This paper sets the attention on the recent initiative of the EU Council of Ministers inviting the introduction of the European Case law identifier (ECLI) and a minimum set of uniform metadata for case law, as an indispensable asset for legal information retrieval. After considering public access to case law in general, the paper discusses the need for a European system for the identification of judicial decisions and the rationale behind the basic components of the chosen solution. Features, benefits and future applications of ECLI are outlined together with the need for national implementation of such standard.