Legal Research Questions – No 1
Has a section of a Tasmanian Act been judicially considered?
Resources that can be used:
FirstPoint;
Lillas Digest;
CaseBase;
AustLII;
Warner on Sentencing;
Indexes to Law Reports; and
Loose leaf Services
Always check the coverage of each of these resources – for example Tasmanian Unreported Judgments start in 1999
in FirstPoint , in May 1997 in CaseBase and in 1987 in AustLII. The bound volume of the Lillas Digest covers 19001988, and there are annual updates from 1989 onwards.
For those of you who do not have access to any of the above resources they will generally be available in your local
law library.
Tip 1: FirstPoint
1. Open the FirstPoint database and use the Legislation Judicially Considered Field
2. Click on Legislation Judicially Considered for tips on how to structure your search
3. Example of search for s8A of the Tasmanian Testator’s Family Maintenance Act 1912: choose Tasmania
as the jurisdiction and then enter the Act name (not the year) and the section:
4. Result of this search:
5. In this case there is one result. The blue link to [2009] TASSC 116 will not be active unless your
subscription includes Unreported Judgments. If you do not subscribe to this service then to see the text
of the judgment you would need to copy the link and open AustLII to find the judgment. If the link had
been to the Tasmanian Reports, and your subscription included this Report series you would have been
able to use the link and bring up the text of the case.
6. Points to remember: Thomsons Unreported Judgments only go back to 1999 so if a section of an Act has
been judicially considered in an unreported judgment published prior to 1999 FirstPoint will not return
any results that include unreported judgments for this period of time.
Tip 2: Lillas Digest
1. For Tasmanian legislation you can use Lillas Digest up to 1988 either in print (Table of Statutes) or through
tasInLaw. If using tasInLaw you will need to scroll through the database to find the Table of Statutes which is
at the end of the database. tasInLaw is not available online but can be accessed in most law libraries in
Tasmania. Coverage of Tasmanian cases – all judgments from 1985 to 2007.
2. Example of entry in the Table of Statutes:
3. From 1989 onwards refer to the Annual Updates (in print only) that are available in most Law Libraries.
Tip 3: CaseBase
1. In LexisNexis go to the CaseBase search screen
2. In the Legislation judicially considered box type the name of the Act then a space then w/p then a space then
the section number.
3. For example to search for cases referring to section 29 of the Justices Act 1959 (Tas) type in:
Justices Act w/p 29
4. Scroll down to the Jurisdiction box and tick Tasmania – then click on Search
5. In this instance there are 10 results. Click on the links to see the CaseBase summary and if there is a link to
an unreported judgment then you can click on that to see the full text of the judgment.
6. Point to remember: CaseBase coverage of unreported Judgments goes back to May 1997.
Tip 4: AustLII
1. You can search for an Act that has been judicially considered in AustLII by using a number of different
approaches. All should be used with caution and be aware that you will retrieve some strange results at
times. However it is worth a try because AustLII has Tasmanian Judgments going back to 1987 (1987-1992
are incomplete but the Supreme Court is working on filling in the gaps for these years.
For a start try the Database Search option
2. On the Search Page choose this phrase in the Find Box and then type in the name of the Act in the Enter
search query: Box, then click on Search
3. When the list of results comes up click on the Context Button to see the first reference
4. Then click on the green arrow to the right to see the next reference
5. You can’t specify a section of the Act by this method – it is a matter of scrolling through the results to see if
the section you want comes up.
6. If you are more adventurous you can try using the Boolean Search option to find a particular section. On the
Search Page choose the Boolean query option from the drop down menu
It produces results (in this search there were four cases retrieved) but be aware that the Act may be referred
to as “the Act” after the first reference and sections other than s85 will be retrieved. Also if s85 of another
Act is referred to then the search will retrieve that as well.
7. If you have used AustLII to find an Act the initial result provides a Table of Contents with links to each section
of the Act. When you click on the section number the section appears on the screen and you can then click
on the NoteUp function. Sometimes this is useful – sometimes not. For example if you use NoteUp for s28
of the Justices Act then you get a reasonable number of results that contain s28 of the Act but if you use
NoteUp for s48 then the results are for s48 of the Industrial Relations Act and for s29(1) of the Justices Act. In
this case the search has found the two terms but not together.
Tip 6: Warner on Sentencing
It is always be worthwhile referring to the Table of Statutes in Warner on Sentencing (both the 1st and 2nd
editions).
Tip 6: Print Indexes
1. Don’t forget the print indexes which are available for most Law Reports. They will generally have a Table of
Statutes Judicially considered.
2. The most recent Tasmanian Index covers the years 1970-2007. If you want to go further it is a slog through
the annual volumes.
Tip 7: Print Indexes
Check your loose leaf services to see any that might include annotations to the particular section of the Act you are
researching.
Prepared by
Dorothy Shea
Supreme Court Librarian
15 February 2010
Comments and suggestions can be emailed to: [email protected]