European Case Law Identifier (ECLI)

The European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) has been developed to facilitate the correct and unequivocal citation of judgments from European and national courts. A set of uniform metadata will help to improve search facilities for case law.

Before ECLI, it was difficult and time-consuming to find relevant case law. Take, for example, a case where a ruling of the Supreme Court of Member State A was known to be of interest for a specific legal debate. The case was registered in various national and cross-border case law databases, but in each database the ruling had a different identifier. All these identifiers – if known at all – had to be cited to enable readers of the citation to find the case in the database of their preference. Different citation rules and styles complicated the search. Moreover, users had to go to all the databases to find out whether this Supreme Court case was available – summarised, translated or annotated. With the ECLI system one search via one search interface using just one identifier will suffice to find all occurrences of the ruling in all participating national and cross-border databases.

Easy access to judicial decisions of other Member States is of growing importance in reinforcing the role of the national judge in applying and upholding EU law. Searching for, and citation of judgments from other Member States is seriously hampered by differences in national case law identification systems, citation rules and technical fields describing the characteristics of a judgment.

To overcome these differences and to facilitate easy access to - and citation of - national, foreign and European case law, the Council of the European Union invited Member States and EU institutions to introduce the European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) and a minimum set of uniform metadata for case law.

Main characteristics of ECLI

ECLI is a uniform identifier that has the same recognizable format for all Member States and EU courts. It is composed of five, mandatory, elements:

  • ‘ECLI’: to identify the identifier as being a European Case Law Identifier;
  • the country code;
  • the code of the court that rendered the judgment;
  • the year the judgment was rendered;
  • an ordinal number, up to 25 alphanumeric characters, in a format that is decided upon by each Member State. Dots are allowed, but not other punctuation marks.

The elements are separated by a colon. A (non-existent) example of an ECLI could be:

ECLI:NL:HR:2009:384425, which could be decision 384425 of the Supreme Court (‘HR’) of the Netherlands (‘NL’) from the year 2009.

Metadata

To make it easier to understand and find case law, each document containing a judicial decision should have a set of metadata as described in this paragraph. These metadata should be described according to the standards set by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative.

The Council Conclusions on ECLI give a description of the metadata that can be used.

ECLI coordinator

Every Member State using ECLI must appoint a governmental or judicial organisation as the national ECLI coordinator. The National ECLI coordinator is responsible for establishing the list of codes for the participating courts, the publication of the way the ordinal number is made up, and all other information that is relevant for the functioning of the ECLI system. The ECLI co-ordinator for the EU is the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Each Member State decides whether, and to what extent - it will use the ECLI system, e.g. if it will apply it retroactively to historical records or the number of courts participating, for example only at supreme court level, all courts, etc.

European and international dimension

By clicking on the EU and international flags available at the right hand side, you will find information on implementation of ECLI by the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Patent Office.

In accordance with the Council conclusions the European Commission has developed a multi-lingual ECLI search engine which allows users to find judicial decisions from the databases of those case law publishers who have implemented the ECLI standard and provided us with access to their data.

An ECLI resolver is also available at https://e-justice.europa.eu/ecli/ - any ECLI typed after this path will display the relevant ECLI metadata (if available). For example https://e-justice.europa.eu/ecli/ECLI:NL:HR:2016:764 would directly display the metadata of decision ECLI:NL:HR:2016:764.

Member State pages

On the Member State pages you can find information on:

  • whether the Member State has already introduced ECLI and metadata;
  • if not: whether it is planning to do so;
  • if yes: information on court codes, formatting rules, metadata and so on;
  • the national ECLI coordinator.

Please select the relevant country's flag to obtain detailed national information.

Last update: 17/11/2021

This page is maintained by the European Commission. The information on this page does not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Commission. The Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice with regard to copyright rules for European pages.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - European Union

The Court of Justice of the European Union (Link opens in new windowECLI-Coordinator@curia.europa.eu) is the ECLI coordinator for the Union jurisdictions.

Country code

The "country code" for the Court of Justice of the European Union to be used in the second element of the ECLI is: [EU]

Generation of ECLI

Components of the ECLI to identify decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union:

  • ECLI abbreviation
  • Country code: EU
  • Court code:

C = Court of Justice

T = General Court

F = Civil Service Tribunal

  • Year when the decision was rendered (format YYYY)
  • Ordinal number composed of:

Serial number of the decision per jurisdiction per year

Examples:

ECLI:EU:C:1998:27 is the 27th document of the Court of Justice with an ECLI in 1998

ECLI:EU:T:2012:426 is the 426th document of the General Court with an ECLI in 2012

ECLI:EU:F:2010:80 is the 80th document of the Civil Service Tribunal with an ECLI in 2010

Related links

Link opens in new windowEUR-Lex

Link opens in new windowCuria

Last update: 28/09/2021

This page is maintained by the European Commission. The information on this page does not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Commission. The Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice with regard to copyright rules for European pages.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - International

European Patent Office

Link opens in new windowThe European Patent Office (EPO) offers inventors a uniform application procedure which enables them to seek patent protection in up to 40 European countries. Supervised by the Administrative Council, the Office is the executive arm of Link opens in new windowthe European Patent Organisation.

Coordination of ECLI in the European Patent Office is carried out by Link opens in new windowPublication Department.

Postal address

Postfach 90
1031 Vienna
Austria

Address

Rennweg 12
1030 Vienna
Austria

Country code

The country code for the European Patent Office to be used in the second element of the ECLI is: [EP]

Generation of national ECLI

Components of the ECLI to identify decisions of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office:

  • ECLI abbreviation
  • Country code: EP
  • Court code: BA (BA= Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office)
  • Year when the decision was rendered (format YYYY)
  • Ordinal number composed of:

    Decision case number (original case number without the slash). Composed of 7 digits --> 1 digit (type of decision) + 4 digits (ordinal number of the decision) + 2 digits (last two digits of the year of filing).

    Codes for the type of decisions at the EPO:
    • D : Disciplinary Board of Appeal
    • G : Enlarged Board of Appeal
    • J :  Legal Board of Appeal
    • T : Technical boards of appeal
    • W : decisions on protest cases
    • R : decisions on petitions for review

    A dot
  • Date of the decision (format YYYYMMDD)

Example:

ECLI:EP:BA:2002:D000300.20020503

EP= European Patent Office

BA= Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office

2002 - year in which the decision was rendered (example)

D000300= D0003/00 (decision case number)

20020503 = 2002.05.03 (date of the decision)

Use of the ECLI

The ECLI is used to uniquely identify decisions of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office.

Search by ECLI is enabled via the EPO Board of Appeal decisions database (see link below)

Related links

Link opens in new windowEPO Board of Appeal decisions database

Link opens in new windowCase Law of the Boards of Appeal

Link opens in new windowEuropean Patent Register

Last update: 20/05/2019

This page is maintained by the European Commission. The information on this page does not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Commission. The Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice with regard to copyright rules for European pages.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Belgium

National ECLI Coordinator

The central services of the Federal Public Service Justice (Link opens in a new window.Link opens in new windowSPF JusticeLink opens in a new window.Link opens in new windowinfo@just.fgov.be) act as national coordinator for Belgium.

Country code

ECLI country code for Belgium: [BE]

Generation of national ECLI

ECLI indexation was activated in October 2017.
Case-law:

  • Court of Cassation,
  • Courts of Appeal,
  • Labour courts (Cour du travail/Aarbeidshof):
  • Courts of first instance
  • Commercial courts,
  • Labour tribunals (Tribunal du travail/Arbeidsrechtbank):

registered in the Link opens in a new window.Link opens in new windowJUPORTAL public database of Belgian case-law, is also available via the ECLI search engine.

The ECLI number is composed of the following: ECLI:BE:[court code]:[year of the decision]:[serial number]

The ordinal number is in two parts, separated by a point:

  • ‘decision type’ code:

ARR for judgments/rulings,
CONC for Public Ministry findings,
DEC for judicial decisions,
ORD for orders,
AVIS for opinions.

  • A serial number.

Until mid-November 2019, this serial number comprised the decision date format YYYYMMDD (year-month-day) followed by a point and a sequence number.

From mid-November 2019, the serial number of the judgments and findings of the Court of Cassation also contain information on the chamber where the case was heard. The serial number format is YYYYMMDD (year-month-day) followed by a point, the chamber code, another point and a sequence number.

The full ECLI of a conclusion of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Court of Cassation for a case in which a judgment was delivered on 6 May 2010 is as follows: ECLI:BE:CASS:2010:CONC.20100506.5

For example, the full ECLI of a judgment of the Court of Cassation of 30 October 2020 is as follows: ECLI: BE: CASS: 2020: ARR.20201030.1N.4

If you are looking for a decision and you already know its ECLI number, you can access the specific page containing details of the decision directly using the following URL: https://juportal.be/content/<numéro ECLI>.

