Authorised and unauthorised law reports

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In most countries, the decisions of the senior courts are compiled and published in book form. These books are known as law reports. The law reports usually contain the record of the outcome of the case, as well as the text of the judgment(s) from the judge(s). The reasoning that the judge(s) put into the judgment(s) is relied on by academics and the media as a record of the law as it stands at that time in that court. A spoken judgment will be transcribed, while a reserved judgment is often written by the judge and formatted for the reports.

An 'authorised' report is one for which the report series seeks the approval of the judges whose judgments appear before publication, to allow errors to be corrected. An unauthorised report is one that does not seek the approval of the judges. In general, an authorised report is produced by the government and is considered the more 'official' reference, so that it is preferred for citation.

Unauthorised reports have the advantage that they can be produced considerably sooner than the authorised reports. When the decision in a case has only recently been handed down, a case will generally be published in the unauthorised report sooner than the authorised one, so that law journals and the like must cite the unauthorised report until the authorised report comes out.

In modern times, it is common for transcripts of decisions to be available through the Internet the same day as they are handed down, leading to the loss of some of the former appeal of the unauthorised report. An unauthorised report is usually produced by a private company, and distinguishes itself in other ways (eg more appealing layout, an index, etc) to ensure a competitive advantage.

[edit] Australia

• CLR (Commonwealth Law Reports) - Authorised reports of the decisions of the High Court of Australia.
• ALR (Australian Law Reports) - Unauthorised reports of the High Court.