Court of Justice, Exchequer Division, 1875-1880
• Supreme Court of Judicature, High Court of Justice, Kings Bench Division, 1875-1875
• Supreme Court of Judicature, High Court of Justice, Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, 1873-1970
• Supreme Court of Judicature, Queens Bench Division, 1952-1952

digital record(s)

Published judgments are made available by the direction of the judges who handed them down. They can be used under the terms and conditions of the Open Justice Licence.

Open unless otherwise stated

In 2021 British and Irish Legal Information Institute

From 2022 Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service

Topics

Litigation

Trade and commerce

Computing

Armed Forces (General Administration)

From Spring 2022 onwards, judges' clerks have transferred judgments directly to The National Archives in digital form. A set of earlier judgments was supplied by BAILII in Autumn 2021; this included both judgments supplied directly to BAILII by the court and judgments obtained from other sources.

The National Archives receives and publishes judgments on an ongoing basis.

All judgments (and, where applicable, supporting documents) transferred to The National Archives are selected for permanent preservation.

Publication of court judgments has long been standard practice in line with the principles of open justice. The individual judges who hand dow n judgments have the right to determine whether the judgment text should be published.

By the early 21st century, judgments intended for publication were circulated to legal publishers by email. The British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII), founded in 2000, became one of the largest and most popular sources of freely-available case law information.

In June 2021, the Ministry of Justice made a policy announcement that The National Archives was to store, preserve and publish court judgments and tribunal decisions for England and Wales. An Alpha version of the publication service was launched in April 2022.

The Open Justice Licence was created in 2022 to support the re-use of information from published case law.