Common Law for HR Practitioners #2: Introduction to Case Law

First and foremost, let me establish the ground rule here: when I say that HR practitioners have to read case law I do not mean extracts, excerpts, simplified versions or secondary sources of such case law but the actual judgement text in its journal publication form.

If you are new to reading court judgement texts or you find the mere concept it totally alien to you, you may find my visual explanations below helpful. Please note that the visuals are mutually-exclusive of one another (i.e. they are not inter-related from the same case). The idea is to walk you through the glossary of terms used and the format of reporting the case.

Visual 1: Terms used in the header of the judgement text

Visual 2: Authorities referred to and names of counsel for the parties

Visual 3: Gist (summary) of case and decision

Visual 4: Keywords denoting important issues in the case and the judge's commentary

Visual 5: More keywords/issues

Visual 6: Some sarcasm (I love these gems!)

Visual 7: Details of compensation awarded

Got the hang of it? Great! In the next part we will talk about how you can make simple case notes from these judgments so that you can easily remember its salient points and apply them later.

? Tahirah Manesah Abu Bakar 2019