For example, you will find the detailed pages of the ECLI numbers given as an example at the following addresses:

Link opens in a new window.Link opens in new windowhttps://juportal.be/content/ECLI:BE:CASS:2010:CONC.20100506.5

Link opens in a new window.Link opens in new windowhttps://juportal.be/content/ECLI:BE:CASS:2020:ARR.20201030.1N.4

Court code:

Belgium has a large number of jurisdictional codes. The code list for Belgian courts can be found in the attached tablePDF(276 Kb)EN.

Belgium’s judicial landscape was redesigned on 1 April 2014. The attached table shows the names of the courts before and after the reform of 1 April 2014.

Last update: 23/06/2022

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Bulgaria

National ECLI coordinator

The national ECLI coordinator is:

Supreme Judicial Council (SJC)
Ul. Ekzarh Yosif 12,
Sofia 1000,
Bulgaria

Web: Link opens in new windowhttp://www.vss.justice.bgLink opens in new windowvss@vss.justice.bg

Country code

The country code for Bulgaria is: BG

Creation of a national ECLI

An ECLI is generated for each court decision that is published on the central web-based interface for case law (Link opens in new windowhttps://legalacts.justice.bg/). The portal is maintained by the Bulgarian ECLI coordinator, the Supreme Judicial Council. The ECLI syntax is specified in Chapter Seven of Link opens in new windowRegulation No 4 of 16 March 2017 on keeping, storing and accessing the register of court documents.

The ECLI consists of the following components:

The abbreviation ‘ECLI’

The country code ‘BG’

The court code, consisting of two parts:

  • The type of court (2 capital letters):
    • ‘CC’ designates the Constitutional Court
    • ‘SC’ designates the Supreme Court of Cassation
    • ‘SA’ designates the Supreme Administrative Court
    • ‘PA’ designates the Specialised Criminal Court of Appeal
    • ‘PC’ designates the Specialised Criminal Court
    • ‘MA’ designates the Military Court of Appeal
    • ‘MC’ designates Military Courts
    • ‘AP’ designates Courts of Appeal
    • ‘AD’ designates Administrative Courts
    • ‘DC’ designates Provincial Courts
    • ‘RC’ designates District Courts
  • Numerical court code (3 digits):
    • ‘000’ is the number of the Constitutional Court
    • ‘001’ is the number of the Supreme Court of Cassation
    • ‘002’ is the number of the Supreme Administrative Court
    • The codes of all other courts are set out in Annex 9 to the Link opens in new windowRules on Administration in Courts[1]
  • Examples:
    • ‘CC000’ is the code of the Constitutional Court
    • ‘SC001’ is the code of the Supreme Court of Cassation
    • ‘SA002’ is the code of the Supreme Administrative Court
    • ‘AP500’ is the code of the Plovdiv Court of Appeal
    • ‘DC530’ is the code of the Plovdiv Provincial Court
    • ‘RC533’ is the code of the Plovdiv District Court
  • Table 1 below lists the codes of all courts used in the third component of the ECLI.

Year of the court decision in the ‘YYYY’ format

Number of the court decision, consisting of four sub-components, the last of which is separated from the first three by a dot.

  • 4 digits indicating the year of the case
  • 2 digits indicating the code of the case type. These codes are specified in Article 80(2) of the Link opens in new windowRules on Administration in Courts – see Table 2 below
  • 5-digit number of the case for the relevant year
  • 3-digit number of the court decision in the specific case

Example of an ECLI of a Bulgarian court decision

ECLI:BG:DC530:2017:20160100630.001

BG = Bulgaria

DC530 = Plovdiv Provincial Court

2017 = Year of court decision

20160100630.001 = First decision of the Plovdiv Provincial Court in a first-instance civil case with number 630 of 2016.

Related links

Link opens in new windowhttps://legalacts.justice.bg/ – Central web-based interface for the publication of case law

Link opens in new windowhttp://www.vks.bg/ – website of the Supreme Court of Cassation

Link opens in new windowhttp://www.sac.government.bg – website of the Supreme Administrative Court

______________________________

1 Court codes ‘000’, ‘001’ and ‘002’ are not included in Annex No 9 to the Rules on Administration in Courts, as the rules do not concern the administration of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court of Cassation and the Supreme Administrative Court.

