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COPY READING TRAINING AND REFERENCE MANUAL
This document is meant to provide and outline the laid down in-house rules, guidelines and standards in proofreading of the Kenya Law Reports. These rules and guidelines may also be applied to other in-house publications. As an editorial content provider, Kenya Law Reports recognizes the need to adhere to high professional standards acknowledged by the publishing industry, peers and most importantly, consumers of our products. This has been achieved through good judgment and a commitment to our editorial principles, practices and process. What is copy-reading? This in simpler terms is the word for word comparison between two documents. This may be a hard copy against a hard copy or on the other hand a soft copy against a hard copy. In our case, we would like to restrict ourselves to judgments and rulings. The two documents in our case are the original judgment and the typed version. It has often been said that a good copy-reader must posses certain qualities. He or she must have the eye of an eagle and the touch of a butterfly! This simply means he or she must be able to detect mistakes on the document with precision. However, there is no general freedom for a copy reader to correct grammar on the original judgment or ruling. Therefore any change to a word or punctuation in a judgment should not be done by a copyreader. The copyreader is to refer the apparent error(s) to the Law Reporter or the Editor of the Kenya Law Reports. The said reporter or editor will make the change and give his/her name against the correction
What are we checking for in the judgment or ruling?
- Parties/case citation
- Coram
- Court
- Delivery date
- Title case or capitals and Lower case
- Italics and roman types
- Grammar
- Quotes and Indents
- Underlining
- Full stops and abbreviations
- Introduction of Judgment/Ruling
- Brackets
- Proof correction
- Case history
- Extractions [ Ref: Appendix 1 ] We are going to outline every issue above in detail. Go into detail by using simplified examples and illustrations. This will enable a trainee copy reader or a seasoned one understand the in-house set rules, guidelines, standards and style with ease.
- Parties/Case Citation (a) General Rule As a general rule, KLR has a set standard which must to be adhered to. This is for ease of reference. Use of the surname is paramount especially for the case title. This has proved effective especially during a case search. Examples and illustrations:- · John Kariuki v Mark Otieno should be cited as Kariuki v Otieno. The other aspect in citation is the omission of titles such as ‘Mr’, ‘The’, ‘Hon’, ‘Dr’ as part of the citation. Examples and illustrations:- · The Hon Joseph Kinywa v Standard Group Ltd should be cited as Kinywa v Standard Group Ltd.
Exception Where a matter is not on a substantive point of admiralty law, for instance, where the decision is on an interlocutory application such as one filed to strike out proceedings, the case should be given its full citation. Example:- · Owners of the motor Vessel “Lillian S” v Caltex Oil Ltd , should be cited as such. (e) Judicial Review Cases These are court proceedings where a judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision or action made by a public or administrative body. An aggrieved party will move to court as an ex parte party seeking leave to file proceedings against a public body or institution. General Rule All judicial review cases are to be cited as: Republic v [name of body/person against whom judicial review orders are sought] ex parte [name of the persons who brought the proceedings] In other instances where the case is brought against more than one body/person, the term “& others” should be placed after the name of the first party sued, eg Republic v Ministry of Planning & others ex parte Kimenyi. Where there are interested parties involved, they should be treated as being together with the applicant, eg Republic v Ministry of Planning ex parte Kimenyi & 2 others. (f) Reference to Previously Cited Cases When a judge is referring to a previously cited authority he/she may use a short-form reference or repeat the full citation to the case, followed by a “ supra ” or “ id .” The shortened reference should be italicized and the words supra or id should be put in circular brackets and italicized eg the kiraitu case ( supra ). The rule here is that we do not italicize the words “the” and “case” in that reference. There are instances when a judge makes reference to a popular case. Here popular names for cases will be used eg the Goldenberg case. Though the name “Goldenberg” does not appear in the actual case citation, it should be italicized. The same rule as above applies, the words “the” and “case” should not be italicized.
- Coram/Bench Coram or bench is the composition of the court that wrote and/or delivered the judgment or ruling. KLR restricts itself to publishing only Court of Appeal and High Court decisions. Therefore in this section we will restrict ourselves to Judges of Appeal and Puisne Judges. (Judges of the High Court) Examples and illustrations:- (a). Omolo JA (Judge of Appeal) (b). Omolo & Bosire JJ A (Judges of Appeal) (c). Omolo, O’Kubasu & Bosire JJ A (Judges of Appeal) (d). Omolo Ag JA (Acting Judge of Appeal) (e). Ochieng J (Puisne Judge) or (Judge of the High Court). (f). Ochieng & Muchelule JJ (Puisne Judges) or (Judges of the High Court). (g). Muchelule Ag J (Acting Puisne Judge) or (Acting Judge of the High Court). (h). Ochieng & Muchelule Ag JJ (Acting Puisne Judges) or (Acting Judges of the High Court). It is our rule to omit full stops between initials. This explains the spacing between letters JJ A above.
