Source Policy
Last reviewed: May 2026
Every claim of law on UK Law Reference must be traceable to a primary source. This page explains the hierarchy of sources we use, how we cite them, when secondary sources are acceptable, and how we approach foreign and international law.
Primary Source Hierarchy
We rank primary and authoritative sources in order of precedence. Where sources conflict, the higher-ranked source governs. This hierarchy reflects the formal structure of English law.
The National Archives' legislation.gov.uk is the definitive source for UK primary and secondary legislation. We use it for Acts of Parliament (both UK-wide and devolved), statutory instruments, Welsh statutory instruments, and Scottish statutory instruments.
We always cite the consolidated version โ reflecting amendments โ rather than the as-enacted text, unless the historic unamended text is the specific subject of discussion. Territorial extent and commencement dates are checked on the legislation.gov.uk record for each provision cited.
The Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website publishes judgments of the Senior Courts (Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court) and selected tribunal decisions. It is the official publication channel for many judgments in England and Wales.
We use judiciary.uk for the full text of judgments, noting the neutral citation (e.g. [2024] EWCA Civ 123) and the date of judgment. We do not use press summaries as a substitute for the judgment itself.
The British and Irish Legal Information Institute provides free online access to a comprehensive database of UK case law, including courts and tribunals not covered by judiciary.uk. BAILII is our primary search tool for case law research.
BAILII text may contain OCR errors in older judgments. Where we rely on a precise quotation from a judgment, we verify against a law report or the original court document where one is available.
GOV.UK is the single official website for UK government services and information. We use it for official guidance on how legislation is applied by government departments and agencies, explanatory notes to legislation, and procedural information about government services.
GOV.UK guidance is not law โ it represents the government's interpretation of the law and its policy on how it will exercise discretion. We note this distinction clearly where relevant.
MoJ and HMCTS materials include practice directions, court forms, fee schedules, and procedural guidance issued by Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service. These are used for procedure-heavy pages (e.g. issuing a claim, making a family application) where official procedural documents are the most accurate source.
The principal sets of procedural rules are primary sources for procedure pages:
- Civil Procedure Rules 1998 (CPR) โ civil proceedings in England and Wales
- Criminal Procedure Rules 2020 (CrimPR) โ criminal proceedings
- Family Procedure Rules 2010 (FPR) โ family proceedings
- Tribunal Procedure Rules โ First-tier and Upper Tribunal proceedings
Rules are sourced from legislation.gov.uk. Practice directions supplementing the rules are sourced from judiciary.uk or HMCTS.
Statutory regulators publish guidance on how they interpret and apply the legislation they enforce. ICO guidance on GDPR and the Data Protection Act, FCA guidance on financial services regulation, and CMA guidance on competition and consumer law are examples. We use regulator guidance to explain the regulatory interpretation of statutory requirements, noting that it is not binding on courts.
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, Legal Services Ombudsman, and Financial Ombudsman Service publish decisions and guidance. These are useful for understanding how redress mechanisms work in practice and are cited in our guides to complaints procedures.
Established practitioners' texts โ including Smith & Hogan Criminal Law, Treitel on the Law of Contract, Clerk & Lindsell on Torts, Megarry & Wade on Real Property, Dicey & Morris on the Conflict of Laws โ are used for context, background, and commentary where primary sources do not directly address a point. We cite secondary sources by author, title, edition, and page number, and we use them to supplement, not displace, primary sources.
Citation Conventions
Our citation conventions follow established UK legal practice:
Statutes
Short title and year, then chapter number where relevant: Misrepresentation Act 1967 (c.7). Section references in parentheses: (s.2(1)). Links go to the consolidated version on legislation.gov.uk.
Cases
Neutral citation where available, followed by law report citation: Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990] UKHL 2; [1990] 2 AC 605. Where only a law report citation exists (pre-neutral citation): Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 (HL). Court abbreviated in parentheses for older cases.
Statutory instruments
Full title, year, and SI number: Civil Procedure Rules 1998 (SI 1998/3132). Linked to legislation.gov.uk.
Official guidance
Author organisation, title, and date where available: ICO, 'Guide to the UK GDPR', January 2024. Linked to the source URL.
When Secondary Sources Are Acceptable
Secondary sources are used where:
- A primary source states the rule but does not explain the reasoning or context in terms useful to a general audience
- The development of a legal doctrine over time is being traced and a textbook treatment provides a coherent synthesis
- A legal concept (e.g. consideration in contract, mens rea in criminal law) is better explained through authoritative commentary than raw primary sources
- There is a specific dispute or nuance in the interpretation of a primary source where established commentary has crystallised the arguments
Secondary sources are not acceptable where a primary source directly answers the question. We do not use secondary sources as a way to avoid reading primary materials.
Foreign Law Sources
UK Law Reference focuses on UK law. We refer to foreign and international law only where it has direct bearing on UK law:
European Union law
EU law retained in domestic law post-Brexit (retained EU law) is sourced from legislation.gov.uk and the relevant EU regulation or directive text. For pre-Brexit EU law still relevant to interpretation, we cite the EUR-Lex reference. We do not treat post-Brexit EU law as binding on UK courts, but note where UK courts may consider it persuasive.
European Convention on Human Rights
The ECHR as incorporated by the Human Rights Act 1998. Convention rights are sourced from the Council of Europe's ECHR text. European Court of Human Rights judgments are cited by application number and date. Strasbourg judgments are persuasive in UK courts under s.2 HRA; we note this distinction.
International conventions
Conventions incorporated into UK law (e.g. the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as relevant to domestic proceedings, Hague Conventions on child abduction and maintenance) are cited in their treaty form with the domestic implementing legislation.
Commonwealth and other common law jurisdictions
We occasionally refer to decisions from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and other common law jurisdictions as persuasive authority where English case law does not directly address a point and where the legal systems share sufficient common roots. These are clearly identified as non-binding and their persuasive weight is noted.
Source Verification
All external links are checked at the time of writing or review. We link to official sources โ legislation.gov.uk, BAILII, judiciary.uk, GOV.UK โ rather than paraphrasing sites. We are aware that URLs and page structures at government and institutional sites change; if you find a broken link, please report it using our corrections inbox.
We do not link to unofficial legal summarisation sites, legal advice forums, or AI-generated legal content as sources. We do not treat Wikipedia as a source of legal authority.