Style Guides for Judgment Writing in the High Court of Lesotho

Submitted by sehapi on 06 October 2015

STYLE GUIDES FOR JUDGMENT WRITING IN THE HIGH COURT OF LESOTHO

Front page

Heading
Parties
Judgment
Coram
Assessors
Dates
Summary
Annotations

Body

Paragraph
Citation of books
Citation of cases
Citation of statutes
Rules
Quotations
Citation of Judges
Footnotes
Language

Last page

End of judgment
Counsel

FRONT PAGE

1.1 Heading

Case number must be at the top right corner of the front page

Title of the Court must be capitalised, bolded, centred and be underlined

The words, ‘in the matter between” must follow immediately after the title of the Court with 1.5 single line spacing.

1.2 Names of parties

The names of the parties must be capitalised and be bolded. There should be single line spacing between the names of the parties.

In criminal cases, the parties must be capitalised, bolded and be aligned to the left. Where there are multiple accused, they should be stated as such and in the order they appear in the indictment. The names should be aligned to the left and the number of accused be aligned to the right.

e.g.

Rex

Ab Accused 1

Cd Accused 2

Ef Accused 3

1.3 Judgement

There should be double line spacing between the names of the parties and judgement. Judgment must be centred and in capital letters.

1.4 Coram

There must be double line spacing between Judgement and Coram. The Coram must be aligned to the left side of the page and be bolded.

1.5 Assessors

1.6 Dates

There must be 1.5 lines spacing between judgment and dates of hearing. The line spacing between the date of hearing and date of judgment must also be 1.5.

1.7 Summary

The summary must contain the principles and law. In writing the summary, hyphen and a space must be used to separate points. The summary must be italicised.

1.8Annotation

There must be a list of cases, statutes and books cited in the body of the judgment. All the annotations must have proper references for ease of location.

1.9 Font and Font size

Font: Times New Roman

Font size: 14

BODY

2.1 Font and font size and line spacing

Font: Times New Roman

Font size: 14

Line spacing: 1.5

2.2 Paragraphs

There must be numbered paragraphs for ease of reference and each paragraph must contain one point.

All paragraphs must be justified.

2.3 Citation of books

Author and title of the book must appear in the body of the paragraph. Pages and publications must be shown in the footnotes. The author and title of the book must be in bold.

2.4 Citation of cases

The names of the parties must appear in the body and be bolded. The citation must appear in the footnotes

2.5 Citation of statutes

The name of the statute must appear in the body and be bolded. The section, number and date of publication must be shown in the footnotes

2.6 Rules

When the High Court Rules are cited for the first time, their full name should be stated and then a small ‘r’ should be placed in brackets. When the rules are cited again, the small ‘r’ will be used instead of the full name of the rules. E.g. High Court Rule 8-(r)

2.7 Quotations

Quotations must be indented on both sides, italicised and be placed in inverted commas. If the Court wants to add emphasis in a quote, it should bold the word or sentence that is being emphasised. The word “my emphasis” is preferred.

2.8 Citation of Judges

In citing Judges in the text, one should avoid using words like, “as he then was” or “the late Justice”.

2.9 Footnotes

Footnotes should be brief and must show pages, publications, publishers and gazette number, etc...

2.10 Language

British English must be used at all times and American English must be discouraged.

Latin phrases could be used if and when it is necessary to do so.

Last page

3.1 End of Judgement

There must be double line spacing between the end of Judgement and the name of the Judge.

The name of the judge must be in bold, underlined and centred. The title of Judge must appear under the underlined name.

e.g. NAME OF THE JUDGE

JUDGE

3.2 Counsel

There must be double line spacing between the name of the Judge and the names of Counsel. The names of Counsel must be bold and there must be 1.5 lines spacing between the names of Counsel.