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Where am I now? Lawlink > NSW Caselaw homepage > Frequently Asked Questions > Medium Neutral Citation
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Medium Neutral Citation
From 1 January 1999 the NSW Courts and Tribunals introduced a system of court designated medium neutral citation for all judgments and decisions given.
Citation
The form of citation used is:
(short description of the parties) [year of decision] (court identifier) (sequential number of the judgment/decision)
An example of the form of citation for the first judgment given from 1 January 2005 in the Supreme Court is:
Smith v Jones [2005] NSWSC 1
Court identifiers
The following court identifiers are used to distinguish each court and tribuanl:
| NSWADT | Administrative Decisions Tribunal |
| NSWCC | Compensation Court |
| NSWCA | Court of Appeal |
| NSWCCA | Court of Criminal Appeal |
| NSWDC | District Court |
| NSWDRGC | Drug Court |
| NSWDDT | Dust Disease Tribunal |
| NSWFTT | Fair Trading Tribunal |
| NSWIRC | Industrial Relations Commission |
| NSWLEC | Land and Environment Court |
| NSWLC | Local Court |
| NSWMT | Medical Tribunal |
| NSWSC | Supreme Court |
| NSWVCT | Victims Compensation Tribunal |
Number series
The sequential judgment/decision numbers will commence from number 1 for the first judgment or decision in each calendar year. Each court and tribunal will have a separate number series.
Paragraph numbering
The paragraph number should appear at the beginning of each paragraph, without brackets or parentheses and to the left of the text margin. Headings should not be numbered.
A quotation within a judgment or decision should be treated as part of the numbered text of the paragraph to which it relates. Accordingly, quotations of whole paragraphs or passages incorporating a number of paragraphs should instead be indented.
Amended judgments and decisions
Modifications to a judgment or decision may be made where its author, after giving the judgment or decision, discovers a minor error and issues a revision or an amendment that describes the correction. Where this occurs the author will ensure that the coversheet records, next to the citation, the fact that the judgment or decision has been amended. Examples of how this is recorded is:
Citation: Smith v Jones [2004] NSWSC 1 revised - 15/01/2004
or
Citation: Smith v Jones [2005] NSWSC 2
This decision has been amended. Please see the end of the judgment for a list of the amendments.
Where a correction is made by the issue of an amendment, rather than a revision of the judgment or decision, the amended text will be inserted at the foot of the electronic version of the judgment or decision text.
Use of medium neutral citation
Whilst a judgement or decision is unreported its court designated medium neutral citation will be used in lieu of conventional references to unreported judgments and decisions. However, the New South Wales Law Reports remain the proper form of citation for published judgments and decisions for use in the courtroom and in court documents.
Where, in a document or judgment, a reference is made to a point in an unreported decision that was published with a court designated medium neutral citation, that point (known as a "pinpoint") will be referred to by reference to its paragraph number.
e.g. Smith v Jones [2005] NSWSC 1 at [23] (where the paragraph number is 23).
Where that judgment or decision has been reported, then the reference should be made to the authorised report citation including the pinpoint paragraph reference.
e.g. Smith v Jones (2005) 44 NSWLR 25 at [23] (where 25 is the page number of the first page of the judgment or decision reported).
Although authorised report citations will continue to be preferred after a judgment or decision is reported, as an aid to research and cross referencing, law publishers may indicate the court designated medium neutral citation in the particulars of the judgment or decision when it is reported.
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