Table 1 – Court codes

Code

Court

CC000

Constitutional Court

SC001

Supreme Court of Cassation

SA002

Supreme Administrative Court

AP100

Sofia Court of Appeal

PA101

Specialised Criminal Court of Appeal

PC105

Specialised Criminal Court

DC110

Sofia City Court

RC111

Sofia District Court

DC120

Blagoevgrad Provincial Court

RC121

Blagoevgrad District Court

RC122

Gotse Delchev District Court

RC123

Petrich District Court

RC124

Razlog District Court

RC125

Sandanski District Court

DC130

Vidin Provincial Court

RC131

Belogradchik District Court

RC132

Vidin District Court

RC133

Kula District Court

DC140

Vratsa Provincial Court

RC141

Byala Slatina District Court

RC142

Vratsa District Court

RC143

Knezha District Court

RC144

Kozloduy District Court

RC145

Mezdra District Court

RC146

Oryahovo District Court

DC150

Kyustendil Provincial Court

RC151

Dupnitsa District Court

RC152

Kyustendil District Court

DC160

Montana Provincial Court

RC161

Berkovitsa District Court

RC162

Lom District Court

RC163

Montana District Court

DC170

Pernik Provincial Court

RC171

Breznik District Court

RC172

Pernik District Court

RC173

Radomir District Court

RC174

Tran District Court

DC180

Sofia Provincial Court

RC181

Botevgrad District Court

RC182

Elin Pelin District Court

RC183

Etropole District Court

RC184

Ihtiman District Court

RC185

Kostinbrod District Court

RC186

Pirdop District Court

RC187

Samokov District Court

RC188

Svoge District Court

RC189

Slivnitsa District Court

AP200

Burgas Court of Appeal

DC210

Burgas Provincial Court

RC211

Aytos District Court

RC212

Burgas District Court

RC213

Karnobat District Court

RC214

Malko Tarnovo District Court

RC215

Nesebar District Court

RC216

Pomorie District Court

RC217

Sredets District Court

RC218

Tsarevo District Court

DC220

Sliven Provincial Court

RC221

Kotel District Court

RC222

Nova Zagora District Court

RC223

Sliven District Court

DC230

Yambol Provincial Court

RC231

Elhovo District Court

RC232

Topolovgrad District Court

RC233

Yambol District Court

AP300

Varna Court of Appeal

DC310

Varna Provincial Court

RC311

Varna District Court

RC312

Devnya District Court

RC313

Provadiya District Court

DC320

Dobrich Provincial Court

RC321

Balchik District Court

RC322

General Toshevo District Court

RC323

Dobrich District Court

RC324

Kavarna District Court

RC325

Tervel District Court

DC330

Razgrad Provincial Court

RC331

Isperih District Court

RC332

Kubrat District Court

RC333

Razgrad District Court

DC340

Silistra Provincial Court

RC341

Dulovo District Court

RC342

Silistra District Court

RC343

Tutrakan District Court

DC350

Targovishte Provincial Court

RC351

Omurtag District Court

RC352

Popovo District Court

RC353

Targovishte District Court

DC360

Shumen Provincial Court

RC361

Veliki Preslav District Court

RC362

Novi Pazar District Court

RC363

Shumen District Court

AP400

Veliko Tarnovo Court of Appeal

DC410

Veliko Tarnovo Provincial Court

RC411

Veliko Tarnovo District Court

RC412

Gorna Oryahovitsa District Court

RC413

Elena District Court

RC414

Pavlikeni District Court

RC415

Svishtov District Court

DC420

Gabrovo Provincial Court

RC421

Gabrovo District Court

RC422

Dryanovo District Court

RC423

Sevlievo District Court

RC424

Tryavna District Court

DC430

Lovech Provincial Court

RC431

Lovech District Court

RC432

Lukovit District Court

RC433

Teteven District Court

RC434

Troyan District Court

DC440

Pleven Provincial Court

RC441

Levski District Court

RC442

Nikopol District Court

RC443

Pleven District Court

RC444

Cherven Bryag District Court

DC450

Ruse Provincial Court

RC451

Byala District Court

RC452

Ruse District Court

AP500

Plovdiv Court of Appeal

DC510

Kardzhali Provincial Court

RC511

Ardino District Court

RC513

Krumovgrad District Court

RC514

Kardzhali District Court

RC515

Momchilgrad District Court

DC520

Pazardzhik Provincial Court

RC521

Velingrad District Court

RC522

Pazardzhik District Court

RC523

Panagyurishte District Court

RC524

Peshtera District Court

DC530

Plovdiv Provincial Court

RC531

Asenovrag District Court

RC532

Karlovo District Court

RC533

Plovdiv District Court

RC534

Parvomay District Court

DC540

Smolyan Provincial Court

RC541

Devin District Court

RC542

Zlatograd District Court

RC543

Madan District Court

RC544

Smolyan District Court

RC545

Chepelare District Court

DC550

Stara Zagora Provincial Court

RC551

Kazanlak District Court

RC552

Radnevo District Court

RC553

Stara Zagora District Court

RC554

Chirpan District Court

RC555

Galabovo District Court

DC560

Haskovo Provinicial Court

RC561

Dimitrovgrad District Court

RC562

Svilengrad District Court

RC563

Harmanli District Court

RC564

Haskovo District Court

RC565

Ivaylovgrad District Court

MA600

Military Court of Appeal

MC610

Sofia Military Court

MC620

Plovdiv Military Court

MC630

Varna Military Court (closed)*

MC640

Pleven Military Court (closed)*

MC650

Sliven Military Court

AD701

Sofia City Administrative Court

AD702

Sofia Province Administrative Court

AD703

Blagoevgrad Administrative Court

AD704

Burgas Administrative Court

AD705

Varna Administrative Court

AD706

Veliko Tarnovo Administrative Court

AD707

Vidin Administrative Court

AD708

Vratsa Administrative Court

AD709

Gabrovo Administrative Court

AD710

Dobrich Administrative Court

AD711

Kyustendil Administrative Court

AD712

Kardzhali Administrative Court

AD713

Lovech Administrative Court

AD714

Montana Administrative Court

AD715

Pazardzhik Administrative Court

AD716

Pernik Administrative Court

AD717

Pleven Administrative Court

AD718

Plovdiv Administrative Court

AD719

Razgrad Administrative Court

AD720

Ruse Administrative Court

AD721

Silistra Administrative Court

AD722

Sliven Administrative Court

AD723

Smolyan Administrative Court

AD724

Stara Zagora Administrative Court

AD725

Targovishte Administrative Court

AD726

Haskovo Administrative Court

AD727

Shumen Administrative Court

AD728

Yambol Administrative Court

______________________________

* The Varna and Pleven Military Courts were closed in early 2014. However, these court codes are used in the ECLI of the court decisions published so far.

Table 2 – Case type codes

Code

Case type

01

First-instance civil case

02

First-instance criminal case

03

Notarial case

04

Enforcement case

05

Second-instance civil case

06

Second-instance criminal case

07

Administrative case

08

Company case

09

Commercial case

10

Second-instance commercial case

11

Second-instance company case

Last update: 31/08/2021

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Czechia

National ECLI coordinator

Supreme Court (Nejvyšší soud)
Burešova 571/20, Brno - Veveří, postcode: 657 37
Czech Republic

Telephone: +420 541 593 111
Fax: +420 541 213 493

Data box ID: kccaa9t

Email: Link opens in new windowpodatelna@nsoud.cz (please put 'ECLI' in the subject line)
web: Link opens in new windowhttps://nsoud.cz/

Contacts:

Petra Polišenská, Michal Ježek (from 1 August 2022)

Generation of national ECLI (ECLI syntax)

The ECLI identifier has been used in the Czech Republic since April 2012 to designate judgments of the Supreme Court (Nejvyšší soud) and since March 2014 to designate judgments of the Constitutional Court (Ústavní soud). The ECLI identifier is currently being implemented at high court and regional court levels. Judgments designated with the ECLI identifier are also searchable using the identifier on court websites (judgments of the Supreme Court at Link opens in new windowhttps://nsoud.cz/ and judgments of the Constitutional Court at Link opens in new windowhttp://nalus.usoud.cz/).

Country code

[CZ]: country code for the Czech Republic.

Court codes

[NS]: Nejvyšší soud (Supreme Court of the Czech Republic).

[US]: Ústavní soud (Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic).

Example of ECLI identifier for Czech court decisions

ECLI:CZ:NS:2012:[case number].1

[CZ] country code (CZ for the Czech Republic);

[NS]is the code of the court that issued the judgment (NS for the Supreme Court - Nejvyšší soud);

[2012] indicates the year the judgment was rendered;

[case number] does not contain spaces or forward slashes; these are replaced by full stops;

The number [1] is the ordinal number of a decision with the same case number.. Inclusion of the ordinal number ensures that the same ECLI identifier is not used to designate more than one judgment from one court in the same year.

Related links

Link opens in new windowhttps://nsoud.cz/

Link opens in new windowhttp://nalus.usoud.cz/

Last update: 28/04/2023

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Denmark

National ECLI coordinator

The Court Administration (Domstolsstyrelsen)
St. Kongensgade 1-2
1264 København K.
Tel: 70 10 33 22
Link opens in new windowpost@domstolsstyrelsen.dk

Country code

The ECLI country code for Denmark is: [DK]

Generation of national ECLI

Information will be provided at a later stage.

Last update: 24/10/2019

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Germany

National ECLI coordinator

The designated ECLI coordinator for Germany is:
The Federal Office of Justice (Bundesamt für Justiz)
Unit VII 1
Adenauerallee 99-103
53113 Bonn
Germany

Tel.: +49 228 99410-5801

Email: Link opens in new windowkompetenzzentrum-ris@bfj.bund.de
Link opens in new windowhttps://www.bundesjustizamt.de

Introduction and spread of the ECLI in Germany

In Germany, the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht), the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof), the Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht), the Federal Fiscal Court (Bundesfinanzhof), the Federal Labour Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht), the Federal Social Court (Bundessozialgericht) and the courts of the Länder have introduced the ECLI into their databases of decisions. An ECLI is allocated to all decisions published on their respective websites since the ECLI was introduced. For details, see:

Federal Constitutional Court
Link opens in new windowhttp://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de (there are plans to retroactively allocate ECLIs to all published decisions);

Federal Court of Justice
Link opens in new windowhttp://www.bundesgerichtshof.de (for decisions published on the website of the Federal Constitutional Court since 1 January 2016);

Federal Administrative Court
Link opens in new windowhttp://www.bundesverwaltungsgericht.de (for all decisions published on the website of the Federal Administrative Court);

Federal Fiscal Court
Link opens in new windowhttp://www.bundesfinanzhof.de (for decisions published on the website of the Federal Fiscal Court since 4 October 2016);

Federal Labour Court
Link opens in new windowhttp://www.bundesarbeitsgericht.de (for decisions dated after 1 January 2015);

Federal Social Court
Link opens in new windowhttp://www.bundessozialgericht.de (for decisions published on the website of the Federal Social Court since 1 January 2010);

courts of the Länder
Link opens in new windowhttp://www.justiz.de/onlinedienste/rechtsprechung/index.php.

You can also use the Link opens in new windowEU ECLI search engine to search for Federal Constitutional Court and Federal Administrative Court decisions to which an ECLI has been allocated.

Structure of ECLIs

General
ECLIs have five components. Each component is separated from the others by a colon. ECLIs allocated by Germany always start with ECLI (①) followed by DE for Germany (②). The third component, known as the court code (③), shows which court took the decision (e.g. BVerfG for the Federal Constitutional Court). The fourth component (④) indicates the year in which the decision was taken and consists of a four-digit sequence (in the format yyyy, e.g. 2016).

 

ECLIs

 

The courts generate the final component, known as the ordinal number (⑤ and upwards), according to their own individual rules. The court codes and ordinal numbers used by each court are explained separately below.

Details for individual courts

Federal Constitutional Court

The court code (③) is always BVerfG. The ordinal number consists of parts ⑤ to ⑨. The second-last and last parts are separated by a point. The exact components of the ordinal number are explained in detail below.

  1. Type of procedure:

b

Finding that one or more parties have acted unconstitutionally

c

Appeal against a ruling in an electoral dispute

e

Dispute resolution proceedings between constitutional bodies

f

Abstract judicial review

g

Federal Government / Länder disputes

h

Other disputes between the Federal Government and the Länder

k

Disputes concerning the constitution of a Land

l

Substantive judicial review

m

Review of international law as Federal law

n

Interpretation of the Basic Law following referral by the constitutional court of a Land

p

Decisions on other matters referred to it by Federal Act

q

Interim measures

r

Constitutional complaints

up

Full-court decisions

vb

Complaints regarding judicial delay

  1. Abbreviations for court formations: k for decisions of a Chamber or s for decisions of a Senate (division) (not for full-court cases or complaints regarding delay; in these cases, the court formation is implicitly indicated by the abbreviations up and vb).
  2. Exact date of decision in the format yyyymmdd.
  3. Optional: an additional distinguishing character (assigned in alphabetical order from a to z). This is used when decisions are handed down by the same court with the same date and file reference (e.g. same date and file reference given for the extension of an interim order and the decision on the substance of the case). A distinguishing character is only added if it is necessary to prevent the allocation of ambiguous ECLIs.
  4. Main file reference (consisting of the division identifier, the register reference, the entry number and the year of entry in the format yy). There are no spaces between the division identifier and the register reference, nor between the register reference and the entry number. The slash between the entry number and the year of entry is also omitted from the ECLI. The entry number is always shown as a four-digit number in an ECLI. If necessary, leading zeros are inserted before the entry number. The last two digits therefore always represent the year of entry.

Example:
The ECLI for the decision of the Second Division of the Federal Constitutional Court of 1 March 2016 with file reference 2 BvB 1/13 is:

 

The additional character c indicates that this is the fourth decision with an otherwise identical ECLI.

Federal Court of Justice

The court code (③) is always BGH. The ordinal number consists of parts ⑤ to ⑧. Parts ⑦ and ⑧ are separated by a point. The exact components of the ordinal number are explained in detail below.

