Improved
Public Access to Federal Court Judgments (31 December
1998)
The Federal
Court of Australia and some other superior courts are
to introduce from 1 January 1999, a new system of identifying
their judgments so as to enhance public access to them
through the internet and by other electronic means.
The system,
called Medium Neutral Citation, gives a unique court-designated
identifier to each judgment. It comprises a short form
of the parties' names, the year, the court designator
- FCA for the Federal court - and the sequential judgment
number for that year.
Once an identifier
has been given to a case, it becomes universal, enabling
the case to be identified by anyone seeking access to
it anywhere in the world. For example: Hadid v Lenfest
Communications Inc [1998] FCA 902
The High Court
introduced the new system at the start of the year and
it, the Federal Court, and other Australian superior courts
will all use a common standard.
Another feature
of the system is that reference to particular passages
in judgments will be by paragraph number which, unlike
the page numbering of a printed text will be a universal
identifier.
The Federal
Court Chief Justice, The Hon. Michael Black AC, said that
the new system would greatly improve access to the court's
judgments by any member of the public and would mean that
reports of its decisions from different sources (print
or electronic) could be used interchangeably.
“For electronic documents
a page is meaningless as screens scroll without page breaks,
but this system will overcome that problem.”
“The emergence of the
Internet and its growing use for legal research and public
access to the decisions of the Federal court and other
superior courts, has made it more important than ever
to facilitate public access by adopting this new system
of Medium Neutral Citation.”
More details
about the changes can be obtained by contacting Imelda
Payne in the Principal Registry Library of the Federal
Court on (02) 9230 8345.
