Wikipedia talk:Notability (law)/Archive 1

proposed revision of the lead
Here is a proposed revision of the lead to model it after WP:MUSIC: This page provides a guideline of how the concept of notability applies to topics related to law, including cases, judges, and courts. The guideline is centred around common law jurisdictions, and may not be wholly adaptable to articles on civil law. Failure to satisfy these guidelines is not a criterion for speedy deletion. While failure to indicate notability does render the article vulnerable to speedy deletion under criterion A7, this may be avoided by a mere claim to significance, requiring a full proposed deletion or Article for Deletion to evaluate (per WP:V and N)) whether the claim is true. Andrew Gradman talk/WP:Hornbook 15:38, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Works fine for me! Ironholds (talk) 15:43, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

State court cases
I mostly agree with the Court cases, but the first condition is an issue. Many precedent cases were set in District Courts, Courts of Appeal, or state courts. I think that it really should be based on historical precedent and information available. Geoff Plourde (talk) 19:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm slightly confused by what you mean. The guideline doesn't state that a case must fulfil all those conditions - only any one of those conditions. A case that sets precedent in appeals courts or those courts of first instance which can set precedent is still notable. I will tweak the wording to make it clear that only one condition needs to be fulfilled for something to be considered notable.Ironholds (talk) 19:23, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I must be having vision problems, missed the clause. Geoff Plourde (talk) 19:56, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I only just stuck the "it must fulfil any one of these clauses" in a few minutes ago in reply to your concern. Thanks for the constructive criticism: spotting flaws like that before it gets to the Wikipedia: space is why comments from WP:LAW members are useful :). Ironholds (talk) 19:59, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

How to handle a summary order of the highest court in a jurisdiction
The policy current states that these don't merit articles. I would propose two amendments --
 * 1) Summary orders may redirect to an article on the lower court's opinion if that has merited its own article. (duh.)
 * 2) Over at WP:SCOTUS, they've got a Lists of United States Supreme Court cases by volume, and the feeling there is that every case on the list should have an article, simply so that every case has been accounted for. It's helpful to have a stub for summary orders, just to know that the case wasn't important.  I believe that WP:SCOTUS is the only "jurisdiction" where this argument has been raised.  What are your thoughts on this?

