Find Case Law — the official source for England and Wales judgments
Judgments as approved by the judges, received directly from the courts and tribunals of England and Wales, published free by The National Archives.
- Published by
- The National Archives, in partnership with the Ministry of Justice, HM Courts & Tribunals Service and the Judicial Office.
- Type
- Official judgments database.
- Jurisdiction
- England and Wales (Scotland is served by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service; Northern Ireland is not covered).
- Versions and language
- English; live service. Coverage from 2001, varying by court; not every judgment is published.
- Primary audience
- Lawyers, DPOs, researchers, developers working with judgment data.
- Topic tags
- case law · judgments · open data · Open Justice Licence · API
- Availability
- Free; re-use under the Open Justice Licence; public API.
Why it matters
Since 2022 this has been the official publication route for England and Wales judgments — the courts send them directly, which makes it the citation-grade source for text as approved by the judge, and The National Archives preserves them permanently. Two working caveats, both stated by the service itself: it is not a comprehensive record (magistrates’ decisions are mostly unpublished, and coverage before the launch varies by court), and re-use beyond reading — including any computational analysis of judgments at scale — is governed by the Open Justice Licence, which is worth reading before building anything on the data.
For privacy work the API and open licensing also make it the cleaner source when a judgment needs to be quoted in advice with a stable official link. BAILII remains the free companion for material outside its scope — older judgments, Scotland and Northern Ireland, Ireland, EU and Strasbourg.