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Case law

Western Australian cases

Research case law at Murdoch University Library

Western Australian reports

Western Australian reports can be sourced from different locations, depending on the date:

There is an ongoing copyright dispute over the Western Australian reports between 1959-1982, so they are not available online until this is resolved.

Western Australian unreported judgments

Sometimes you will need to search full text databases of court decisions to find cases on a topic. This is particularly important for WA decisions which might not get "noticed" by publishers who produce indexes such as the Digest and CaseBase. Most WA decisions are never published in a report series, and remain forever unreported.

There are many online collections of Australian superior court unreported judgments.

Before searching, you will need to turn your research topic into a search string. For more information, see:

  1. Click on the drop-down arrow to the left of the search box, and then select "Advanced Search" from the drop-down menu
  2. Go to the "Select the database(s) to search" box. Deselect all databases by clicking on the blue tick box next to "Select the database(s) to search...".  Then click on the white box next to "Show all" to see a list of all available databases
  3. Select the databases you think may be relevant to your search (e.g., Western Australia: Supreme Court and Western Australia: Supreme Court - Court of Appeal)
  4. Select the "Boolean Query" tab at the top of the search page
  5. Enter your search string of relevant terms (e.g., "public interest" AND (media OR journalist)) and press enter.
  1. Type your search string in the search box
  2. Select "Search now"
  3. Refine the Search results by jurisdiction
    1. Click in the text box for "Filter by collection"
    2. From the drop-down offering, select "All Western Australian Courts and Tribunals"
    3. Click on the "Filter now" button
  4. From the Results list, use the Summary tab to view each case to determine the required case
  5. Select the entry for the case

  6. Use the Visualisations tool to see similar cases.

  1. Go to the Supreme Court of Western Australia website
  2. Click on the "Judgments" button
  3. Select the "Advanced Search" option 
  4. Select the relevant Jurisdiction
  5. Type your search string in the search box
  6. Select "Search"
  7. You will see a results list can be rearranged by
    • Citation Number
    • Date Delivered or Published
    • Case Name.
  1. From the Lexis+ home page, select "Publications"
  2. Select "View all publications"
  3. Browse the list of publications to find "Unreported judgments WA". Click on the title to select
  4. Enter your search string into the "Terms" search box, and fill in any other search fields where necessary
  5. Select "Search".
  1. Select "Cases" from the "Content Types" menu on the Westlaw Australia home page
  2. Click on"Advanced"
  3. Type your search topic in the "All of these terms" search box type (e.g. "public interest")
  4. Click on the magnifying glass icon to search
  5. Filter the results by:
    1. Expanding the Jurisdiction
    2. Expanding "Australia"
    3. Checking the box for "Western Australia"
  6. Filter the results further by:
    1. Expanding the Reported Status
    2. Checking the box for "Unreported"
  7. You can filter this further by adding more information to the in the "Search within results" text box if necessary
  8. Results can be further Filtered by
    • Date
    • Practice Area
    • Judge name
    • Party name
  9. Result can be Sorted by
    • Relevance
    • Date
    • Court level.