Andrew Gradman talk/WP:Hornbook 20:21, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest that the summary orders there should be redirected to a section on the case in the lower court where the summary order is discussed. It is not worth having two-line articles just for the sake of completeness when the information would be far better as a section in an article on the central case. So yes, an amendment would be "summary orders should be redirected to an article on the case in the lower court, if that case passes the notability guideline". Ironholds (talk) 20:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * But if the central case isn't notable, you would not support creating a stub just to indicate, "In X v. Y, the United States Supreme Court issued a summary order declining to hear an appeal of the case Y v. X" ?
 * Good heavens, I fear that I may be in the presence of a deletionist. Andrew Gradman talk/WP:Hornbook 21:14, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not a strong deletionist. I'd classify myself as technically a deletionist (I'm not an inclusionist) in the same way that the Labour Party are technically left-wing. Besides, my above point is closer to the mergist philosophy. And no, I would not support the creation of that sort of article. Essentially my stance is "Summary Orders of the SCOTUS should be redirected to the article on the case in the lower court, providing that the case passes the requirements of the Law notability guidelines. Ironholds (talk) 22:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I suggest that we have articles on each volume of the US Reporter, and have sections on published summmary opinions, or just link to wikisource. Geoff Plourde (talk) 01:45, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * We already have Lists of United States Supreme Court cases by volume, which includes listings from each volume of the Reporter. I agree with your suggestion, with an amendment. For Summary Opinions on cases with articles, the Summary Opinion is redirected to a section of the article on the case that covers it. For those without articles or who don't merit articles, a cross-wiki link to a copy of the Opinion on Wikisource. Ironholds (talk) 01:52, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * These are both great suggestions, regarding SCOTUS cases that are summary orders of non-notable lower court cases. Here's a workable synthesis:  The Wikipedia article for these cases is a redirect to the proper page of Lists of United States Supreme Court cases by volume (optionally, to an anchor inserted at the proper line).  And the text that appears there is indeed a link to WikiSource, with a caption indicating the summary order disposition of the case.
 * This is probably exactly what both of you just said, so in that case I'm agreeing with it. Andrew Gradman talk/WP:Hornbook 01:58, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I suggest that in cases where there is no article on the case that the Summary Order covers - where there is, the SO redirects to that case. This gives context to the SO, particularly because (ideally) the article on the main case would have a link to the wikisource entry. The best of both worlds, as it were. Ironholds (talk) 02:03, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think we just said the same thing. If there IS a notable lower court case, we redirect to that case; these are the easy cases. If there is no such notable lower court case (or if it has not been written yet), that's where we redirect to the list, and modify the corresponding line of the list to 1) contain a link to wikisource, and 2) mention the summary disposition of the case, perhaps with a redlink to the case that was being appealed. Andrew Gradman talk/WP:Hornbook 02:11, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Ahh, gotcha. Could we not just create a cross-wiki link in the redirect instead of redirecting it to the Reporter section, to then be directed to Wikisource? So the case would be a soft redirect to the Wikisource entry
 * I guess I'm not really familiar with how Transwiki links work. The advantages of going to the reporter first is that it gives us an opportunity to put a tiny little "gloss" on the case (e.g., provide a redlink to the lower court case, and explain why the SC case does not merit a WP article).  My impression is that in many of these SC cases, the lower court case will be notable and an article on it just won't have been written yet, so we want to give people an opportunity to do that.  Andrew Gradman talk/WP:Hornbook 02:17, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Works for me, but we can't really put a note about why there isn't a case in the Reporter article - we try to avoid self-referencing. Ironholds (talk) 02:20, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, that makes sense. We can just include a wikilink to whatever the Supreme Court terminology is for summary order.  Andrew Gradman talk/WP:Hornbook 02:41, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Judges
Could we get a brief note of what constitutes a non temporary judge? Geoff Plourde (talk) 02:37, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * A judge who has been appointed to make up for a deficiency (example: Judge X of the Family Divison has to go on maternity leave, We'll boost this County Court judge up for eight months while she pops a sprog and recovers) or, possibly, I'd think about including part-time judges in that as well. I note in the Nandor Vadas AfD you've argued that United States magistrate judges should be considered automatically notable. They're not covered by the current notability guideline draft - would you like to chip in with a) why you think they're automatically notable and b) how we can weave this in? Ironholds (talk) 02:58, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The fact that magistrate judges serve for terms is moot, because even state supreme court judges serve for terms. Their jurisdiction also is important. In rural areas, all matters are automatically delegated to a magistrate judge for the entirety of the case. I would say this makes this makes rural magistrates automatically notable. Geoff Plourde (talk) 05:02, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * But why? The same is true of County Court judges in the United Kingdom, or even Justices of the Peace. Why is the fact that they're qualified to deal with an entire case something that makes them automatically notable? Why does it suggest 1) that they're important people and 2) that verifiable, third-party information can be found to create an article for them? The standard that a judge be a member of a court that can set binding precedent is a more reasonable one, because it limits it to those judges who can a) have a full impact on the law and b) make decisions of import, making it likely that there'll be coverage. Ironholds (talk) 05:20, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * After much consideration, I suspect that I am very much in the minority on magistrate judges. Can you add your brilliantly concise definition as a reference to "non-temporary"? Geoff Plourde (talk) 02:10, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeedy, I'll add it in a second. Ironholds (talk) 04:38, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

