Court users and members of the public can access copies of judgments and sentences handed down by the Supreme Court.
Judgments Bulletin
The Supreme Court produces a fortnightly judgments bulletin, which provides information about recent judgments of the Court of Appeal and Trial Division, and links to the full judgments held on the AustLII website.
Accessing judgments, sentences and summaries
Recent judgments and sentences are published on the AustLII website:
- Court of Appeal judgments and sentences (External link) and
- Trial Division judgments and sentences (External link).
The Court audio webcasts (External link) some judgments and sentences and streams them live. You can also listen to the audio on demand.
Reserved judgments
In some instances, a judgment may be reserved and thus not available to access. Parties who wish to enquire about a delay in the delivery of a reserved judgment of the Court should refer to the protocol for reserved judgments.
Summaries and sentencing remarks
The Supreme Court may also provide judgment summaries for certain cases. These summaries are a guide only and not the official decision of the Court.
A number of unreported judgments, sentencing remarks and judgment summaries dating from the 1950s to the present, can be accessed via the Library catalogue (External link). You can search the judgments index by party name, judge, citation and date. For assistance see the Judgments Search Help page (External link).
Information about the Court's criminal cases and sentencing
The Supreme Court of Victoria also makes available a lot of information about its criminal cases and sentencing, publishing:
- the audio of the sentence (External link) on our website, available in almost every case
- the written reasons for sentence, on Austlii (External link), in almost every matter on the internet and in high profile cases on the homepage of the Supreme Court of Victoria's website
- the fact that a sentence has been handed down on Twitter (External link) and Facebook (External link) with a link to the written reasons and audio in many cases
- written summaries of Court of Appeal criminal appeals including sentence appeals in almost every case
- the written judgment in every Court of Appeal criminal appeal (External link) including sentence appeals (except for suppressed cases)
- Court of Appeal judgments in criminal appeals, including sentence appeals, with pseudonyms to protect victims and facilitate publication when appropriate.
The information has been progressively developed and available for some time to assist the public in understanding the Court's decisions.