- Court Station Every judgment/ ruling originates from a specific court station. This is what we also refer to as the geographical jurisdiction. A case is filed, heard and determined at a particular station which must be clearly stated in the judgment or ruling. Examples and illustrations:- (a). Court of Appeal at Nairobi. (b). Court of Appeal at Mombasa. (c). High Court at Nairobi. (d). High Court at Nairobi (Commercial & Tax Division, Milimani). (e). High Court at Mombasa.
word should be written with its first letter in upper-case and the remaining letters in lower-case. Examples: i) Names of gods Allah Buddha God Jehovah Jesus Vishnu Yahweh ii) Titles of persons Doctor Watson His Excellency His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh Mrs Jones Senior Assistant Editor The Editor This does not apply where the words are not titles; eg Watson is a doctor, Philip is a duke. Names referring to more than one species (eg, horse or cat) are always with lowercase. Note: To capitalize also means putting words in title case. Capitalize the second word in a compound word. If it is a noun or proper adjective or the words have equal weight. These words are also referred to as cross reference. Examples:- · Pre-Microsoft Software. · Run-Time. Lowercase conjunctions regardless of the length. The exception to this rule applies only when they are used other than the first word in a sentence. Examples:- · and · or · nor · but · for
Lowercase the second word if it is another part of a speech or a participle modifying word. Examples:- · How-to · Take-off In grammar, infinitive is the name for a certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual (traditional) description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle “to” ie How “to” Format Your Disk. These words should always be put in lowercase. Examples of infinitives:- · do · to do · be · to be (b) KLR Style The following rules shall apply to words that are to appear in title case, lower case or capitals regardless of where they may appear in the sentence. We do not advice for the use of capitals. A word is either in lowercase or title case. In instances where a word is in capitals, then it should be changed into lowercase or title case as the case maybe. We advice for the use of words such as ‘the’ and ‘a’ as a guiding factor where one is not sure. Examples and illustrations:- · the Court, the Company, the Manager, the Judge, the Magistrate, etc. · a court, a company, a manager, a judge, a magistrate, etc. Apart from the example above, we have words and terms that are strictly supposed to be title cased. These include legal documents, references to official titles of individuals and nouns referring to names of people, places and institutions. The list below gives examples of words and phrases in each of the aforementioned categories. Note: The lists are by no means exhaustive and they are provided merely as a guideline. (i) Legal Documents Legal Notice Notice of Motion
lower court superior court trial court
- Italics and Roman Type General Rule The general rule is that words that are not in English should be put in italics. However we also have English words which must be italicized. Note: The lists below are by no means exhaustive and they are provided merely as a guideline. i) Latin Words a la mode ad hoc ad vatorem bona fide carte blanche coup d’etat de facto de novo en masse ex gratia ex officio ex parte habeas corpus in situ infra inter alia locis standi mutatis mutandis non est factum per diem per diem pro forma pro rata, sine die status quo supra vide vis-à-vis viz. ii) Swahili and native language terms Local or vernacular words must be italicized, eg:- askari fundi matatu mtama ng’ombe panga pombe shamba iii) Cases Cited within Judgments : Said Bin Seif v Sheriff Mohamed Shatry. iv) Book Titles : Halsbury’s Laws of England, Mulla on the Code of Civil Procedure, Black’s Law Dictionary, An outline of Judicial Review in Kenya. v) Names of Periodicals : Daily Nation, the Standard, Weekly News, Drum. The title of an article appearing in a periodical should be in roman within quotation marks.
vi) In Botanical, Scientific and Similar Works : genera, species, varieties and diseases should be in italics, eg cannabis sativa (bhang), Agave sisalana (sisal), Colletotrichum coffeanum (Coffee Berry Disease), Helianthus spp, Civettictus Pocock (civet cat). vii) Names of Ships : in this case, print “the” in roman, as it is often uncertain whether “the” is part of the title or not. For example, the King George V ; also put other prefixes in roman, as HMS Dreadnought , ss Usoga , mv Victoria, mv Lillian S. The possessive “s” should also be in roman, eg, the Majestic ’s crew. viii) In Medical Works : such terms as B influenzae, B subtilis, S haemolyticus are usually printed in italic. ix) Works of Art : Piscasso’s Guernica , the Discobolus. x) Film and Play Titles : Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet.
