When sections are repealed, their text is deleted and replaced by a note summarizing what was previously there. This is done so that lawyers who read old cases can understand what they are all about. As a result, parts of the codex consist entirely of empty chapters filled with historical notes. For example, Title 8, Chapter 7 is entitled “Exclusion of Chinese.” [37] It contains historical notes on the Chinese exclusion law, which is no longer in force. Coding notes contain different types of information about a section, such as its relationship to other sections of the same chapter, its derivation, its updating or problems in the underlying acts. Some codification notes draw the reader`s attention to the fact that the section does not form part of the act composing the chapter or any other unit in which the section appears. For example, as described in the section above on references in the text notes, Chapter 1 of Title 6 is based on the Internal Security Act of 2002, and the references in the text note to section 101 of Title 6 explain that whenever “this chapter” appears in this section, The original legal text is “this law”. Section 453a of Title 6 has also been inserted into Chapter 1, but is not part of the Internal Security Act 2002. Since Section 453a is not part of the Internal Security Act 2002, to which “this Act” refers in the original text, it is also not considered to be part of Chapter 1 for the purposes of the reference to “this Chapter” in Section 101, although Section 453a physically falls within that Chapter. To alert the reader to this situation, a codification note appears under Section 453a stating that the section was “enacted under the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2004, not under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which includes Chapter 1.” This notice is important because it asks the user to exclude section 453a from any reference to this chapter. Section label. The first type of change is to change the section number, called the label. Almost all provisions of an Act classified as a section of the Act are designated differently from the section number of the Act.
For example, section 401 of the Social Security Act (Act of 14 August 1935, Chapter 531) is classified under section 601 of title 42. Most sections of the Code are based on an entire section of the Act, but some sections, such as section 2191b of Title 22 and section 3642 of Division 16, are based on less than one entire section of the Act, and some of the oldest sections of the Code, such as section 111 of Division 16, are based on provisions of more than one legal section. The reference for each non-positive legal section tells the reader on which section or other unit of an act the section of the code is based, and for some sections, a codification note contains additional information about the origin of the section. However, The Statutes at Large is not an appropriate tool for legal research. It is organized strictly in chronological order; Laws dealing with related subjects can be scattered over many volumes. Statutes often repeal or amend previous statutes, and detailed cross-references are needed to determine which laws are in force at any given time. [2] Translations. The fourth type of amendment consists of modifying the actual text of the original act and is called a “translation”. Most translations involve replacing a reference in a statute with a reference to the corresponding provision of the Code, or replacing a reference to the date of coming into force of a particular provision with that actual date. Using the example above, what appears in the body of the Act as a reference to “Section 401 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 601)” translates to “42 Title 601” when included in the Code.
If a provision contains a reference to a specific task that must be performed “no later than 1 year after the date of entry into force of this Act” and the Act was promulgated on October 28, 2009, that reference must be translated as “no later than 1 year after October 28, 2009”. Other common translations include deleting the words “United States Code” after a reference to a positive title of the law and replacing references such as “this chapter” with “this law”, “this subchapter” with “this title”, etc. as appropriate. Often there are references in the text notes under a section that contain another editorial explanation of the cross-references found in the section text. The notes to the previous provisions indicate other articles that had the same article number as the current article and what has happened to it since then. Comments on previous provisions are provided for both earlier sections of the Code and sections of previous statutes that bore the same section number as the current section of the Code or legal act. The development of codification legislation is a demanding process. Unlike the authors of other bills in Congress, authors of codification bills are not free to include provisions in the bill that reflect the particular policy choices of a member of Congress or any other person. Instead, proponents of codification must scrupulously ensure that any changes in form of the law that the codification act may propose do not change the meaning or effect of the existing law that will be reformulated in the codification act.
Any substantial change in form to improve the Act (see Meaning of Codification of Positive Law on the Codification of Positive Law page) must be documented in tables and notes in the report appended to the Codification Act. Codification advocates must reach a consensus among all interested parties that the codification act does what it is supposed to do and nothing more. If it is not possible to reach this consensus by the end of the Congress in which a codification bill is presented for the first time, a new, updated codification law must be prepared for submission to the next Congress. The process is inherently time-consuming. The Code is a consolidation and codification of the general and permanent laws of the United States. Note that renumbering a legal act section does not always trigger the code section to be renumbered. For code consistency, code editors often retain the current code section number, even if the underlying section number of the legal act has changed. Part 1 of subtitle E of subchapter 3 of chapter 18: ID of the document of the “package” as originally specified on www.gpoaccess.gov. The branch of government responsible for the content of the document. The basic unit of each code title is the section, and the way the code sections are composed may be different depending on whether the section is contained in a positive or non-positive title of law.
In a positive legal title, all sections have been adopted as sections of the title and appear in the Code in the same order, with the same section numbers and with exactly the same text as in enacted and amending statutes. In other words, a positive bill title is set out in the Code as passed by Congress. where `item-you-want-to-link-to` is the subtree enumerator(s) separated by the `_` character. For more information about the different online and printed versions of the code, see About the code. USCODE-2008-title28a-node94-title1-rule1 (94 is a coined identifier for the node without a header, which would result from its sequence number). [1] The term “law” is used in this guide to refer to a joint bill or resolution that has been passed by both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate and signed by the President or bypassed the President`s veto, thereby becoming law. Name of the WAIS database to which the document belonged in the old GPO access system. Comments on consolidation legislation prepared by the Office of the Legal Counsel on Review are welcome.