Court document glossary
Court documents are grouped into a small set of categories so they can be sorted and labelled consistently across countries. Each entry below explains what the category means in general.
On a case page we always show the document's own wording as the source gives it — a Polish postanowienie stays a postanowienie, and English sentencing remarks stay sentencing remarks. The category is only used for grouping and for this page. Nothing here describes any particular filing, and we never summarise a document's contents.
Document types
- Order
- A court's direction that something must happen — a date set, a request granted or refused. Short, and binding on the parties.
- Judgment
- The court's formal determination of a case or an appeal, including the reasoning where the court publishes it.
- Decision
- A ruling on a question put to the court. Used where a jurisdiction calls its rulings decisions rather than judgments — a Polish postanowienie, for example.
- Opinion
- A written explanation of how a court reached its result. In some systems the opinion and the judgment are separate documents.
- Motion
- A request by one party asking the court to do something — exclude evidence, dismiss a charge, move a trial.
- Response
- A party's written answer to a motion or petition filed by the other side.
- Letter
- Correspondence placed on the record — often counsel writing to the court about scheduling or disclosure.
- Memorandum
- A longer written argument supporting a motion, or a court's own memorandum explaining a ruling.
- Petition
- A formal application starting a proceeding or asking a higher court to intervene, such as a petition for review.
- Indictment
- The charging document that formally accuses a defendant. Names differ by jurisdiction — indictment, information, bill of indictment.
- Notice
- A filing that records a step rather than asking for one — a notice of appeal, a notice of appearance.
- Transcript
- The verbatim record of what was said in court, produced by a court reporter or an official transcription service.
- Sentencing remarks
- The judge's spoken reasons for a sentence, published as a document. Standard practice in England and Wales; the equivalent elsewhere may be part of the judgment.
- Other document
- A document on the record that does not fit the categories above. Its own wording is shown as the source gives it.