USEFUL LAW SITES ON THE INTERNET

The sites listed below offer free access to a range of UK legislation and case law
.
The information is divided into 4 sections:

• Primary Legislation Acts of Parliament (Statutes)
• Secondary Legislation  Statutory Instruments,Circulars and Guidance
• Case Law  
• European Law  

PRIMARY LEGISLATION - Acts of Parliament (Statutes

)

UK Acts of Parliament (Statutes): www.opsi.gov.uk/acts.htm

The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI), is responsible for the Government's information policy: setting standards, providing a practical framework of best practice for opening up and encouraging the re-use of public sector information.
One of its main functions is to provide public access to legislation, including Acts of Parliament (Statutes) from January 1988 to date.

The Acts are presented exactly as they are passed by Parliament - they have not been amended.
It is not possible to tell on this site if part/s of an Act are in force or if they have been repealed.

Statute Law Database (SLD): www.statutelaw.gov.uk

The Statute Law Database was launched in December 2006. It is the official revised edition of the primary legislation (The Statute Book). The SLD includes all primary legislation that was in force at 1 February 1991 and most primary and secondary legislation that has been produced since that date.
The SLD also contains the Tables of effects for 2002 onwards to help users establish currency of any particular legislation.

SECONDARY/DELEGATED LEGISLATION

UK STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS: www.opsi.gov.uk/stat.htm

This site contains the full text of all Statutory Instruments (SIs) from 1987 to date. (Including Draft SIs)

It can be searched by SI Number and/or year.

There is also a site search engine which is useful for checking whether particular sections of recent Acts have come into force (To do this, enter 'commencement orders' and the name of the Act and a list should appear).

Statute Law Database (SLD) see above.

CIRCULARS & OTHER GUIDANCE

Most Government Departments issue guidance in the form of Circulars or letters. They can generally be found under 'Publications' on the Department's Home Page.

The following list includes some of the most useful sites:

Department of Health(DoH) :www.dh.gov.uk

Follow the links via Publications & Statistics >Shortcuts>Letters & Circulars> Circulars.

The Letters & Circulars Library has a list of all Circulars & Letters from 1995 to date and includes an archive of those that are now obsolete.
A search engine allows searching by Series, Title, Subject. or date. There is also a list of Current Local Authority Circulars (LACs) and Local Authority Social Services Letters (LASSLs).

Department for Education & Skills (DFES) www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/guidanceonthelaw

Contains the full text of Circulars published between 1996 and 2001 under the Department for Education & Emplyment (DfEE)
From 2002, all Circulars are available on the Teachernet website: www.teachernet.gov.uk They can be searched under title or subject.

Department for Work & Pensions (DWP)  www.dwp.gov.uk/resourcecentre

Guidance
To access guidance follow the links via Advisers & professionals>Specialist guides & manuals.This links to extensive guidance and helpful material on Social Security law.

Guides and manuals. This part of the Department of Work & Pensions (DWP)  website contains several useful sources, including the text of Neligan's Digest - a summary of 'important decisions of the Social Security Commissioners' and access to the following resources:

Circulars www.dss.gov.uk/hbctb  
These are available in full text as soon as they are published. They are arranged by year and in date order from 1999.

There are two main sequences : Housing Benefit(HB) and Council Tax Benefit(CTB).

There is an index to the Circulars

The Law volumes: www.dwp.gov.uk/advisers/docs/lawvols
This section contains the legislation relating to social security, child support, and war pensions in electronic form.
It includes:

The Law Relating to Social Security setting out the current provisions relating to Social Security (but excluding war pensions). The printed version of this are known as the Blue Volumes.

The Law Relating to Child Support sets out the current provisions relating to Child Support. The printed version of this are known as the Orange Volumes.

The Law Relating to War Pensions sets out the current provisions relating to war pensions. The printed version of this are known as the Green Volumes.

The Decisions of the Commissioners: www.dwp.gov.uk/advisers/docs/commdecs/

Covers all decisions of the Social Security Commissioner and the Child Support Commissioner from 1991 to date.

Home Office Circulars:
www.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/publications/home-office-circulars
Home Office Circulars are available in full text from 1994. They are listed in numerical order by year. Use the Home Office's search engine covering the whole site to search by keyword.

Case Law

House of Lords: http://www.parliament.uk
Contains all judgments since November 1996. Available within 2 hours of delivery of judgment. Listed by date and A-Z.

Daily Law Notes: http://www.lawreports.co.uk
Part of the website of the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting. Free access.
Contains 'all significant decisions of the superior courts' within 24 hours of decision being made.
The following Courts are included:
House of Lords, Courts of Appeal, Chancery Division, Queens Bench Division, Family Division the European Court of Justice among others.
The file contains rulings for the past 6 to 8 months only.

Times Law Reports: http://www.the-times.co.uk

Times Law Reports are available on the newspaper's web site from January 2000. Recent Reports can be searched directly by putting 'law reports' in the Search box.

For earlier reports, use the Search facility - some details will be required as this option searches the whole newspaper archive.

N.B. Nottingham Library's Intranet has indexes to The Times which allow for a search of law reports by year.

European Law

• EUR-Lex portal: eur-lex.europa.eu/en/index.htm
  

The EUR-Lex portal (opened in June 2001) is designed to provide an integrated access point to EU legal texts. It is an addition to the existing web site EUR-Lex which already offers access to all documents recently published in the Official Journal(OJ) together with some other documents (e.g. legislative acts in force). The portal was set up with the aim of increasing levels of transparency within the workings of the EU institutions. It is intended that it will be continuously improved.

Although most of the documents are free, some are not, particularly those from the older parts of the CELEX and EUDOR databases. However, from 2002 all on-line legislation will be available free of charge. [CELEX will remain a charged for service].

The EUR-Lex portal gives access to documents from the following sites:

• CELEX
• EUR-Lex
• CURIA [Court of Justice's web site]
• PreLex [European Commissions database on interinstitutional procedures]
• OEIL [European Parliament's legislative observatory]
• Other legislative sites of EU institutions and Member States

The EUR-Lex portal offers harmonised search functions for all types of documents including:

• The Official Journal
• Treaties
• Legislation in preparation
• Case law
• Parliamentary Questions
• Other documents of public interest including Green & White Papers

Searching - the Home Page has a Latest… section to alert users to recent additions to the site. More sophisticated searching can be done by: keyword(s) document type (e.g. 'treaties') document reference number theme (e.g. 'environment') Search results include links to related web sites which trace the relevant legislative procedures and also related keywords via a thesaurus, Eurovoc, to help refine or expand the search as necessary.