  1. Exact date of decision in the format ddmmyy.
  2. Abbreviation for the type of decision (U for judgment (Urteil), B for ruling (Beschluss), V for order (Verfügung), S for other).
  3. Main file reference (consisting of the division identifier, the register reference, the entry number and the year of entry in the format yy). There are no spaces between the division identifier and the register reference, nor between the register reference and the entry number. The slash between the entry number and the year of entry is replaced with a point.
  4. An additional distinguishing character (assigned consecutively from 0 to 9) is always used when several decisions of the same type are handed down with the same date and file reference.

Example:
The ECLI for the ruling of the Second Criminal Division of the Federal Court of Justice of 15 March 2016 with file reference 2 StR 487/15 is:

 

The additional character 2 indicates that this is the third decision with an otherwise identical ECLI.

Federal Administrative Court

The court code (③) is always BVerwG. The ordinal number consists of parts ⑤ to ⑧. Parts ⑦ and ⑧ are separated by a point unless the file reference suffix D (judicial protection in the event of excessively long legal proceedings) has been assigned, in which case there is no point between the file reference (⑦) and the additional distinguishing character (⑧). The exact components of the ordinal number are explained in detail below.

  1. Exact date of decision in the format ddmmyy.
  2. Abbreviation for the type of decision (U for judgment (Urteil), B for ruling (Beschluss), G for order (Gerichtsbescheid)).
  3. Main file reference (consisting of the division identifier, the register reference, the entry number and the year of entry in the format yy). There are no spaces between the division identifier and the register reference, nor between the register reference and the entry number. Older file references have a slash between the entry number and the year of entry; in ECLIs, this slash is replaced with a point.
  4. An additional distinguishing character (assigned consecutively from 0 to 9) is always used when several decisions of the same type are handed down with the same date and file reference.

Example:
The ECLI for the judgment of the Ninth Division of the Federal Administrative Court of 17 April 2002 with file reference 9 CN 1/01 is:

 

 

Federal Fiscal Court

The court code (③) is always BFH. The ordinal number consists of parts ⑤ to ⑧. Each part is separated from the others by a point. The exact components of the ordinal number are explained in detail below.

  1. Abbreviation for the type of decision:

VE

Request to the Court of Justice of the EU for a preliminary ruling

VV

Submission to the Federal Constitutional Court

BA

Ruling in proceedings for interim measures:

application for suspension of enforcement [A1] and appeal against a decision to suspend enforcement [A2]

B

Ruling, except where BA is to be assigned

U

Judgment, legally binding court order, interlocutory order, etc.

  1. Exact date of decision in the format ddmmyy.
  2. Main file reference (consisting of the division identifier, the register reference, the entry number and the year of entry in the format yy). There are no spaces between the division identifier and the register reference, nor between the register reference and the entry number. The slash between the entry number and the year of entry is replaced with a point.
  3. An additional distinguishing character (assigned consecutively from 0 to 9) is always used when several decisions of the same type are handed down with the same date and file reference.

Example:
The ECLI for the judgment of the Tenth Division of the Federal Fiscal Court of 1 June 2016 with file reference X R 66/14 is:

 

Federal Labour Court

The court code (③) is always BAG. The ordinal number consists of parts ⑤ to ⑧. Each part is separated from the others by a point. The exact components of the ordinal number are explained in detail below.

  1. Exact date of decision in the format ddmmyy.
  2. Abbreviation for the type of decision (U for judgment (Urteil), B for ruling (Beschluss)).
  3. Main file reference (consisting of the division identifier, the register reference, the entry number and the year of entry in the format yy). There are no spaces between the division identifier and the register reference, nor between the register reference and the entry number. The slash between the entry number and the year of entry is replaced with a point.
  4. An additional distinguishing character (assigned consecutively from 0 to 9) is always used when several decisions of the same type are handed down with the same date and file reference.

Example:
The ECLI for the judgment of the Tenth Division of the Federal Labour Court of 7 January 2015 with file reference 10 AZB 109/14 is:

 

 

Federal Social Court

The court code (③) is always BSG. The ordinal number consists of parts ⑤ to ⑧. The parts are not separated in any way. The exact components of the ordinal number are explained in detail below.

  1. Exact date of decision in the format ddmmyy.
  2. Abbreviation for the type of decision (U for judgment (Urteil), B for ruling (Beschluss)).
  3. Main file reference (consisting of B for Federal Social Court, the division identifier, the field identifier, the number of the entry in the relevant field and the associated register, the year of entry in the format yy and the register reference). Non-alphanumeric components of the file reference are omitted.
  4. An additional distinguishing character (assigned consecutively from 0 to 9) is always used when several decisions of the same type are handed down with the same date and file reference.

Example:
The ECLI for the judgment of the Third Division of the Federal Social Court of 25 January 2017 with file reference B 3 P 2/15 R is:

 

Courts of the Länder

The admissible court codes (③) are listed in the Link opens in new windowattached table Excel(52 KB)de. The ordinal number consists of parts ⑤ to ⑦. Each part is separated from the others by a point. The exact components of the ordinal number are explained in detail below.

  1. Exact date of decision in the format mmdd.
  2. File reference (or file references, if there are multiple file references) of up to 17 characters, beginning with the first character of the main file reference. If there is a point after the 17th character, this point is omitted. Umlauts are replaced (ä = AE, ö = OE, ü = UE) and non-alphanumeric characters such as spaces or slashes are omitted. If numbers or letters would be displayed next to each other, they are separated by a point (e.g. 9 C 1023/12 becomes 9C1023.12).
  3. An additional two-digit distinguishing code (assigned consecutively from 00 to 99) is always used when several decisions of the same type are handed down with the same date and file reference.

Example:
The ECLI for the decision of the Sixth Grand Chamber for Economic Offences of Stuttgart Regional Court of 26 January 2015 with file reference 6 KLs 34 Js 2588/10 is:

 

Last update: 08/12/2021

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Estonia

Since 2018 it has been possible to search Estonian case law that has been published and is in force by using ECLI, the European Case Law Identifier. It is easier and quicker to find Estonian case law using the identifier. The adoption of the ECLI also supports the implementation of open data policies. The ECLI has also been added to the metadata page for case law, which opens in the search results.

The ECLI has been added to all Supreme Court and county and district court case law since the second half of 2016.

Published case law has been given an ECLI since the second half of 2016, and the number is made up of five components separated by a colon (for example ECLI:EE:RK:2016:1.16.2798.84).

ECLI – European Case Law Identifier; EE – country identifier; RK – court identifier; 2016 – year of publication; 1.16.2798.84 – (e.g. 1-16-2798/84) in the number of the court case, the symbols ‘-’ and ‘/’ are replaced by dots and the sequential control number ‘84’ is added at the end.

The ECLI number can also be used as a URL and searches can be performed using the following logic (where ‘kohtulahendid’ means ‘case law’):

…/kohtulahendid/ecli/ECLI:EE – all case law with an ECLI
…/kohtulahendid/ecli/ECLI:EE:RK:2016 – all Supreme Court case law in 2016
…/kohtulahendid/ecli/ECLI:EE:RK:2016:1.16.2798.84 – a specific Supreme Court judgment

The court identifiers are as follows:

RK – Supreme Court
TLRK – Tallinn District Court
TRRK – Tartu District Court
TLHK – Tallinn Administrative Court
TRHK –Tartu Administrative Court
HMK – Harju County Court
PMK – Pärnu County Court
TMK – Tartu County Court
VMK – Viru County Court

Last update: 07/12/2021

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Ireland

National ECLI coordinator

The national ECLI coordinator is the Department of Justice.

Country code

The country code for Ireland is: [IE]

Generation of national ECLI

It is currently not possible to build an ECLI based on existing publicly available information. The exact form of the ECLI is still under consideration and has not been finalised.

Last update: 18/01/2024

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Greece

Greece currently participates in the ECLI system, with the Link opens in new windowCouncil of State (Symvoúlio tis Epikrateías).

There is no unified electronic database containing all domestic court rulings.

There are several electronic case law databases on the web, relating to:

There are also private subscription databases.

For example:

Last update: 12/03/2024

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Spain

National ECLI coordinator

The National ECLI coordinator is CENDOJ (CENTRO DE DOCUMENTACION JUDICIAL), the Centre for Judicial Documentation, a technical body in Spain’s General Council of the Judiciary: Link opens in new windowcendoj.ecli@cgpj.es.

Country code

The code for Spain is: [ES]

Creation of the national ECLI

The ECLI was introduced in Spain in November 2012.

This was possible because, since the start of the ECLI Project on 27 October 2011, case law in Spain already had a national identifier, called the ROJ (Repositorio Oficial de Jurisprudencia) - the Official Case Law Repository, which identifies the decisions handed down by all the Spanish courts, from the Courts of First Instance to the Supreme Court.

