Icelandic Courts (dómstólar)

Requires: Tier 0 (core) via RSS + pagination; Tier 2 (browser) only for JS-rendered search.

Three independent court sites — no unified API, all HTML scraping.

Sites

Court	Domain	Rulings from
Héraðsdómstólar (8 district courts)	heradsdomstolar.is	~2015+
Landsréttur (Court of Appeals)	landsrettur.is	2018+
Hæstiréttur (Supreme Court)	haestirettur.is	1999+

Case number prefixes: E- = einkamál (civil), S- = sakamál (criminal).

Héraðsdómstólar (District Courts)

RSS Feeds (best entry point, no JS needed)

https://www.heradsdomstolar.is/heradsdomstolar/{slug}/domar/rss/

Courts: reykjavik, reykjanes, vesturland, vestfirdir, nordurland-vestra, nordurland-eystra, austurland, sudurland

Each RSS item has: <title> (case number), <description> (reifun/summary), <link>, <guid> (UUID), <pubDate>.

PDF Download (direct, no JS)

https://www.heradsdomstolar.is/Cache/Verdicts/{guid}.pdf

Search (GET params)

https://www.heradsdomstolar.is/default.aspx?SearchAction=Search&pageid=fd8e17eb-6e70-11e5-80c3-005056bc50d4&Verdict={text}&Court={court}&CaseNumber=&CaseType=&LawParagraphs=&Keywords=&Parties=&FromDate={DD.MM.YYYY}&ToDate={DD.MM.YYYY}

Caveat: Search results render client-side (JS required → Playwright). Use RSS + pagination for non-JS scraping.

Pagination (AJAX, returns HTML fragments, no JS needed)

GET /default.aspx?pageitemid={pageitemid}&offset={n}&count={batch_size}

Reykjavík pageitemid: 98619c0d-86c7-11e5-80c6-005056bc6a40 (initial count=22, then batches of 6).

Returns .verdict-box divs with date, case number, judge, parties, reifun, link.

Individual Ruling

https://www.heradsdomstolar.is/default.aspx?pageid=347c3bb1-8926-11e5-80c6-005056bc6a40&id={guid}

Landsréttur (Court of Appeals)

Search

https://www.landsrettur.is/search?Text={text}&CaseNumber=&LawCitations=&Keywords=&Parties=&CaseType=&FromDate={DD.MM.YYYY}&ToDate={DD.MM.YYYY}

Pagination

GET /domar-og-urskurdir/$Verdicts/Index/?pageitemid=5cf6e850-20b6-11e9-85de-94b86df896cb&offset={n}&count={n}

Returns HTML fragments. Default count=12.

Individual Ruling

https://www.landsrettur.is/domar-og-urskurdir/domur-urskurdur/?Id={case_uuid}&verdictid={verdict_uuid}

Hæstiréttur (Supreme Court)

Search

https://www.haestirettur.is/default.aspx?SearchAction=Search&pageid=fd8e17eb-6e70-11e5-80c3-005056bc50d4&tab=1&Verdict={text}&CaseNumber=&LawParagraphs=&Keywords=&Parties=&FromDate=&ToDate=

Pagination

GET /default.aspx?pageitemid=a31e2c30-9510-11e5-80c6-005056bc6a40&offset={n}&count={n}

Individual Ruling

https://www.haestirettur.is/default.aspx?pageid=0f2f6428-7b6a-11eb-947c-005056bc0bdb&id={guid}

Metadata Per Ruling

• Málsnúmer (case number): e.g. E-679/2023, 36/2020
• Dagsetning (date)
• Dómari (judge name + title)
• Málsaðilar (parties) with lawyers
• Reifun (summary/abstract)
• Lykilorð (keywords/tags)
• Lagagreinar (legal statutes cited)
• Full text (HTML on page, PDF for district courts)

Scraping Strategy

1. Discovery: Poll RSS feeds (8 district courts) + paginate listing endpoints
2. Full text: Fetch PDFs from /Cache/Verdicts/{guid}.pdf (district) or scrape HTML (upper courts)
3. Search: Use Playwright for JS-rendered search results, or stick to pagination endpoints
4. Cross-references: Upper court rulings link to lower court decisions — useful for case tracking

