United Kingdom
United Kingdom legal research guides
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A Guide to the UK Legal Systemvia GlobaLex
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AccessToLawvia the Inner Temple Library. A gateway site, providing links to selected UK, Commonwealth and worldwide free legal web sites.
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BIALL How do I? WikiGuide to British legal sources via the British & Irish Association of Law Librarians
Key databases
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Westlaw UKWestlaw UK is one of the leading online legal research services providing access to cases, legislation, journals, books online, news and EU materials.
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BAILIIBritish and Irish case law & legislation, European Union case law, Law Commission reports, and other law-related British and Irish material.
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U.K. Parliamentary Papers (via ProQuest)Current (2004/05 to 2009/10). Encompasses all areas of social, political, economic and foreign policy, "showing how issues were explored and legislation was formed. Many contributors to the papers were found outside the official world, providing evidence or supplying memoranda to committees and commissions" (OCLC WorldCat). U.K. Parliamentary Papers is searchable with full text and detailed subject indexing.
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Courts and Tribunals Judiciary | Judgments and Decisions (UK Judicial Office)For Tribunal Decisions, click on the link at the top of the Judgments page.
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Halsbury’s Laws of England (Lexis Advance)This database covers the whole spectrum of English law and provides a comprehensive narrative statement of the law of England and Wales.
Case law
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JustisOneJustisOne combines the full text content of Justis and the power of the case citator JustCite into a single database. The Justis database includes a comprehensive collection of cases from common law jurisdictions around the world. UK case law coverage is from 1162 and UK legislation from 1235. Australian case law coverage is from 1986.
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United Kingdom Case Law LocatorAvailable from the Westlaw International platform, United Kingdom Case Locator has reported and unreported U.K. and E.U. cases; in addition, it checks direct and indirect history. Coverage begins with 1865.
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The Law Reports (ICLR Online)The Law Reports are the official series of reports cited in the High Court and Court of Appeal of England and Wales, covering all the important English cases reported since 1865. The current series titles of the Law Reports are: Appeal Cases (AC) (which includes judgments from the House of Lords), Queen's Bench Division (QBD), Chancery (Ch) and Family (Fam). Older, discontinued series include Crown Cases Reserved 1865-75 (LR CCR) and Probate, Divorce & Admiralty Division 1891-1970 (P).
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United Kingdom authorised reports - Modern English reports (The Law Reports)Via the Library's Law guide "Authorised law reports".
Legislation
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legislation.gov.ukThe official home of UK legislation, revised and as enacted 1267-present. (Note: Historical documents are not comprehensive. Selected only).
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FAQs legislation.gov.ukIf looking for particular legislation, check under the heading "Help with legislation" on this page.
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Hansard (via UK Parliament)Commons debates - Read Commons debates back to November 1988. Lords debates - Browse Lords debates by date back to 1995-96.
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Historic Hansard (via UK Parliament)Hansard 1803–2005. This site has been produced from digitised editions of Commons and Lords Hansard, the Official Report of debates in Parliament.
United Kingdom Legal System
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Introduction to United Kingdom's Legal SystemPrepared by the Library of Congress.
Historical
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The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.
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Statutes of the Realm (1235-1713) (HeinOnline)From the HeinOnline home page, select the link "United Kingdom", then "Statutes of the Realm".
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Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of Englandvia The Avalon Project.
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Historical English and UK legislation (Oxford LibGuides)Includes some digitised sources on the free web.
