Law and Legal Studies: Law reports, statutes & Gov gazettes; practice directives

GENERAL

Most countries provide free access to at least current statutes via their official government websites so a Google search will provide results.

SOUTH AFRICA

1. At national level, the original version of an act is published in the Government Gazette.
2. Amendment acts are published in separate government gazettes as are delegated legislation or regulations.
3. The commercial publishers Juta and LexisNexis as well as Netlaw (via Sabinet), provide online fulltext access to the consolidated or most recent versions of acts, inclusive of amendments. The Juta, Lexis and Sabinet databases are subscribed to by UKZN
4. Sabinet (in the Legal category of resources) and Lexis contain the full text of national and provincial gazettes
5. Regulations are slowly being published online as well by Juta, Lexis and Netlaw.
6. Bills are accessible from the SA Government website and Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) (current bills) and Juta since 2012. Bills signed into law in the current year are also listed on the PMG site 

• The SA Government website provides pdf versions of the original acts in the Government Gazette post 1996 (see the Documents option).
• The national Government Gazette is available online fulltext via Sabinet in pdf format. In Sabinet, find the government gazettes in the Legal category from the All Content drop down menu. The gazettes are in two parts: the Retrospective government gazette 1910 - 1993 and the Government gazette 1994+. LexisNexis also provides full text access to the Government Gazette since 1910.
• The green gazette is available at  https://www.greengazette.co.za/ but full text is not always available
• Provincial legislation is published in provincial gazettes and the consolidated or most recent versions of these acts, inclusive of amendments are published by Juta (1994+) and Lexis (1994+) and Sabinet Legal  (1911+).
• Gazettes are also available at opengazettes.org.za and gazettes.africa
• SA provincial gazettes are available full text on Lexis from 2004 - 2014. Sabinet has the provincial gazettes since 1995.

Many online law report series are only available via commercial publishers but many are increasingly freely available. A Google search will indicate free access.

SOUTH AFRICA

The two key commercial publishers of law reports in South Africa are Juta and LexisNexis. UKZN subscribes to their online formats. Each makes available the following sets of law reports:

Juta: SA Law Reports (SA); SA Criminal Reports (SACR); SA Appellate Division (A); Juta's Unreported Judgments/ Juta's Daily Reports (JDR); Industrial Law Journal (ILJ)(Under labour library); Quantum of Damages cases.

Lexis Nexis: Constitutional Law Reports (BCLR); Labour Law Reports (LLR); Arbitration Law Reports (AAR); Competition Law Reports; Pensions Law Reports; All South African Law Reports (All SA) (1828 to current); South African Tax Cases Reports (SATC); Judgments Online (JOL); Prentice Hall Reports (PH).

University Pretoria is currently digitising the Native Appeal Court reports 1894 - 1971

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Free online law reports are available from the Constitutional Court; Supreme Court of Appeal; Saflii: Southern African Legal Information Institute.

For a List of South African law report series acronyms and abbreviations, click on the document at the top of this column.

SOUTHERN AFRICA / AFRICA

Namibia Law Reports - available on Juta; some on Saflii

Tanzania Law Reports (1983-1997) - available on Juta

Zambia Law Reports (1963-1997)- available on Juta

Zimbabwe Law Reports (1980-2017) - available on Juta; some on Saflii

Law reports for some African countries are easily accessible via Saflii, the Southern African Legal Information Institute. Also Google

The African Legal Information Institute Africanlii  provides access to primary information for a range of African countries.

Worldlii: The World Legal Information Institute, which has more than 123 countries affiliated to it, provides access to statutes and law reports for a range of African countries.

 
FOREIGN LAW REPORTS

Many cases can be found via Google.

All England Law Reports (All ER) - available on Lexis

Canadian Rights Reporter (CRR) - available on Lexis

HeinOnline provides access to the English Reports, Canadian Supreme Court Reports, US Supreme Court Reports.

Lloyds Law Reports - these are maritime law reports - at the login screen put in your UKZN email. The entire resources available from Lloyds are displayed but we do not have access to them, only the LLR   

Westlaw - Australia, Canada, EU, USA, UK, Hong Kong, Korea - various law report series for each jurisdiction. Westlaw also has some maritime cases.

Worldlii: the World Legal Information Institute, is an excellent source for accessing free law reports for a wide range of countries across the world. An alphabetical listing of countries is provided.

Many government publications are available post 1994 on the SA government's website. There is an option called 'Documents' that provides access to bills, acts, white papers, statistical and parliamentary documents and annual reports. Each government department has its own site providing copies of relevant legislation, policy and other documents such as docuemtns for comment.

The library obtains copies of most white papers in print; the government gazette and annual reports as well as Hansard debates.

SA Gazettes 1910 - 1993

SA Gazettes 1994 +

if the links below are problematic, use Google Chrome to get to Juta.