- Grammar There is no general freedom for a copy reader to correct grammar on the original judgment or ruling. Therefore any change to a word or punctuation in a judgment should not be done by a copyreader. The copyreader is to refer the apparent error(s) to the Law Reporter or the Editor of the Kenya Law Reports. The said reporter or editor will make the change and give his/her name against the correction. A good copy reader must be able to detect the slightest of mistakes. These might be omissions or inclusions. Quite frequently – ise and – ize are used interchangeably at the end of certain words. Some words ending in – ise advertise disguise merchandise advise emphasis but misadvise apprise (to inform) emphasize premise chastise emprise prise (open)
memorize recognize theorize mobilize scandalize utilize monopolize scrutinize vaporize moralize secularize victimize nationalize seize (to grasp) unionize naturalize sensitize visualize neutralize sermonize vitalize normalize socialize vocalize optimize solemnize vulgarize
- Quotation Marks and Indentation. (a) Quotation Marks Quotation marks are used to set off and represent exact language (either spoken or written) that has come from somebody else. A copyreader will usually come across quoted material from sources like statutes, judges, texts, speeches, cases etc. The following rules will cover the basic use of quotation marks: (i). Quotation marks always come in pairs. One should not open a quote and fail to close it at the end of the quoted material. Example:- · "The alien spaceship appeared right before my own two eyes." (ii). Capitalize the first letter of a direct quote when the quoted material is a complete sentence. Example:- · Mr Johnson, who was working in his field that morning, said, "The alien spaceship appeared right before my own two eyes." (iii). Do not use capital letters when the quoted material is a fragment or only a piece of the original material’s sentence. Example:- · Although Mr Johnson has seen odd happenings on the farm, he stated that the spaceship "certainly takes the cake" when it comes to unexplainable activity. (iv). If a quotation is interrupted mid sentence do not capitalize the second part of the quotation. · "I didn't see an actual alien being," Mr Johnson said, "but I sure wish I had." (v). Full stops and commas as punctuations, should always come before the final quotation mark.
(b). Indentation This simply means to place text farther to the right to separate it from surrounding text. A normal indent should only be one centimeter farther to the right. An example is illustrated below:- Section 3A of the Civil Procedure Act, which is more generous that rule 3 (4) and rule 8 of the Land Disputes Tribunal Rules as well as rules 1, 2 and 3 (1) of order XLV of the Civil Procedure Rules, states as follows: “Nothing in this Act shall limit or otherwise affect the inherent power of the Court to make such orders as may be necessary for the ends of justice or to prevent abuse of the process of the Court.” Sometimes one might be required to indent what is not necessarily a quote. Here a copy reader must rely solely on the original judgment /ruling in order to make such decisions. Sometimes a text may need further indention. This should be applied accordingly.
- Underlining a) General Rule As a general rule no underlining should be used in the body of a judgment/ruling. This rule must be applied to the typed copy and not the original judgment or ruling. Usually, the original judgment/ruling maintains the underlining. This is mostly used for titles, subtitles, cases cited, books cited, and even for emphasis. (b) Exception There should be no underlining within the text of the judgment or ruling unless the Judge has used it for purposes of emphasis. This is usually obvious where the Judge uses the words “(Emphasis mine)” or “(Underlining mine).” However, even where these phrases are not used, it is for the copyreader to make a judgment, considering the context in which the underlining has been used, whether it is a case of emphasis or it is the underlining of what should otherwise be italicized, eg the title of a case or a text book. 10 Full stops and Abbreviations a) Full stops General Rule : Full stops used between initials are to be omitted. Examples of such words are:-
- Camb LJ- Cambridge Law Journal
- Ch/Ch D – Law Reports, Chancery Division
- CLR – Commonwealth Law Reports
- Cox – Cox Criminal Law Cases
- Cr App R – Criminal Appeal Reports [UK]
- De GF & J – De Gex, Fisher & Jones Chancery Reports
- EA – East Africa Law Reports
- EACA – East Africa Court of Appeal Reports
- F & F – Foster & Finlaysons Reports
- Harv LR- Harvard Law Review
- IR – Irish Reports
- KAR – Kenya Appeal Reports (Hancox Reports)
- KB – Law Reports, King’s Bench Division
- KLR – Kenya Law Reports (also Kenya LR- citation used for the 1970’s volumes)
- KLR (G&F) – Kenya Law Reports, Gender & Family
- KLR (L&E) – Kenya Law Reports, Land & Environment
- LQR- Law Quarterly Review
