APA 7th Referencing Style Guide

APA is not designed for referencing New Zealand legal materials.

Law students

Law students at AUT should use the New Zealand Law Style Guide for referencing law materials.

Use the AUT Library Law subject guide, which contains Legal Referencing & Citation Tools and the New Zealand Law Style Guide,

Non-law students

• Students studying other disciplines can use APA to cite the occasional Act or Court Case
• This APA Referencing Style Guide gives AUT interpretations on APA for New Zealand legal resources
• You may include a URL in your reference, but it is not advised to link to a Library database such as Lexis Advance.  A URL is not necessary if the legal information is easy for your reader to find online.

• An Act (also called a Statute) is a law passed by a legislative body
• The date is part of the title of the Act
• New Zealand Acts do not require the country to be added 

If citing overseas legislation, place an abbreviated form of the jurisdiction in which the Act was passed in round brackets following the year. If there is no commonly used abbreviation for that jurisdiction, or where it will add clarity, write the jurisdiction out in full. (Adapted from the NZ Law Style Guide 3rd ed.)

Reference format

Reference examples

In-text citation

In text citation with sections in  Acts

• Use s for a section or ss for sections
• Section numbers are not included in the reference list

• A Bill is a draft of a new law or an amendment to a current law, presented to Parliament for discussion
• The date is part of the title of the Bill 
• Include the Bill number for information on the stage of the bill in Parliament

Reference format

Reference examples

In-text citation

Bills have clauses rather than sections:

• Use the abbreviation cl for a clause or cls for clauses
• Clause numbers are not included in the reference list

Most regulations and rules, and many notices, orders, determinations, and warrants, are Legislative Instruments, previously known as Statutory Regulations. 

Reference format

Reference examples

Citing clauses in in-text citation

• Use the abbreviation cl for a clause or cls for clauses
• Clause numbers are not included in the reference list

Reported cases

• Reported cases are court and tribunal decisions that have been reported or published in a report series such as the New Zealand Law Reports

Unreported cases

• Unreported cases are court or tribunal decisions that have not been published in a law report series
• Use the official neutral citation if available. Neutral citations are taken from the original copy of the case
• If a neutral citation is not provided, use the case file number

Reported

Reference format

Reference example 

Unreported with neutral citation

Neutral citations identify judgments independently of any report series, and cite only parties, year of judgment, court and judgment number.

Reference format

Reference example

Unreported without official neutral citation

Reference format

• If there is no official neutral citation and the case is unreported, cite using the file number citation format.

Reference example

• Parties (people or organisations involved) are sometimes substituted by a letter eg. X if a name is suppressed.
• Abbreviations for a law report or court where the case was heard can be found in Legal Citations of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Legal commentaries provide up-to-date information on subject areas or law.  These include online texts, journal articles and legal encyclopedias. Treat as an e-book, print book or article.

Reference format (for online updating commentary)

Reference example 

Reference format

Online

Print

Reference example from the New Zealand Parliament website

• Click the Metadata link on the top right corner of the webpage to find the page number  

Reference example from the print copy

Print report

Online report