Video 1.1 Primary and Secondary Legal Sources

Hello, my name is Kate Jackson and I work for the Bodleian Law Library. In this session we will be looking at primary and secondary legal sources.

We're going to cover the difference between primary and secondary legal sources and why this is important. And then we are going to look at each in turn.

With primary sources, we’re going look at legislation, and then we are going to cover case law. These are the two most important primary sources you’ll probably look at. And then I'm going to move on to secondary sources, which mainly involves text books and articles and how to evaluate these.

So, first of all, what are primary sources? Legal research relies upon the use and applications of primary sources of legal material. They contain the law itself. Primary sources of those that are direct, authoritative and not influenced by anybody's opinion. The main examples you are likely to find are legislation, treaties, case law, but occasionally you'll come across things like parliamentary publications, which are also classed as primary sources. They're free from opinions and are usually prepared as necessity for most jurisdictions. In comparison, secondary sources are not the law itself. They are opinions, commentaries, and discussions of the law. They are very useful for building an opinion, or description of the law, and they are useful as a starting point for legal background. They do not have the same value as primary sources of information and the most likely examples you're going to come across are textbooks and articles but also law reviews and encyclopedias as well. So, let's look at these end terms starting with primary sources.

If you look at legislation first, how legislation is produced depends on the jurisdiction or the country. For example, in the UK legislation itself is split into primary and secondary legislation. So Acts passed by Parliament is classed as primary legislation and statutory instruments are secondary legislation and they provide more specific rules and regulations, and you'll come across both of these, if you're actually researching UK law. However, in other countries legislation can be in the form of codes and they fall in two specific topics, for example civil or criminal. In other countries you also might find their state legislation, which covers the laws within a particular state or part of the country, and federal law which essentially covers the whole of the country.

Another thing to be aware of is there are also international conventions and also over reaching bodies that might affect the law in your particular jurisdiction. For example, the European Union for the member states of the European Union including the UK. In terms of finding this legislation, most legislations are published by official publishers for that particular jurisdiction in either a hard copy and/or electronically. In order to find a specific piece of legislation you're likely to need a little bit more information than just the topic. You are likely to need the title and number and sometimes a year depending on how the legislation is published. Searching by subject is particularly difficult with legislation. Essentially, legislation is not worded in natural language and so you might be better off looking at secondary sources if this is the route you want to take. Most legislations can be amended over time, so you need to make sure that you find a source that includes amendments or at least points to amendments, so that you're aware of the current law.

In terms of sources of legislation, a lot of legislation are available freely on the internet. Some examples are, the Legislation.gov site for UK information and this is as amended and is amended regularly. There are also others such as, Austlii for Australian legislation and Eur-Lex for European Union directives and regulations.

Most subscription databases will have legislation included as well, and these are preferable to the free sources, mainly because they are updated more regularly and they do have additional information on there as well, which can be of you use when you're doing your legal research. If you have access to these, then do use these in preference to the free sites.

Moving on to case law. Case law is a very important primary legal source, especially in countries that have a common law system because of the doctrine of precedent. Case law usually consists of reports of cases that have been published in a law report series. And as with the legislation it is worth noting the jurisdiction of a case that will have bearing on obviously how you use it within your arguments.