Why does NZLII put MNC's (Medium Neutral Citations) on decisions that pre-date the official adoption date of such by the relevant Court or Tribunal?

For cases and other documents to be loaded to NZLII, they must have a neutral citation. It is what creates a stable URL and the whole system of scripts that NZLII/AustLII operates depend on the MNC’s.

We operate on such a tiny budget that we need a uniform way of doing things to attempt to automate as much as we can. We simply can not exist without using NZLII applied MNC’s.

AustLII was a prime developer of the MNC system that has been adopted in many of the Common Law legal systems.

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Main.JudiEathorneGould - 04 June 2025