Through the website Link opens in new windowhttps://www.poderjudicial.es, we offer all citizens open access to the decisions handed down by all the Spanish courts, consisting of a total of 5 600 000 judgments, a number which increases every year. Judges/Senior Judges, Prosecutors and Court Clerks have access in a restricted environment with additional information and hyperlinks to the case law of the Constitutional Court (Tribunal Constitucional), the European Court of Justice, as well as national and international legislation and doctrine: Link opens in new windowhttps://www.poderjudicial.es.

We currently maintain the ROJ national identifier - the Cendoj ID - as the official body for the dissemination of Spanish case law, and the ECLI at European level. On the e-justice portal, we therefore have, as of 2014, 2 500 000 decisions of the Supreme Court (Tribunal Supremo), the National High Court (Audiencia Nacional), the High Courts of Justice (Tribunales Superiores de Justicia) and Provincial Courts (Audiencias Provinciales), as well as a selection of judgments from the Courts of First Instance (Primera Instancia) that are of legal interest or have social impact. The number of decisions increases every day as they are uploaded into the system. The ECLI integration process was successfully completed in Spain, and we are currently a partner in the BO-ECLI project.

The ECLIs in Spain consist of the following fields:

  • ‘ECLI’;
  • The country code: ‘ES’
  • The court code: an acronym to indicate the court in which the judgment was given. – see the section ‘ECLI court codes’;
  • The year of the decision;
  • A serial number, which in the case of Spain is the sequential number of the ROJ national identifier. This means that once a judgment has been assigned its ROJ, it is possible to automatically assign to it its corresponding ECLI.
  • Furthermore, in the case of Orders (Autos), the letter ‘A’ is added to the end of the sequential number.

EXAMPLES:

Where the ROJ is: the national case-law identifier.

1) *Judgment of the National High Court of 30 May 2014. Criminal Court, with ROJ Link opens in new windowSAN 2389/2014

The corresponding ECLI will be:

ECLI:ES:AN:2014:2389

2) *Judgment of the High Court of Justice of 15 April 2011. Appeals Chamber of Burgos, Autonomous Community of Castile-Leon, with ROJ: STSJ CL 782/2011

The corresponding ECLI will be:

ECLI:ES:TSJCL:2011:782

Order of the National High Court Chamber for Criminal Matters of 29 October 2015, with ROJ: ANN 199/2015

The corresponding ECLI will be:

ECLI:ES:AN:2015:199A

ECLI court codes:

In Spain, the court code for the ECLI is represented using the acronym of the court that issued the judgment and which corresponds with that used in the judgment’s ROJ national identifier.

ACRONYM

NAME

---------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------

TS

Supreme Court

AN

National High Court

TSJAND

High Court of Justice of Andalusia

TSJAR

High Court of Justice of Aragon

TSJAS

High Court of Justice of Asturias

TSJBAL

High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands

TSJICAN

High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands

TSJCANT

High Court of Justice of Cantabria

TSJCL

High Court of Justice of Castile-Leon

TSJ CLM

High Court of Justice of Castile-La Mancha

TSJCAT

High Court of Justice of Catalonia

TSJCV

High Court of Justice of the Community of Valencia

TSJEXT

High Court of Justice of Extremadura

TSJGAL

High Court of Justice of Galicia

TSJLR

High Court of Justice of Rioja

TSJMAD

High Court of Justice of Madrid

TSJMU

High Court of Justice of Murcia

TSJNAV

High Court of Justice of Navarre

TSJPV

High Court of Justice of the Basque Country

TSJCE

High Court of Justice of Ceuta

TSJML

High Court of Justice of Melilla

APVI

Provincial Court of Alava

APAB

Provincial Court of Albacete

APA

Provincial Court of Alicante

APAL

Provincial Court of Almeria

APAV

Provincial Court of Avila

APBA

Provincial Court of Badajoz

APIB

Provincial Court of the Balearic Islands

APB

Provincial Court of Barcelona

APBU

Provincial Court of Burgos

APCC

Provincial Court of Caceres

APCA

Provincial Court of Cadiz

APCS

Provincial Court of Castellon

APCR

Provincial Court of Ciudad Real

APCO

Provincial Court of Cordoba

APC

Provincial Court of A Coruña

APCU

Provincial Court of Cuenca

APGI

Provincial Court of Girona

APGR

Provincial Court of Granada

APGU

Provincial Court of Guadalajara

APSS

Provincial Court of Guipuzcoa

APH

Provincial Court of Huelva

APHU

Provincial Court of Huesca

APJ

Provincial Court of Jaen

APLE

Provincial Court of Leon

APL

Provincial Court of Lleida

APLO

Provincial Court of Rioja

APLU

Provincial Court of Lugo

APM

Provincial Court of Madrid

APMA

Provincial Court of Malaga

APMU

Provincial Court of Murcia

APNA

Provincial Court of Navarre

APOU

Provincial Court of Ourense

APO

Provincial Court of Asturias

APP

Provincial Court of Palencia

APGC

Provincial Court of Las Palmas

APPO

Provincial Court of Pontevedra

APSA

Provincial Court of Salamanca

APTF

Provincial Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife

APS

Provincial Court of Cantabria

APSG

Provincial Court of Segovia

APSE

Provincial Court of Seville

APSO

Provincial Court of Soria

APT

Provincial Court of Tarragona

APTE

Provincial Court of Teruel

APTO

Provincial Court of Toledo

APV

Provincial Court of Valencia

APVA

Provincial Court of Valladolid

APBI

Provincial Court of Vizcaya

APZA

Provincial Court of Zamora

APZ

Provincial Court of Zaragoza

APCE

Provincial Court of Ceuta

APML

Provincial Court of Melilla

JPII

Court of First Instance and Local Criminal Court

JPI

Court of First Instance

JI

Local Criminal Court

JSO

Social Affairs Court

JCA

Administrative Appeals Court

JM

Commercial Court

JVM

Court for Violence against Women

JP

Criminal Court

JVP

Court with special duties in the matter of criminal sentences

JME

Juvenile Court

JF

Family Court

Last update: 26/02/2024

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - France

National ECLI Coordinator

The Office of Legal and Administrative Information (Direction de l’information légale et administrative (Link opens in new windowDILA)) has been designated as the national ECLI coordinator for France by the General Secretariat of the Government.

Country code

The country code for France is: [FR]

Generation of national ECLI

The French supreme courts covered by the ECLI system are:

  • the Constitutional Council (le Conseil constitutionnel);
  • the Court of Cassation (la Cour de cassation);
  • the Council of State (le Conseil d'Etat).

ECLIs are made up of five components, the first two of which are constants for a Member State:

ECLI:FR:{Court_code}:{year when decision was rendered}:{ordinal number}

Each of the three courts has adopted a court code and rules for creating an ordinal number.

The year in which the decision was handed down is always made up of four numerical characters (in the format YYYY, for example 2012).

1. The Constitutional Council

The court code is always CC.

The generic form of an ECLI is therefore:

ECLI:FR:CC:{year of decision}:{ordinal number}

The ordinal number is in two parts, separated by a full stop:

  1. the serial number within each type of decision (which starts again at 1 every year);
  2. the type of decision (DC, QPC, AN… Link opens in new windowsee list of types).

For example:

the ECLI for the decision of Friday 27 July 2012 No 2012-270 QPC would be ECLI:FR:CC:2012:2012.270.QPC.

2. The Court of Cassation

The court code is always CCASS.

The generic form of an ECLI is therefore:

ECLI:FR:CCASS:{year of decision}:{ordinal number}

The ordinal number is made up of two elements, written without a break:

  1. The ECLI code for the division of the court (two alphanumerical characters as laid down in the table below):
  2. AP Assemblée plénière (Full Court)
    AV Avis (Opinion)
    C1 Première chambre civile (First Civil Division)
    C2 Deuxième chambre civile (Second Civil Division)
    C3 Troisième chambre civile (Third Civil Division)
    CO Chambre commerciale (Commercial Division)
    CR Chambre criminelle (Criminal Division)
    MI Chambre mixte (Joint Bench)
    OR Ordonnance du premier président (Order of the President)
    SO Chambre sociale (Social Division)

    The code is based on the use of an internal administration number, which itself has eight characters:

    a one-character code identifying the division of the court;

    two digits for the year of the decision;

    a five-digit serial number running within that year for the division of the court in question.

    Example: the appeal number of the judgment of the Court of Cassation, Criminal Division, of 27 February 2013, is 12-81.063 and the administration number is C1300710. The first part of the ordinal number of this judgment will be CR, for the Criminal Division.

  3. The last five digits of the administration number.
  4. In our example, the second part of the ordinal number will be 00710. Altogether, the ECLI of the judgment handed down by the Criminal Division of the Court of Cassation on 27 February 2013, under the appeal number 12-81063, will be ECLI:FR:CCASS:2013:CR00710.

3. The Council of State

The Council of State uses a court code which identifies the type of division of the court: the root CE is followed without a break by a number of letters as shown below:

Assemblée (Assembly of Presiding Judges) CEASS
Ordonnance (Order) CEORD
Section du contentieux (Disputes Division) CESEC
Sous-section jugeant seule (Subdivision ruling alone) CESJS
Sous-sections réunies (Subdivisions sitting together)

CESSR

Chambre jugeant seule (Chamber ruling alone)

CECHS

Chambres réunies (Chambers sitting together)

CECHR


The code CE is not used on its own.

