How to cite South African cases

There is no single universal SA citation style, but most South African law schools and journals have converged on a practical hybrid of the neutral citation and the traditional law report citation. This article gives you the short version.

Reported cases (law reports)

Standard form:

Party A v Party B Year (Volume) Law-Report-Abbreviation Page (Court)

Example:

S v Makwanyane 1995 (3) SA 391 (CC)

Common law report abbreviations:

• SA — South African Law Reports (the main series)
• BCLR — Butterworths Constitutional Law Reports
• All SA — All South African Law Reports
• SCA — Supreme Court of Appeal Reports

Neutral citations

From 2003 onwards most South African courts assign a neutral citation that doesn't depend on commercial publishers. Format:

Party A v Party B [Year] ZACourt Case-number

Where ZACourt is one of ZACC (Constitutional Court), ZASCA (Supreme Court of Appeal), ZAGPJHC (Gauteng Local Division, Johannesburg), etc.

Example:

Minister of Health v Treatment Action Campaign (No 2) [2002] ZACC 15

Best practice is to use the neutral citation PLUS the reported citation, e.g.:

Minister of Health v Treatment Action Campaign (No 2) [2002] ZACC 15; 2002 (5) SA 721 (CC)

Pinpoint citations

Use paragraph numbers (not page numbers) for anything after 2000. Most SA judgments are numbered throughout.

Makwanyane supra (n 1) para 135

Short forms

After the first full citation, shorten to the parties and paragraph:

Makwanyane para 135

Or use ibid for the immediately preceding case.

Content coming soon

More detail on statutes, journal articles, and foreign cases (which students regularly cite in constitutional and human rights work).