Verifies UK case-law citations, pinpoint references and quotations against the official public register — The National Archives' Find Case Law — and statutory references against legislation.gov.uk, before a document that cites them is relied on, served or filed. Every check returns a graded verdict: VERIFIED, MISMATCH (the citation resolves to a different case — the classic AI miscitation), NOT ON REGISTER, OUTSIDE COVERAGE (the register cannot answer — absence proves nothing), or UNCHECKABLE (a law-report citation). The grading exists because there are two ways to get this wrong: citing a case that does not exist, and accusing a real case of not existing. Use when asked to check citations, verify a case exists, confirm a quotation is verbatim, check a pinpoint paragraph, audit a draft's authorities, screen a document for hallucinated cases, or check a statutory provision is in force. Not a substitute for reading the judgment: existence is not authority.
uk-citation-verification
An agent skill that verifies UK case-law citations, pinpoints and quotations
against the official public register — The National Archives' Find Case
Law — and statutory references
against legislation.gov.uk, before a
document that cites them is relied on, served or filed.
Built by Matei Clej, a practising
extradition barrister in London, for use in live casework.
Why graded verdicts
There are two ways to get citation checking wrong: letting a fabricated case
through, and declaring a real case fabricated because one database does
not hold it. So every check returns one of five verdicts — VERIFIED,
MISMATCH (the citation resolves to a different case, or the quotation is
not verbatim), NOT ON REGISTER, OUTSIDE COVERAGE (the register cannot
answer; absence proves nothing), UNCHECKABLE (a law-report citation) —
and the skill's instructions forbid collapsing them into "real" and "fake".
What it checks
- Existence — the neutral citation resolves on the official register
- Identity — the register's case name matches the name in the document
(catches the classic miscitation: a real citation stitched to the wrong case) - Pinpoint — the cited paragraph exists in the judgment
- Quotation — the quoted passage appears verbatim; a near miss prints the
source text so the quote is corrected from the source, not from memory - Statutes — the provision exists, which revised version was retrieved,
and whether enacted amendments are not yet applied to the text
Quick start
Python 3.9+, standard library only — nothing to install.
python3 scripts/ukcite.py scan skeleton.docx # .docx read natively; PDFs refused honestly
python3 scripts/ukcite.py check "[2015] EWHC 1274 (Admin)" --name "Celinski" --para 13
python3 scripts/ukcite.py find "Celinski"
python3 scripts/ukcite.py statute "Extradition Act 2003" --section 2
Every run writes a dated report to ~/.cache/uk-citation-verification/.
Footing
The tool contacts exactly two hosts, both operated by The National Archives,
sends only the citation being checked, and throttles to ~1 request/second.
Records are used under the Open Justice Licence v2.0 — one-at-a-time
retrieval, the expressly permitted use. It must not be looped across a corpus:
bulk computational analysis needs The National Archives' separate (free)
licence. Software is MIT licensed.