Referencing a piece of legislation

flyingsnail

I am writing a project for my college course (not a legal course) and I want to reference a piece of legislation, I have currently put it in as

“Statutory Instrument number 31 of 2005, Railway Safety Act 2005, Part 15, section 133”.

Is this enough or is there a better / more generally accepted way of referencing a piece of legislation.

Thanks, Flyingsnail

Pro Hoc Vice

flyingsnail wrote: »

I am writing a project for my college course (not a legal course) and I want to reference a piece of legislation, I have currently put it in as

“Statutory Instrument number 31 of 2005, Railway Safety Act 2005, Part 15, section 133”.

Is this enough or is there a better / more generally accepted way of referencing a piece of legislation.

Thanks, Flyingsnail

Its not a Statutory Instrument, not necessary to reference part 15, so can read Railway Safety Act 2005, section 133. Or section 133 Railway Safety Act 2005. I usually use the second way.

SI 31 of 2005 is http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2005/en/si/0031.html a totally different beast.

Mr. Incognito

flyingsnail wrote: »

I am writing a project for my college course (not a legal course) and I want to reference a piece of legislation, I have currently put it in as

“Statutory Instrument number 31 of 2005, Railway Safety Act 2005, Part 15, section 133”.

Is this enough or is there a better / more generally accepted way of referencing a piece of legislation.

Thanks, Flyingsnail[/quote)

Railway Safety Act 2005 S.133 enacted by S.I 31/2005

flyingsnail

Perfect, Thanks

Marcusm

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

flyingsnail wrote: »

I am writing a project for my college course (not a legal course) and I want to reference a piece of legislation, I have currently put it in as

“Statutory Instrument number 31 of 2005, Railway Safety Act 2005, Part 15, section 133”.

Is this enough or is there a better / more generally accepted way of referencing a piece of legislation.

Thanks, Flyingsnail[/quote)

Railway Safety Act 2005 S.133 enacted by S.I 31/2005

Enacted by the act itself but "commenced" by the SI.

Pro Hoc Vice

Marcusm wrote: »

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

Enacted by the act itself but "commenced" by the SI.

Doubt the Act was commenced by the SI referenced.

Peregrinus

S.I. 31 of 2005 has nothing to do with the Railway Safety Act 2005. It's the Common Sole (Fisheries Management and Conservation) Regulations 2005.

When citing a section of a statute, it's not usual to mention any statutory instrument. "Railway Safety Act 2005, s. 133" is all you need to identify the provision you are referring to.

If you do find yourself having to mention a statutory instrument, there'll be some reason for that, and you really need to say what that reason is. So, for example, if it's relevant to know exactly when a particular provision came into effect you might say something like "Railway Safety Act 2005, s. 133 (brought into force on [date] by S.I. no. XXX of 2005)". Or, if the section of the Act creates an offence, and the Statutory instrument sets the penalty for the offence, and you want a citation to support both the claim that certain behaviour is an offence and that it attracts a certain penalty, then you cite first the Act and then the statutory instrument, like this:

"Parking a car accross the tracks at a level crossing is an offence punishable by twelve months imprisonment (Railway Safety Act 2005 s. XXX and Railway Safety (Offences and Penalties) Regulations 2005 reg. YYY)."

usernamegoes

The first year in my undergrad I was told that Irish legislation gets a comma before the year, UK legislation doesn't. This was in 2004 and I continued on like that for UG and PG.

Then I find out that in 2005, the Interpretation Act 2005 s14(3) says differently. Does anyone know of legislation to this effect before 2005? http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2005/en/act/pub/0023/sec0014.html

Peregrinus

usernamegoes wrote: »

The first year in my undergrad I was told that Irish legislation gets a comma before the year, UK legislation doesn't. This was in 2004 and I continued on like that for UG and PG.

Then I find out that in 2005, the Interpretation Act 2005 s14(3) says differently. Does anyone know of legislation to this effect before 2005? http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2005/en/act/pub/0023/sec0014.html

This is a matter of drafting style. Every statute has a "short title" provision which says something like "This Act may be cited as the Cat Supression Act 1995". Up until quite recently, the draftsman always put a comma between the word "Act" and the year, but since about ten years ago they stopped doing this. The result is that, strictly speaking, the short title of No. 1 of 2000 is the Comhairle Act, 2000, whereas the short title of No. 1 of 2005 is the Proceeds of Crime (Amendment) Act 2005 - without the comma.

It would be a pain to have to remember which short titles have commas and which do not, so the purpose of Interpretation Act 2005 s. 14 is provide that, even if the "official" short title has a comma, you can omit it and the citation is still good.

So far as I know, the UK stopped putting commas in short titles some time earlier than Ireland did, but they never bothered with a provision similar to Interpretation Act 2005 s. 14. The strict theory in the UK is that the punctuation is not part of an Act of Parliament anyway, so you can punctuate them any way you like.