Case law
Search Dutch case law
Search rulings from the Supreme Court, courts of appeal and district courts by keyword, legal area, court and date, with the official source and direct links.
How this search works
The search queries the public case-law database of the Dutch judiciary at uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl. Every result opens with its ECLI, the European Case Law Identifier: the fixed reference you use to cite a ruling and find it again.
Not every ruling is in that database. The highest courts publish in principle everything; district courts and courts of appeal publish a selection. A missing ruling therefore says nothing about whether it exists or how weighty it is.
Frequently asked questions about case law search
- What is an ECLI?
- ECLI stands for European Case Law Identifier: a uniform code for court rulings in the European Union. A Dutch ECLI starts with ECLI:NL, followed by the code of the court, the year and a sequence number.
- Does this search contain every Dutch ruling?
- No. It searches what the judiciary publishes on Rechtspraak.nl. The highest courts publish in principle everything, while district courts and courts of appeal publish a selection. Published rulings are pseudonymised, so names of parties are removed.
- How does this relate to LEO?
- This page finds and shows rulings. LEO, PrudAI's legal AI colleague, reads and compares rulings within your own case file, with verifiable source references.