The generic form is therefore:

ECLI:FR:CE…:{year of the decision}:{ordinal number}

The ordinal number is also made up of two parts, separated by a full stop:

  1. the application number of the decision;
  2. the date of the delivery of the decision, in the format YYYYMMDD.

For example:

the ECLI of Council of State decision No 355099 of 1 March 2013, delivered by the third and eighth subdivisions sitting together, would be: ECLI:FR:CESSR:2013:355099.20130301

Last update: 04/08/2020

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Croatia

On 18 January 2017 the Republic of Croatia started to apply the European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) to court decisions in the Link opens in new windowdatabase of case law which is kept at the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia (Vrhovni sud Republike Hrvatske), and which could previously be consulted only on the Supreme Court's website. The fact that all publicly available court decisions are given an ECLI means that they are publicly available through the search engine of the European e-Justice Portal – ESE EEJP. This makes it easy for citizens and legal practitioners from other EU Member States to search the database for decisions of Croatian courts, and for Croatian citizens and legal practitioners to consult decisions of courts of other Member States.

Last update: 26/04/2021

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Italy

National ECLI Coordinator

The national ECLI coordinator has not yet been appointed. For the time being the Ministry of Justice’s Directorate‑General for Automated Information Systems (DGSIA) is acting as coordinator.

Country code

The country code for Italy is: [IT].

Generation of national ECLI

As part of the current pilot phase activities, a proposal for the introduction of ECLI is being drawn up. More particularly, rules are being drawn up on the composition of the ordinal number for case-law documents, as stipulated in the ECLI standard, using a set of accessible metadata in order to guarantee that each identification number is unique.

Last update: 13/10/2020

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Cyprus

National ECLI coordinator

The national ECLI coordinator is the Department of Legal Publications - email: publicationsc@sc.judicial.gov.cy

Country code

The country code for Cyprus is: [CY]

Generation of national ECLI

The exact format of the ECLI is still under consideration and is yet to be decided.

Last update: 11/03/2024

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Latvia

National ECLI coordinator

The National ECLI coordinator is the Link opens in new windowCourts Administration (Tiesu administrācija).

Contact e-mail: Link opens in new windowpasts@ta.gov.lv

Country code

The country code of Latvia is: [LV]

Generation of national ECLI

In Latvia, ECLI was introduced in September 2017. ECLI is attributed to all court rulings registered in the Court Information System, except for rulings adopted in the form of resolutions and decisions by investigating judges. Publicly available rulings are published on the website Link opens in new windowhttps://www.elieta.lv/web/.

Structure of the elements in the Latvian ECLI code

ECLI:LV:AAAAAAA:BBBB:CCDD.E12345678.90.FF, where

ECLI is an invariable designation of the European Case Law Identifier;

LV is an invariable country code: international code of the Republic of Latvia;

AAAAAAA court code;

BBBB year of the ruling;

CCDD.E12345678.90 consecutive number of the ruling, where

CC two digits of the month the ruling was adopted;

DD two digits of the day the ruling was adopted;

E12345678 case number or, where there is no case number, the archive number or file number of the application;

90 sequential number of the ruling within the case or in the context of examining a claim, if there is no case number;

FF type of ruling (RS (assignments sitting), L (decision), S (judgment), BL (incidental ruling).

For example: Ruling ECLI:LV:RAT:2016:1201.C28087609.1.S (where ECLI stands for the European Case Law Identifier, LV is the international code of the Republic of Latvia, RAT is the code of the regional court of Riga (Rīgas apgabaltiesa), 2016 is the year of the ruling, 1201 is the date of the ruling (1 December), C28087609 is the case number in accordance with the procedure set out in this chapter; 1 is the sequential number of the ruling, and S means the type of ruling is a judgment).

Court codes of Latvian courts

Court code

Title

AT

Supreme Court (Augstākā Tiesa)

KUAT

Kurzeme Regional Court (Kurzemes apgabaltiesa)

LAAT

Latgale Regional Court (Latgales apgabaltiesa)

RAT

Riga Regional Court (Rīgas apgabaltiesa)

VAT

Vidzeme Regional Court (Vidzemes apgabaltiesa)

ZAT

Zemgale Regional Court (Zemgales apgabaltiesa)

ADRJJTN

District Administrative Court (Administratīvā rajona tiesa), Jelgava Courthouse (Jelgavas tiesu nams)

ADRJLTN

District Administrative Court (Administratīvā rajona tiesa), Liepāja Courthouse (Liepājas tiesu nams)

ADRJRTN

District Administrative Court (Administratīvā rajona tiesa), Rēzekne Courthouse (Rēzeknes tiesu nams)

ADRJRIT

District Administrative Court (Administratīvā rajona tiesa), Riga Courthouse (Rīgas tiesu nams)

ADRJVTN

District Administrative Court (Administratīvā rajona tiesa), Valmiera Courthouse (Valmieras tiesu nams)

AIRT

Aizkraukle District Court (Aizkraukles rajona tiesa)

ALRT

Alūksne District Court (Alūksnes rajona tiesa)

BSRT

Bauska District Court (Bauskas rajona tiesa)

CERT

Cēsis District Court (Cēsu rajona tiesa)

DAUT

Daugavpils City Court (Daugavpils tiesa)

DORT

Dobele District Court (Dobeles rajona tiesa)

GURT

Gulbene District Court (Gulbenes rajona tiesa)

JELT

Jelgava City Court (Jelgavas tiesa)

JERT

Jēkabpils District Court (Jēkabpils rajona tiesa)

KURT

Kuldīga District Court (Kuldīgas rajona tiesa)

LIET

Liepāja City Court (Liepājas tiesa)

LIRT

Limbaži District Court (Limbažu rajona tiesa)

MART

Madona District Court (Madonas rajona tiesa)

OGRT

Ogre District Court (Ogres rajona tiesa)

REZT

Rēzekne City Court (Rēzeknes tiesa)

RPT

Riga City Court (Rīgas pilsētas tiesa)

RLPT

City of Riga Latgale District Court (Rīgas pilsētas Latgales priekšpilsētas tiesa)

RVPT

City of Riga Vidzeme District Court (Rīgas pilsētas Vidzemes priekšpilsētas tiesa)

RZRT

City of Riga Northern District Court (Rīgas pilsētas Ziemeļu rajona tiesa)

RIRT

Riga District Court (Rīgas rajona tiesa)

SART

Saldus District Court (Saldus rajona tiesa)

SIRT

Sigulda City Court (Siguldas tiesa)

TART

Talsi District Court (Talsu rajona tiesa)

TURT

Tukums District Court (Tukuma rajona tiesa)

VART

Valka District Court (Valkas rajona tiesa)

VLRT

Valmiera District Court (Valmieras rajona tiesa)

VENT

Ventspils City Court (Ventspils tiesa)

ELT Economic Court (Ekonomisko Lietu Tiesas)
Last update: 08/09/2023

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Lithuania

National ECLI coordinator

The national ECLI coordinator is the National Courts Administration, L.Sapiegos gatvė 15, LT-10312 Vilnius, Lithuania. Phone: +370 5 266 29 81, e-mail: Link opens in new windowinfo@teismai.lt.

Country code

The country code for Lithuania is [LT].

Generation of national ECLI

The ECLI is not yet in use in Lithuania.

Last update: 07/04/2023

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Luxembourg

Luxembourg is currently looking into the possibility of implementing the European Case Law Identifier (ECLI).

Last update: 20/12/2018

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Hungary

In Hungary at present there are no plans for the introduction of ECLI.

Last update: 07/04/2017

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Malta

National ECLI coordinator

The national ECLI coordinator is Courts of Malta (Link opens in new windowcourts.csa@courtservices.mt).

Country code

The country code for Malta is: [MT]

Generation of national ECLI

In Malta the ECLI number cannot be built from the case judgment details available to the public user. It is automatically generated at the time the judgment is entered in the court system.

Last update: 13/10/2020

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Netherlands

National ECLI coordinator

The national ECLI coordinator is the Council for the Judiciary (Raad voor de rechtspraak). You can contact the coordinator at the following email address: Link opens in new windowkennissystemen@rechtspraak.nl

Country code

The country code for the Netherlands is: [NL]

Generation of national ECLIs

The ECLI was introduced in the Netherlands on 28 June 2013. An ECLI can be allocated to:

  • all judicial decisions published on the website of the Link opens in new windowCouncil for the Judiciary:
  • all disciplinary decisions published on the official website (on the Link opens in new windowjoint disciplinary website);
  • all judicial decisions not published on the websites under (a) and (b) but published in magazines or databases, and judicial decisions published commercially as ‘open access’. Magazine editors or database managers who wish to register their decisions can do so via the above email address;
  • all judicial decisions kept in an internal database of the Council for the Judiciary.

Regardless of whether the decision itself is published on one of the two websites referred to above, all Dutch ECLIs, together with at least the name of the body that delivered the decision, the date of the decision and the case number, can be found on Link opens in new windowrechtspraak.nl.

