ZALARI Convention

Example notice: Citation strings below illustrate the format. They are not a verified list of authorities or pinpoint references; check an official judgment before citing any case in legal work.

The ZALARI Convention proposes a structured format for encoding legal authorities in AI reasoning contexts. Designed for large language model prompts, retrieval systems, and structured legal data, it prioritises consistent parsing and concise citation strings. It is a format proposal, not an official court citation rule.

This document specifies Version 1.0 of the ZALARI format and serves as the canonical reference for all ZALARI-compliant implementations. The Convention is maintained by DeepCounsel and governs the encoding of case law and statutory authorities across all supported jurisdictions.

Core Specification

The canonical ZALARI citation format is:

[TITLE], [CITATION_ID], ([COUNTRY]), [PINPOINT]

This format is governed by the following design constraints:

No full stops within abbreviations
No italic markers or typographic decoration
No redundant reporter prefixes where neutral citations are available
Consistent delimiters using comma-space throughout
Country code in parentheses immediately following the citation identifier

Component Definitions

TITLE — The case name as it appears in the official reporter or neutral citation, preserving the original party names without abbreviation. Party names must not be shortened, initialled, or abbreviated in any form. Where a case is known by a short name in legal practice, the full formal title governs in ZALARI encoding.

CITATION_ID — The primary neutral citation where available, or the most-cited reporter citation where a neutral citation has not been assigned. Selection rule: prefer neutral citation over reporter citation; where multiple reporters exist, prefer the official or government reporter. Example: YYYY ZWSC N

COUNTRY — The ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code in parentheses. Examples: (ZWE), (ZAF), (CAN), (GBR), (USA)

PINPOINT — Paragraph, page, or section reference using the abbreviated ZALARI pinpoint syntax. Format: p[N] for paragraph number, pg[N] for page number, s[N] for section number.

Punctuation Austerity

The ZALARI Convention eliminates conventional legal punctuation that does not contribute semantic content. The following transformations apply universally:

R. v. → R v
S.C.C. → SCC
U.S. → US
at para. → p
[2019] (year bracket) retained where it forms part of the official citation
All italic markers removed
All period-terminated abbreviations converted to period-free form

Implementation Rationale

Token Efficiency — Removing punctuation can shorten citation strings in some model tokenizers. The effect depends on the citation and tokenizer and should be measured for a specific implementation.

Consistent Parsing — The fixed delimiter structure (TITLE, CITATION_ID, (COUNTRY), PINPOINT) makes parsing more predictable. Implementers still need to handle exceptions and verify extracted citations against source records.

Vector Similarity — Consistent formatting reduces variation in citation strings. Retrieval quality still depends on the index, model, and source data and must be tested.

Jurisdiction Specifications

Canada — Country code: (CAN). Neutral citations preferred where issued by the court. Abbreviations: SCC (Supreme Court of Canada), ONCA (Ontario Court of Appeal), BCCA (British Columbia Court of Appeal). Party name R used without periods for Crown prosecution.

United States — Country code: (USA). Federal citations follow US Reports or Federal Reporter format without periods. State citations use standard state abbreviations without periods. Example: Miranda v Arizona, 384 US 436, (USA), p478

United Kingdom — Country code: (GBR). Neutral citations from UKSC, EWCA, EWHC preferred. Law Reports citations used where neutral citation unavailable. Example: Donoghue v Stevenson, [1932] AC 562, (GBR), p580

South Africa — Country code: (ZAF). Neutral citations from ZACC, ZASCA, and High Court divisions preferred. Example: Minister of Police v Kunjana, 2016 ZACC 21, (ZAF), p15

Zimbabwe — Country code: (ZWE). Full specifications in ZALARI 1.0.

Southern African Case Law Specifications

Southern African case law presents unique encoding requirements arising from the formal nature of party designations in the region's legal tradition. The following rules govern ZALARI encoding of Southern African authorities and are binding on all ZALARI-compliant implementations.

Full Names Requirement — All party names in Southern African citations must be encoded in full. No abbreviation, initialisation, or truncation of party names is permitted. This requirement reflects the formal naming conventions of Southern African courts and ensures that citations can be reliably matched against official court records.

Multiple Parties Notation — Where a case involves multiple parties on one side, ZALARI uses the following conventions:

& Anor — one additional party
& 2 Ors, & 3 Ors, etc. — multiple additional parties (numeral + Ors)

State Prosecution — In criminal proceedings brought by the state, the prosecuting authority appears as The State (not R or Regina or Rex). The State appears as the first-named party.

The State v Chikomo, YYYY ZWSC N, (ZWE), p4
The State v Mhiripiri & Anor, YYYY ZWHHC N, (ZWE), p7
The State v Ndlovu & 2 Ors, YYYY ZWSC N, (ZWE), p3
Telecel Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd v Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe & Anor, YYYY ZWSC N, (ZWE), p12

Migration Protocols

Systems migrating from conventional citation formats to ZALARI should apply transformations in the following order: (1) remove italics and typographic markers; (2) strip periods from abbreviations; (3) apply jurisdiction-specific party name rules; (4) insert country code; (5) convert pinpoint references to ZALARI pinpoint syntax; (6) validate against ZALARI schema.

For a migration, validate transformed citations against their source records and test the resulting index. Contact the Zalari team to discuss tooling for your implementation.

Conclusion

ZALARI solves three persistent problems in legal AI engineering:

Token waste from conventional punctuation in high-volume citation contexts
Parse ambiguity arising from inconsistent formatting across jurisdictions
Embedding instability from orthographic variation in citation strings

The fixed format gives implementers a consistent way to encode and parse citations. It does not itself verify that an authority exists, that a pinpoint is correct, or that a legal proposition is sound.

For queries about the ZALARI Convention or to report implementation issues, contact legal@deep-counsel.org.