The common law of AfD
In slightly whimsical fashion, I've added a section where we can aggregate legal AfDs. I think it's important that AfDs are available to help us get a sense for the existing consensus on how AfDs are applied to legal cases. My particular choice of methods may rub the wrong way, but something like this needs to exist. Andrew Gradman talk/WP:Hornbook 02:45, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * AfDs are not common law, except as relates to the subject articles. A case on apples is never considered to be applicable to oranges and vice versa. Geoff Plourde (talk) 04:41, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I've reverted (per WP:BRD); I think that's probably a bad idea. Firstly, AfD doesn't really work on precedent. I nominated four articles on the same thing for deletion (think "list of events in year X"); three went one way, the fourth (later closed) went another. No reference was made at any point to the other AfDs, or to a fifth AfD on an almost-identical topic (which went another way - delete, delete, delete, keep, no consensus). Secondly, you're arbitrarily establishing what The Cases are based on a recent selection on AfDs, and essentially saying that these AfDs represent consensus, when in some cases the AfDs had as few as two votes. Thirdly, very few of the AfDs have anything that could be described as an obiter or ratio - most are simply "the decision was delete", with no reference to the discussion that influenced the closing admin. Fourthly you're turning admins into judges, allowing them to set some kind of influence on future AfD decisions, and fifth - we've used those AfDs in drafting the guideline. Since they're already weaved in, citing them as part of some common law is hopefully moot - indeed, the only time at which the AfD would be citeable and the guideline would not is if the AfD argument had been eliminated from the guideline, either by consensus from discussion or because it clashes with other AfD decisions used to make the guideline; either way, in that situation the other AfD argument is most certainly not something that should be cited. Ironholds (talk) 04:49, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow, I didn't mean to ... um, I totally agree that AfD's aren't "common law" or in any way binding, or even that they're well-reasoned. I just think that, once in a while, they're good examples of how people have applied their beliefs in concrete situations.  I think it would be nice if every law AfD were aggregated in one place, even if it's a separate page, so we can say, "Hey Ironholds, remember how we handled the XYZ situation?  Doesn't this remind you of that?" Andrew Gradman talk/WP:Hornbook 05:24, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * That'd work, but it shouldn't really be part of the guideline. What's the "wow" about? Don't take my rather long counter-argument as a form of censure - I appreciate any suggestion as to how to make this guideline more useful. Maybe if we had a listing in Wikiproject:Law somewhere? Ironholds (talk) 05:28, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I believe a link to the WP:DELSORT page about law (if any) should suffice.  Sandstein   10:36, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Some thoughts on "highest court of a particular jurisdiction"
A court case is considered notable if it was heard in the highest court of a particular jurisdiction for more than a summary hearing. While I'm quite pleased with the overall guidelines, this particular line needs some fleshing out. I think a minimum level of jurisdiction should be set as I don't believe each and every case that reaches the Kalamazoo City Court to be notable. I think the term "jurisdiction" should be defined and a minimum level of jurisdiction be established so that the above line can take effect without becoming contentious (such as the "highest amateur level" line in WP:ATHLETE). I realise levels of jurisdiction do not always synchronize across political borders, so this is another thing to keep in mind when fleshing out this line. I'm not a lawyer so if I'm misreading anything about these guidelines feel free to correct me.  Them From  Space  06:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The Kalamazoo City Court is not the highest court, therefore unless the decision moves up, it would fail the notability test. Geoff Plourde (talk) 08:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Themfromspace: "jurisdiction" refers to a particular legal system. For example: the highest court in the jurisdiction of England and Wales is the House of Lords. The highest court in the jurisdiction of California is the Supreme Court of California - that sort of thing. Unless Kalamazoo has its own legal system, and the highest court in that legal system is the City one, the example doesn't really work. I could replace "jurisdiction" with "legal system" if that would help? Ironholds (talk) 09:06, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I think "jurisdiction" is better, as it takes into account that a country (particularly in federal systems such as the U.S. or Switzerland) can have one legal systems but many jurisdictions. In Switzerland, for example, there are cantonal and federal jurisdictions, as well as separate (to a point) criminal, civil and administrative court structures.  Sandstein   10:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for correcting me. This phrase makes much more sense now.  