Where to find "un-reported cases".

Court decisions not published in the law reports are called “unreported judgments” or “unreported case ”. A law report is a record of a judicial decision on a point of law which sets a precedent/case law. Not all decisions taken in a court of law set a precedent, however interesting they may be in terms of the facts of the case or its consequences. A decision is only reportable if lays down a new principle of law, or changes or clarifies the existing law .

Citing unreported case as an authority in support of facts or decision is not prohibited but unreported cases have less persuasive power compare to reported cases. Unlike to reported cases found in law reports, unreported cases are not covered in law reports, they can be found by;

Visiting a court where unreported case determined. This is one of the ways to find unreported cases by visiting the court where unreported case was determined or a physical library of a specific court where unreported case determined .

Visiting court’s website or law database, development of ICT has changed a lot of things particularly court services. Now days a person from any part of the world, through ICT’s devices, can access court’s website to get unreported cases, to file a case, to make notification to court etc.

Purchasing a pamphlet copy of decision from court, a person interested to unreported case may find it by visiting court and purchase a pamphlet containing case records. In civil cases only parties to case have right to free copy of a judgment, other observes have to pay for it.

In Tanzania there is various court’s websites which publish court’s decision of various courts in hierarchy, The Judiciary of Tanzania’s website  and Law Reform Commission of Tanzania’s website  are among public websites which publish court’s decision of various courts in Tanzania. Other websites like Tanzlii  and Tanzanianweb  also posts various court decisions of various courts in Tanzania.