Where known, publication references are also given for any reports of the decision in journals or databases. Link opens in new windowDutch ECLIs are made up of the following:

  • ‘ECLI’;
  • country code ‘NL’;
  • court code (see under the heading ‘Link opens in new windowECLI court codes’ (Gerechtscode);
  • year of the decision;
  • a serial number. There are two possible formats.
    • Before 28 June 2013, virtually all decisions published in the Netherlands were given a country case number (Landelijk Jurisprudentie Nummer, LJN). This LJN always consisted of two letters and four figures, e.g.: ‘AB1234’. For reasons of consistency, this LJN has been included as the fifth part of the ECLI code.
    • As of 28 June 2013, LJNs are no longer allocated. All decisions given an ECLI after that date have an ascending serial number consisting solely of figures. This may also be the case for decisions issued before 28 June 2013.

The most important court codes

The Netherlands has a large number of law courts. The codes of the most important Dutch courts are listed in the table below.

Highest Courts

HR

Hoge Raad (Supreme Court)

PHR

Parket bij de Hoge Raad (Supreme Court Public Prosecutor's Office) (Advocate-General)

RVS

Raad van State (Council of State)

CRVB

Centrale Raad van Beroep (Court of last instance in social security matters)

CBB

College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven (Administrative court of last instance in matters of trade and industry)

Courts of Appeal (Appelgerechten)

GHAMS

Gerechtshof Amsterdam

GHARL

Gerechtshof Arnhem-Leeuwarden

GHDHA

Gerechtshof Den Haag

GHSHE

Gerechtshof 's-Hertogenbosch

District courts (Rechtbanken)

RBAMS

Rechtbank Amsterdam

RBDHA

Rechtbank Den Haag

RBGEL

Rechtbank Gelderland

RBLIM

Rechtbank Limburg

RBMNE

Rechtbank Midden-Nederland

RBNHO

Rechtbank Noord-Holland

RBNNE

Rechtbank Noord-Nederland

RBOBR

Rechtbank Oost-Brabant

RBOVE

Rechtbank Overijssel

RBROT

Rechtbank Rotterdam

RBZWB

Rechtbank Zeeland-West-Brabant

All court codes

A full list of Dutch court codes, in alphabetical order, is available Link opens in new windowhere. Bodies no longer in existence are indicated as ‘abolished’ (opgeheven).

Last update: 08/01/2024

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Austria

National ECLI coordinator

Federal Ministry of Digital and Economic Affairs [Bundesministerium für Digitalisierung und Wirtschaftsstandort]

Digitales und E-Government - Programm- und Projektmanagement (Abt. III/5) [e-Government - Programme and project management (Department I/5)]

Stubenring 1

A-1010 Vienna

Helmut Weichsel

Tel.: (+43 1) 53115/204211

Fax: (+43 1) 53109/204211

E-Mail: Link opens in new windowhelmut.weichsel@bmdw.gv.at

Country code

ECLI country code for Austria: [AT]

Generation of national ECLI

An ECLI is assigned when decisions of the Link opens in new windowfollowing courts and authorities are published on the internet.

  • Constitutional Court [Verfassungsgerichtshof]
  • Supreme Court [Oberster Gerichtshof] and other courts
  • Federal Administrative Court [Bundesverwaltungsgericht]
  • Federal Fiscal Court [Bundesfinanzgericht]
  • Regional Administrative Courts [Landesverwaltungsgerichte]
  • Data Protection Authority [Datenschutzbehörde]
Last update: 08/12/2021

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Poland

For the time being Poland does not have any plans concerning implementation of the European Case Law Identifier.

Last update: 08/12/2023

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Portugal

National ECLI Coordinator

Address: Rua Duque de Palmela No 23, 1250-097 Lisbon – Portugal

Telephone: +351 213 220 020
Fax: +351 213 474 09 918

Email: Link opens in new windowcsm@csm.org.pt
Website: Link opens in new windowhttps://www.csm.org.pt/

Country code

The country code for Portugal is: [PT].

Generation of national ECLI

Portugal’s introduction of the European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) was completed in November 2018, as part of a project co-financed by the European Union through the Justice Programme 2014-2020 of the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (DG JUST). This was a joint initiative of the Supreme Council of the Judiciary (Conselho Superior da Magistratura) and the Institute for Financial and Estate Management of Judicial Services (Instituto de Gestão Financeira e Equipamentos da Justiça).

The ECLI currently covers judgments of the higher courts:

  • The Supreme Court of Justice (Supremo Tribunal de Justiça)
  • The Coimbra Court of Appeal (Tribunal da Relação de Coimbra)
  • The Évora Court of Appeal (Tribunal da Relação de Évora)
  • The Guimarães Court of Appeal (Tribunal da Relação de Guimarães)
  • The Lisbon Court of Appeal (Tribunal da Relação de Lisboa)
  • The Porto Court of Appeal (Tribunal da Relação do Porto)

The website Link opens in new windowhttps://jurisprudencia.csm.org.pt/ provides access to a new search engine for national case-law using the ECLI.

The ECLI in Portugal is made up the following components:

  • ECLI’;
  • The country code: ‘PT’;
  • The court code: ‘STJ’, ‘TRL’, ‘TRP’, ‘TRC’, ‘TRE’ or ‘TRG’ (the ECLI is currently available to identify judgments of the Supreme Court of Justice and the appeal courts of Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra, Évora and Guimarães);
  • The year of the judgment;
  • A serial number, which in Portugal’s case, is based on the case number (plus occasionally two identifying characters used for the distribution of cases in the higher courts).

Each component is separated by a colon.

Example of a Portuguese ECLI:

The identifier ECLI:PT:TRC:2017:198.15.3GCACB.C1, corresponds to a judgment handed down in Portugal (PT), by the Coimbra Court of Appeal (TRC), in 2017, in case No 198/15.3GCACB.

Last update: 18/12/2023

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Romania

National ECLI coordinator

The Ministry of Justice is the national ECLI coordinator – Link opens in new windowdti@just.ro

Country Code

The Country Code for Romania is [RO]

Generation of national ECLI

ECLI was introduced in Romanian courts at the end of 2015.

The ECLI is automatically assigned, using the electronic case management system (ECRIS), to judgments handed down since 2007 by the courts (High Court of Cassation and Justice, appeal courts, tribunals and district courts). For judgments handed down after 15 December 2015, ECLI also appears in paper format.

At the moment there is no online database of national case law base connected to the ECLI search engine within the e-Justice Portal. However, there is a database in which all judgments handed down by Romanian courts in 2010 are taken from the ECRIS system and published in anonymised form - Link opens in new windowROLII, currently under development.

In Romania the ECLI code consists of:

  • ‘ECLI’;
  • country code ‘RO’;
  • court code - a list of court codes can be found here PDF(256 Kb)RO;
  • the year of the judgment;
  • an ordinal number, consisting of the internal number of the corresponding electronic register in the ECRIS system (unique to the court) and the judgment number as granted in the court decision register (unique to the register).

Example:

The ECLI code assigned to a judgment delivered by District Court of Bucharest 4 could look like this: ECLI:RO:JDS4B:2017:001.004053, where ‘JDS4B’ is the court code, ‘2017’ – the year of the judgment, ‘001’ – the internal number of the corresponding electronic register in the ECRIS system and ‘004053’ is the judgment number.

Last update: 07/12/2021

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Slovenia

National ECLI coordinator

The national ECLI coordinator for Slovenia is:

Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia

Registry Department,

Tavčarjeva 9,

SI-1000 Ljubljana

Slovenia

Contact email: Link opens in new windowecli.vsrs@sodisce.si

Contact person: Gregor Strojin

Country code

The country code for Slovenia is: [SI]

Generation of national ECLI

On 1 October 2011, Slovenia introduced an ECLI as an integral part of all existing documents published in the Link opens in new windowcase law databases of its courts. All new documents which are entered into case-law databases also receive an ECLI. An ECLI will also be included in all new judicial decisions in the near future.

All ECLIs are created automatically on the basis of the existing data.

All known private publishers of case law documents have been informed about the ECLI, and most of them have already assigned an ECLI to published documents.

Court codes:

VSRS: Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia (Vrhovno sodišče Republike Slovenije)

USRS: Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia (Ustavno sodišče Republike Slovenije)

VSCE: Higher Court in Celje (Višje sodišče v Celju)

VSKP: Higher Court in Koper (Višje sodišče v Kopru)

VSLJ: Higher Court in Ljubljana (Višje sodišče v Ljubljani)

VSMB: Higher Court in Maribor (Višje sodišče v Mariboru)

UPRS: Administrative Court of the Republic of Slovenia (Upravno sodišče Republike Slovenije)

VDSS: Higher Labour and Social Court (Višje delovno in socialno sodišče)

Note: Court codes consist of four letters. The list of participating courts currently only applies to appellate courts, the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia, whose decisions are already published in national case law databases. Other courts and institutions will be added in the near future.

Year of decision:

The year in which the decision was issued is used (YYYY entry).