- MLR- Modern Law Review
- NSWLR – New South Wales Law Reports
- NZLR – New Zealand Law Reports
- QB/QBD – Law Reports, Queen’s Bench Division
- TLR/LTR – Times Law Reports
- US – Law Reports, United States
- WLR – Weekly Law Reports
- WN – Weekly Notes Contextual Abbreviations
- Ag J – Acting Judge of the High Court
- Ag JA – Acting Judge of Appeal
- CA – Court of Appeal; Commissioner of Assize
- Ed – Editor
- Edn – Edition
- Eds – Editors
- HCCC – High Court Civil Case
- HCCRC – High Court Criminal Case
- J – Judge of the High Court
- JA – Judge of Appeal
- JJ – Judges of the High Court
- JJ A – Judges of Appeal
- Misc – Miscellaneous
- NAI – Nairobi
- No – Number
- OS – Originating Summons
- p – Page
- para – Paragraph
- pp – Pages
- R – Republic
- Sch – Schedule
- Sub Leg – Subsidiary Legislation
- UK – United Kingdom
- Vol - Volume Institutions and Associations
- AAK- Architectural Association of Kenya
- ACCU- Anti-Corruption Coalition, Uganda
- ACPU- Anti-Corruption Police Unit
- A-G- Attorney General
- APNAC- African Parliamentarians Network Against Corruption
- APRM- African Peer Review Mechanism
- APSEA- Association of Professional Societies of East Africa
- AUACC- African Union Anti-Corruption Convention
- C&AG- Controller and Auditor General
- CCC- Cabinet Committee on Corruption
- CDF- Constituency Development Fund
- CKRC- Constitution of Kenya Review Commission
- COTU- Central Organization of Trade Unions
- CSO(s)- Civil Society Organization(s)
- DC- District Commissioner
Further use of abbreviations a) Titles before names: Mrs, Mr, Ms, Prof, Dr, Gen, Rep, Sen, St (for Saint) The plural of Mr is Messrs (We invited Messrs. Carter, Lincoln, and Ford.) The plural of Dr is Drs (We consulted Drs Carter, Lincoln, and Ford.) The plural of Mrs is Mmes. In most formal prose, we do not use titles, abbreviated or otherwise, with individuals. Ms Emily Dickinson is simply Emily Dickinson, and after the first use of her full name, Dickinson will do (unless we need Emily to avoid confusion with other Dickinsons). However we must emphasis that this can only be applied to the edit. There should be no changes to the judgment/ruling. The abbreviations Rev and Hon (for Reverend and Honorable) are not, strictly speaking, titles; they are adjectives. In informal language or when we're trying to save space or make a list, we can write Rev Alan B Darling and Hon Francisco Gonzales. In formal text, we would write "the Reverend Alan B Darling" and "the Honorable Francisco Gonzales" (ie, it's not a good idea to abbreviate either Reverend or Honorable when these words are preceded by "the"). Incidentally, we cannot say "We invited the reverend to dinner" and only a cad would invite "the rev" b) Titles after names: JA, J, Sr, Jr, PhD, MD The above are some of the standard abbreviations with full stops. However, KLR does not recommend the use of full stops in abbreviations, and are usually omitted. We also advise against using titles before and after a name at the same time (ie, he can be Dr Nelson Tunoi or Nelson Tunoi, PhD, but he cannot be Dr Nelson Tunoi, PhD). And we do not abbreviate a title that isn't attached to a name: "We went to see the doctor (not dr) yesterday." c) Names of People, Institutions, Objects. General Rule
The first instance in an edit/summary of a case, the full form should be given followed by the abbreviation in brackets. Thereafter the abbreviation can be used in all future occurrences. Note: The examples below are not exhaustive and they are provided merely as a guideline. · Familiar Institutions —United Nations Organization (UNO), Kenyatta University (KU), Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). · Corporations — East Africa Breweries Limited (EABL), Kenya Airways (KQ), Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), · Famous People — Josiah Mwangi Kariuki (JM), John F Kennedy (JFK) · Familiar Objects — Television (TV), Video Camera Recorder (VCR), Compact Disc Read-only Memory (CD-ROM). Notice that United States of America can also be written USA, but US is better with the periods. Also, we can use US as a modifier (the U.S. policy on immigration) but not as a noun (He left the US USA). d) Terms of mathematical units: 15 in, 15 ft, 15 kg, 15 m, 15 lb Generally, you would use these abbreviations only in technical writing. There is a space between the number and the abbreviation. Notice that we do not put an s after such abbreviations even when the plural is indicated. When the term of measurement is used as a modifier, we put a hyphen between the number and the term of measurement: - a 15-ft board, a 6-lb line, etc. When using certain measurements eg Degrees the rule is that the measurement should be expressed in words not symbols. This is because certain symbols get dropped when they are copied across different software platforms. e) Long, common phrases , such as IQ (Intelligence Quotient), rpm (revolutions per minute), mph (miles per hour), and mpg (miles per gallon).