Them From  Space  17:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I've changed that phrase to "the subject of a reasoned opinion of a jurisdiction's highest court" without intending to change its meaning. But in many European jurisdictions, some proceedings before some courts (including high courts) are entirely in writing, so "hearing" isn't really applicable. The distinction between reasoned opinion and summary order is perhaps more useful. (Even so, many high courts dismiss many complaints on purely formal grounds, e.g. lack of jurisdiction or failure to pay court fees, and such dismissals should perhaps be explicitly excluded.)  Sandstein   10:30, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * "reasoned opinion" - I like that phrasing. Some European courts indeed do that - the ECJ comes to mind when giving interpretative advice to the Lords. Any other comments on whether it should be expanded, tweaked, what, or do you think the rest of it works fine? Ironholds (talk) 10:37, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * On the whole, I think the proposal strikes the right balance, but I am not sure whether we need a guideline on this topic at all. The notability of legal topics seems to generate little controversy compared to pop culture topics. If adopted, we would need to bring this page and WP:POLITICIAN as applicable to judges (originally written by me) into conformity.   Sandstein   11:11, 23 August 2009 (UTC) - Also, most supreme courts, judges and cases will meet WP:GNG anyway, if only through commentary in law reviews, media and so forth, so I am not sure whether this guideline is strictly necessary.   Sandstein   11:13, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * A problem is found, particularly with cases, where the cases are important, yet could very well fails WP:GNG. If X v Y set precedent in a particular area of contract law, fine, but unless it is important precedent an academic is not likely to dedicate more than a paragraph in a book to it, which fails the "substantial coverage" requirement. You'd be surprised how badly the judiciary are covered by the media, at least in England and Wales - I found it an absolute trial to get the articles on many High Court judges to a reasonable standard. It's a lot easier when they die - obituaries are a godsend :p. what do you mean by "WP:POLITICIAN as applicable to judges"? Ironholds (talk) 11:23, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:POLITICIAN currently considers "people who have held international, national or first-level sub-national political office, including ... judges" to be notable. That's somewhat at odds with the current draft.  Sandstein   17:07, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) "the subject of a reasoned opinion of a jurisdiction's highest court" is fantastic.   Sandstein  , you must not be a lawyer, to write like that!
 * 2) Since I also feel that overinclusion of court cases is harmless (compared to other topic areas), I am sympathetic that this section is unnecessary.  However, in the end I support it, because non-legally-trained editors can get trigger-happy at AfD, and this would help familiarize them with the thought-process that we apply when we join the discussion; my hope is that it will make them more tolerant.
 * So we should keep the guideline, but  Sandstein   I hope you stick around and continue giving feedback; for example, it sounds like you'd have an opinion on this recent thread.  Andrew Gradman talk/WP:Hornbook 14:39, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, I am a lawyer, but from the civil law tradition. Thanks, but I do not quite understand what you mean to say in that thread.  Sandstein   17:07, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Civil law? Excellent! Can you think of anything we could do to harmonise this guideline so it works for both common and civil law systems? Ironholds (talk) 17:31, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I have suggested such adjustments with my latest edit. The issue with certain proceedings in civil law countries being in writing only is already addressed, and the general role and function of judges, courts and cases is very similar in both traditions. An important distinction is that courts in common law countries tend to be courts of general jurisdiction, while civil law countries tend to have more separate civil/criminal/administrative courts. Also, technically, civil law courts cannot set "binding" precedent, because court decisions are not formally considered sources of law in that tradition, but even in these systems, which lack a formal stare decisis rule the precedents set by the highest courts are generally followed as a matter of fact. I've proposed a formulation that takes these distinctions into account.  Sandstein   22:00, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed, that was my understanding of civil law systems, hence why I felt the precedent-based approach unfortunately made it incompatible with civil law. The changes are great; I support including them in whatever "final draft" we get. Ironholds (talk) 02:40, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:POLITICIAN
Suggestions to bring these in line, then? Judges aren't really "political" offices, although I appreciate in some places (several US Supreme Courts, for example) they are elected. Thoughts on how we can bring them in line? My suggestion would be simply eliminating the "judges" bit from WP:POLITICIAN, since all judges covered by that work under the current guideline. Ironholds (talk) 02:45, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Good idea, although some of the judges in the US qualify as politicians. Geoff Plourde (talk) 03:44, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Through their election, or is there something I'm missing? Ironholds (talk) 03:45, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
 * A lot of European judges would qualify under WP:POLITICIAN too. I've boldly added that.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  00:47, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

