(a) Supreme Court

The format of Supreme Court file numbers for civil cases in 2004 was “SC CIV [case number]/2004”.

Eg Chirnside v Fay SC CIV 7/2004, 26 August 2004.

The format of Supreme Court file numbers for criminal cases in 2004 was “SC CRI [case number]/2004”.

Eg R v Palmer SC CRI 13/2004, 12 October 2004.

(b) Court of Appeal

The Court of Appeal uses the same file number format for both civil and criminal cases, namely “CA[case number]/[last two digits of the year the case was filed in]”. Do not use a space between “CA” and the file number and year.

Eg R v Albert CA429/01, 14 March 2002.

Eg Pauling v Williams CA69/00, 18 August 2000.

Prior to 2007, the Court of Appeal used two different sets of file numbers, one for criminal appeals and one for civil. Accordingly, a criminal and civil case may share the same file number.

Eg R v Brown CA111/06, 26 July 2006.

Eg Fava v Zaghloul CA111/06, 26 September 2006.

(c) High Court, District Court and Family Court: current format

Give the court file number after the registry abbreviation. The file number is followed by a comma to separate it from the date.

The current format for High Court, District Court and Family Court file numbers is CIV-year-XXX-XXXXXX for civil cases, CRI-year-XXX-XXXXXX for criminal cases and FAM-year-XXX-XXXXXX for family cases.

Separate each part of the registry number by a hyphen, even where the original judgment uses a space or runs the components together. The final part of the registry number may be up to six digits long. Omit any leading zeroes. For example, 001358 becomes 1358.

Eg Plot Ltd v Brereton HC Christchurch CIV-2007-409-2659, 17 January 2008.

NOT Plot Ltd v Brereton HC Christchurch CIV 2007 409 002659, 17 January 2008.

(d) Other formats

When citing an unreported judgment that uses a different file number format from those mentioned immediately above, give the file number as it appears on the original copy of the judgment, except that if the file number includes “no”, this should be removed. Do not include a space between any letters and numbers that make up the file number.

Eg Molloy v Molloy HC Auckland CP106/99, 10 June 1999.

Before 1980 the High Court of New Zealand was called the Supreme Court of New Zealand. When citing a judgment of that Court use “SC” as the court abbreviation.

Eg Howse v Attorney-General SC Palmerston North A132/75, 22 December 1977.

(e) Multiple numbers

Where a case has multiple file numbers, only include the first number in the citation.

Eg R v Te Kahu CA492/04, 28 September 2005.

NOT R v Te Kahu CA492/04 CA509/04 CA512/04, 28 September 2005.

(f) Comma

Include a comma after the file number to separate it from the date of judgment.

Eg Haines v Carter CA286/99, 21 December 2000.

Eg Williams v Jones HC Auckland CIV-2003-404-6565, 10 February 2005.