Case Law

Case law, along with legislation, is a primary source of law in Australia. In deciding cases, judges interpret legislation and also apply the doctrine of precedent, which means the court must follow the decision reached by a higher court in the same jurisdiction which has considered the same or a similar set of facts previously. For this reason, case law is sometimes known as common law or judge-made law.

Case law is also a record of a judges' reasoning or decision making applied to a particular dispute.

Parts of a case

Typically, the following information can be found in a case:

• Court
• Parties - names of parties
• Judge/s
• Date of hearing
• Medium neutral citation - citation applied by court
• Catchwords - summary of case in keywords
• Statement of facts
• Issue to be decided
• Discussion of relevant legal principles
• Judgement or conclusion
• Orders
• Legal representation.

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