A7
The A7 speedy deletion criterion applies narrowly, and cases and other legal items do not fall under its purview. Accordingly, I am removing the mention of A7 from the intro. UnitedStatesian (talk) 01:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Avoid overuse of notable
Refer to what you are really doing here -- deciding what topics related to law and legal matters have enough significance to have a Wikipedia article using objective criteria.

Constantly using notable without reference to inclusion criteria and WP:SNG is going to confuse new users who think something else is being defined. patsw (talk) 02:05, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Good point; I'm tweaking the text a bit to make it clear that we're defining what notability is for legal cases, not directly applying WP:N. Ironholds (talk) 07:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Is there a need for Notability (law)?
I am not sure there is a need for this guideline at all. It seems to me to be one of the best documented subject areas in Wikipedia: the number of books which comprise of commentary about legal cases surely indicates that the General notability guideline is by far the best indicator as to whether a case is suitable for inclusion as a standalone article? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:29, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think this springs from a hypothetical vacuum. It would be helpful if the proponents of this guideline could offer recent examples of where the mere mention of WP:GNG did not create a consensus for including or excluding an article but led to editing disputes -- which could have been avoided if there an objective consensus-derived subject-specific Wikipedia notability guideline for legal articles in place. patsw (talk) 13:00, 25 August 2009 (UTC)


 * this and this, for example, are AfDs decided for reasons not covered in the GNG which would be covered by this guideline. Ironholds (talk) 13:23, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

All joking aside, I have to agree with Gavin. I cannot imagine a single instance where the presence of this guideline, as currently written, would lead to a different AfD outcome than would result from the application of WP:N alone (but would love to see AfD examples that counter my assertion if anyone has them). Accordingly, this proposal seems to be a pretty good example of WP:CREEP. I don't think there is much chance of developing the consensus required to make this a guideline. UnitedStatesian (talk) 03:17, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Why do we need courts anyway? Doesn't everyone agree on being equitable? patsw (talk) 23:09, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I have a legal counter to that joke, actually, hah: everyone knows we do this in the common law but that in equity. Ironholds (talk) 00:29, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Even if it won't "lead to a different AfD outcome", it can serve other purposes, e.g. educating non-legal Wikipedians into the standards that should be applied to legal articles. Often, I make a late arrival into an AfD that had previously been dominated by non-legally-trained editors who felt that an article was not notable based on WP:N, and it's difficult to express why I feel the article should belong.  Usually I end up turning the tide, but I have to recruit tons of people from WP:LAW.  With this policy in place, non-legally-trained editors will be able to make these determinations autonomously  Andrew Gradman talk/WP:Hornbook 05:33, 27 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Although I've contributed to this draft, I to currenty do not see a pressing need to expand WP:GNG in this way. In fact, almost all articles it currently applies to would probably also meet WP:GNG.  Sandstein   09:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't see any application of WP:CREEP here. If there's a consensus about what articles ought to appear, let the discussion happen now rather than spread over several AfD discussions.  The guideline is also helpful to allow an article to obtain a quick Keep.  SNG's are not always a deletionist's friend. patsw (talk) 13:33, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The advantages of letting people know which kinds of cases are likely to survive AfD based on past AfD decisions outweighs the danger of CREEP, for me. Notability of court cases is not a trivial subject; we should give people some help. - Dank (push to talk) 16:25, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Removal of redirects
Currently, although this document is only a draft, and may never become an actual guideline or policy, there are several redirects in the WP namespace to it:


 * WP:CASES and WP:Cases
 * WP:JUDGE
 * WP:COURTS

The presence of these redirects implies that this document is a finished product, rather than a stake in the ground for discussion purposes. It is already being cited in AfDs. In WP:Articles for deletion/Stan Bernstein, once editor cited to both WP:COURTS and WP:JUDGE, apparently as though this were a working guideline.

I propose deleting these redirects without prejudice until such time as this document becomes an accepted guideline or policy. Any objections? TJRC (talk) 01:05, 5 November 2009 (UTC)


 * It's been more than two weeks with no objection, so I'll be taking this to WP:RfD. TJRC (talk) 20:35, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

High Court judges
In the thread Wikipedia talk:Notability (law)/Archive 1 it is suggested that it can difficult to find coverage of judges of the High Court. In fact I am told there is consensus that a judge of the High Court invariably satisfies criteria 1 of WP:ANYBIO because he is always either a knight or a peer (Williams, Learning the Law, 11th Ed, p 200). They probably satisfy WP:POLITICIAN on grounds that the territorial jurisdiction of the High Court includes the whole of England and Wales. James500 (talk) 12:28, 26 October 2014 (UTC)