Reference number:

The regular ordinal number (hereinafter: RON), e.g. II Ips 123/2005) of a particular court (datafield: Odločba (=decision)) is used as the basis for the formation of the ECLI ordinal number (hereinafter: EON).

Other words (e.g. Sodba, Sklep, etc.) which may be part of the field Odločba are not considered part of RON and are to be omitted/deleted in the formation of EON.

The year, which is a part of RON, remains part of the new EON.

As regular ordinal numbers include signs such as dashes, slashes or empty spaces, each one of these is to be replaced by a period sign within the ECLI format (e.g. II Ips 123/2005 becomes II.Ips.123.2005; I K 123456/2010 becomes I.K.123456.2010, etc.).

The general rules for EON are subject to the exceptions defined in special cases below.

Special cases:

A: Where one joint decision lists two or more RONs, only the first RON is used for the formation of the ECLI. ‘.A’ is to be added at the end of EON in such cases. Other RONs can be accessed through document metadata.

Example:
Sodba II Ips 49/2008 and II Ips 28/2011

then the ECLI is:
ECLI:SI:VSRS:2008:II.IPS.49.2008.A


B: Where a decision uses only one RON which is similar to a number of other decisions with different RONs, the others have not been added to the case law databases. The first RON is used for the creation of the ECLI, and the others are mentioned as ‘same as’ in the metadata. The remaining RONs are used to create ECLIs which are listed in the database as relating to similar decisions.

Example:
Sodba VIII Ips 432/2009, same as VIII Ips 50/2009 and VIII Ips 448/2009, VIII Ips 28/2009

then ECLI is:
ECLI:SI:VSRS:2009:VIII.IPS.432.2009,

same as:
ECLI:SI:VSRS:2009:VIII.IPS.50.2009
ECLI:SI:VSRS:2009:VIII.IPS.448.2009
ECLI:SI:VSRS:2009:VIII.IPS.28.2009

Users searching for any of these ECLIs will be directed to the same document.

 

C: In the past there were instances where RON of the same court could be duplicated, because the institution operated at different branches and did not have a centralized case management system (e.g. UPRS). The exact branch is identified in the metadata of a document. In such cases a ‘.letter’ combination representing the branch is to be added at the end of EON, based on the following classification:

Celje: .C

Ljubljana: .L

Nova Gorica: .G

Maribor: .M


D: Some penal (criminal law) documents in the SOVS database of the Supreme Court use two RONs in the field ‘Odločba’. The first uses the ordinal number (in the form -NN), while the other is included in brackets ( ). The reason for this is a double registration of cases during a transition phase for the introduction of a computerised criminal case management system.

In these cases only the first RON is used for the creation of the ECLI, to which the ordinal number of the case is added after the year. The other RON mentioned in brackets is discarded and does not form part of the ECLI.

Example:
Sodba I Ips 3248/2009-39 (I Ips 10/2010)

then the ECLI is:
ECLI:SI:VSRS:2009:I.IPS.3248.2009.39


E: In some cases several documents of the same court use the same RON, for example interim measures and final decisions. In these cases, a number is added for the purpose of EON creation. The first decision (according to date of issue) does not have a numerical addendum. The next one receives addendum ‘.1’, the subsequent one ‘.2’, etc. Addenda are assigned automatically based on the date when the document was issued.

Example:
Sklep G 6/2011 (note: duplicated in a number of documents)

then the ECLIs are:
ECLI:SI:VSRS:2011:G.6.2011
ECLI:SI:VSRS:2011:G.6.2011.1
ECLI:SI:VSRS:2011:G.6.2011.2

etc.

Related links

Link opens in new windowSupreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia (Vrhovno sodišče RS)

Link opens in new windowConstitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia (Ustavno sodišče RS)

Link opens in new windowCase law (Sodna praksa)

Link opens in new windowCase law (permission from the Supreme Court is required to use the application programming interface (API))

Link opens in new windowCase law of the Constitutional Court (Sodna praksa Ustavnega sodišča RS)

Last update: 01/12/2020

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Slovakia

National ECLI coordinator

The national ECLI coordinator is the Informatics and Project Management Section of the Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic – e-mail: Link opens in new windowecli@justice.sk

Country code

The country code for the Slovak Republic is: [SK]

Generation of national ECLI code

An ECLI code is generated when a judgment is delivered. Only judgments delivered after 25 July 2011 are given an ECLI number. If a judgment delivered before 25 July 2011 is appealed after 25 July 2011, this and all other judgments in that file are also given an ECLI code.

Example of an ECLI code for the Slovak Republic:

ECLI:SK:OSBA1:2011:0123456789.123

OSBA1 = abbreviation for the court

2011 = year

0123456789 = IČS (file identification number)

123 = serial number of judgment in the file

Last update: 27/02/2023

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Finland

Finland will use the European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) in all case law databases in Finlex, the national legal databank.

National ECLI coordinator

The national ECLI coordinator is Aki Hietanen at the Finnish Ministry of Justice. E-mail address: Link opens in new windowfinlex@om.fi.

Country code

The country code for Finland is [FI].

Generation of the national ECLI

Finland will use the European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) in all case law databases in Finlex, the national legal databank. Use of the identifier was initially tested on the case law databases of the Finnish Supreme Court (korkein oikeus) and the Supreme Administrative Court (korkein hallinto-oikeus). The identifier will also be used in the databases of the Courts of Appeal (hovioikeudet), the administrative courts (hallinto-oikeudet) and the special courts (erityistuomioistuimet). In 2017, metadata in the judgments will be enriched with ECLI metadata. Metadata from the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative are already being used in Finlex’s case law databases.

The ECLI is also used in Finlex’s case law literature database, which contains references to court decisions from Finnish legal literature since 1926. Case law consists of judgments of, among others, the Finnish Supreme Court, the Supreme Administrative Court, the Courts of Appeal, the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Generation of the national ECLI

Supreme Court: ECLI:FI:KKO:2017:21

Supreme Administrative Court: ECLI:FI:KKO:2017:63

- for case summaries: ECLI:FI:KHO:2010:T3764

Courts of Appeal:

  • Helsinki Court of Appeal (Helsingin hovioikeus) – ECLI:FI:HELHO:2011:5
  • Eastern Finland Court of Appeal (Itä-Suomen hovioikeus) – ECLI:FI:ISHO:2011:4
  • Kouvola Court of Appeal (Kouvolan hovioikeus) – ECLI:FI:KOUHO:2009:3
  • Rovaniemi Court of Appeal (Rovaniemen hovioikeus) – ECLI:FI:RHO:2010:8
  • Turku Court of Appeal (Turun hovioikeus) – ECLI:FI:THO:2011:2
  • Vaasa Court of Appeal (Vaasan hovioikeus) – ECLI:FI:VHO:2011:7

Administrative courts:

  • Helsinki Administrative Court (Helsingin hallinto-oikeus) – ECLI:FI:HELHAO:2011:11.0378.255
  • Hämeenlinna Administrative Court (Hämeenlinnan hallinto-oikeus) – ECLI:FI:HAMHAO:2011:11.0378.255
  • Kouvola Administrative Court (Kouvolan hallinto-oikeus) – ECLI:FI:KOUHAO:2011:11.0379.25
  • Kuopio Administrative Court (Kuopion hallinto-oikeus) – ECLI:FI:KUOHAO:2011:11.0377.25
  • Oulu Administrative Court (Oulun hallinto-oikeus) – ECLI:FI:OULHAO:2011:11.0375.25
  • Rovaniemi Administrative Court (Rovaniemen hallinto-oikeus) – ECLI:FI:ROVHAO:2011:11.0373.25
  • Turku Administrative Court (Turun hallinto-oikeus) – ECLI:FI:TURHAO:2011:11.0293.15
  • Vaasa Administrative Court (Vaasan hallinto-oikeus) – ECLI:FI:VAAHAO:2011:11.0371.25
  • Åland Islands Administrative Court (Ahvenanmaan hallinto-oikeus) – ECLI:FI:AALHAO:2011:11.0372.25

Insurance Court (Vakuutusoikeus) – ECLI:FI:VAKO:2016:3003

Labour Court (Työtuomioistuin) – ECLI:FI:TT:2016:128

Market Court (Markkinaoikeus) – ECLI:FI:MAO:2010:595

Related links

Link opens in new windowFinlex – the national regulatory databank

Last update: 11/08/2022

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Sweden

Sweden is not yet in a position to implement ECLI.

Last update: 05/12/2023

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - England and Wales

While no final decision on whether to implement the European Case Law Identifier has yet been made, the United Kingdom is considering options.

Last update: 30/01/2017

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Northern Ireland

While no final decision on whether to implement the European Case Law Identifier has yet been made, the United Kingdom is considering options.

Last update: 29/08/2018

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.

European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) - Scotland

While no final decision on whether to implement the European Case Law Identifier has yet been made, the United Kingdom is considering options.

Last update: 04/05/2020

The national language version of this page is maintained by the respective Member State. The translations have been done by the European Commission service. Possible changes introduced in the original by the competent national authority may not be yet reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice to see copyright rules for the Member State responsible for this page.