Relevant Search Terms for Launaþjófnaður

• launaþjófnaður (wage theft)
• vangreidd laun / vangoldin laun (unpaid wages)
• vinnulaun (work wages)
• kjarasamningur (collective agreement)
• ólögmæt launakjör (illegal wage conditions)
• mansal (human trafficking — severe cases)
• vinnuréttindi (labor rights)

Example: Fetch + Parse Script

"""Search Icelandic court rulings across all three court levels."""
import httpx
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

COURTS = {
    "héraðsdómstólar": {
        "base": "https://www.heradsdomstolar.is",
        "search": "/default.aspx",
        "params": {
            "SearchAction": "Search",
            "pageid": "fd8e17eb-6e70-11e5-80c3-005056bc50d4",
        },
        "text_param": "Verdict",
        "pagination_pageitemid": "98619c0d-86c7-11e5-80c6-005056bc6a40",
    },
    "landsréttur": {
        "base": "https://www.landsrettur.is",
        "search": "/search",
        "params": {},
        "text_param": "Text",
        "pagination_pageitemid": "5cf6e850-20b6-11e9-85de-94b86df896cb",
    },
    "hæstiréttur": {
        "base": "https://www.haestirettur.is",
        "search": "/default.aspx",
        "params": {
            "SearchAction": "Search",
            "pageid": "fd8e17eb-6e70-11e5-80c3-005056bc50d4",
            "tab": "1",
        },
        "text_param": "Verdict",
        "pagination_pageitemid": "a31e2c30-9510-11e5-80c6-005056bc6a40",
    },
}

def paginate_results(court_key: str, offset: int = 0, count: int = 20):
    """Fetch a page of rulings via the AJAX pagination endpoint (no JS needed)."""
    court = COURTS[court_key]
    url = f"{court['base']}/default.aspx"
    params = {
        "pageitemid": court["pagination_pageitemid"],
        "offset": offset,
        "count": count,
    }
    r = httpx.get(url, params=params, timeout=30)
    r.raise_for_status()
    return parse_verdict_boxes(r.text)

def parse_verdict_boxes(html: str) -> list[dict]:
    """Parse .verdict-box elements from HTML fragment."""
    soup = BeautifulSoup(html, "html.parser")
    results = []
    for box in soup.select(".verdict-box, .row"):
        # Extract what we can — structure varies by court
        links = box.select("a[href]")
        title = box.get_text(strip=True)[:200]
        href = links[0]["href"] if links else None
        results.append({"title": title, "url": href})
    return results

def fetch_rss(court_slug: str) -> list[dict]:
    """Fetch RSS feed for a district court."""
    url = f"https://www.heradsdomstolar.is/heradsdomstolar/{court_slug}/domar/rss/"
    r = httpx.get(url, timeout=30)
    r.raise_for_status()
    soup = BeautifulSoup(r.text, "xml")
    items = []
    for item in soup.find_all("item"):
        items.append({
            "case_number": item.title.text if item.title else "",
            "summary": item.description.text if item.description else "",
            "url": item.link.text if item.link else "",
            "guid": item.guid.text if item.guid else "",
            "date": item.pubDate.text if item.pubDate else "",
        })
    return items

def download_pdf(guid: str, output_path: str):
    """Download district court ruling PDF."""
    url = f"https://www.heradsdomstolar.is/Cache/Verdicts/{guid}.pdf"
    r = httpx.get(url, timeout=60)
    r.raise_for_status()
    with open(output_path, "wb") as f:
        f.write(r.content)

# Usage:
# items = fetch_rss("reykjavik")
# download_pdf(items[0]["guid"], "ruling.pdf")
# results = paginate_results("hæstiréttur", offset=0, count=20)

robots.txt Note

All three sites disallow /domar* in robots.txt. Search and pagination endpoints are not blocked. Use responsibly for personal/research purposes.