Legal Codes in the Us

Subdivisions between title and section are useful for reading the Code (since Congress uses them to summarize related sections), but they are not required to cite a section of the Code. To quote a particular section, it is enough to know the title and section numbers. [2] According to a legal-style manual,[27] an example of a citation would be „Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. § 552a (2006),” read aloud as „Title Five, United States Code, Section Five Fifty-Two A” or simply „Five USC Five Fifty-Two A.” The preface to the Code states: „From 1897 to 1907, a commission was engaged in the codification of the great mass of accumulated laws. The commission`s work required expenditures of over $300,000, but was never completed. Only the Penal Code of 1909 and the Judicial Code of 1911 have been promulgated. In the absence of a complete official code, private publishers have grouped the new statutes into unofficial codes. The first edition of the United States Code (published as Statutes at Large Volume 44, Part 1) contains cross-reference tables between the USC and two of these unofficial codes, United States Compiled Statutes Annotated by West Publishing Co. and Federal Statutes Annotated by Edward Thompson Co. If, on the other hand, Congress translates a particular title (or other element) of the Code into positive law, the text repeals all previous acts of Congress from which that title of the Code derives; in its place, Congress gives the force of law under the Code itself. This process makes this title of the United States Code „Legal Evidence”[14] of the current law. If a title has been incorporated into substantive law, a court may neither authorize nor require proof of the original underlying laws of Congress. [15] Regulations issued by executive agencies as part of the regulatory process defined in the Administrative Procedure Act are published chronologically in the Federal Register and then codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).

Similarly, state laws and regulations are often codified in country-specific codes. The official text of a congressional bill is that of the „registered law” (traditionally printed on parchment), which is submitted to the president for signature or disapproval. After a bill comes into force, the original bill is served on the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) within the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). [7] Following approval by the OFR[8], copies are distributed in the form of voucher laws by the Government Publishing Office (GPO). The archivist annually compiles volumes of enacted statutes and publishes them under the title United States Statutes at Large. According to the law, the text of the Statutes at Large is „legal proof” of laws enacted by Congress. [9] Slippage laws are also competent evidence. [10] Of the 54 titles, the following titles have been transposed into positive (legal) law: 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 23, 28, 31, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 46, 49, 51 and 54. When a title of the Code was transposed into positive law, the text of the title became legal proof of the law. Titles that have not been transposed into positive law are only prima facie evidence of the law. In this case, the statutes are still applicable. Note: Title 52 is an editorially created title, and title 53 is currently reserved.

For the current list of titles, see uscode.house.gov. 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] Early efforts to codify congressional laws were made by private publishers; These were useful abbreviations for research purposes, but they did not have official status. Congress undertook an official codification called the Revised Statutes of the United States, which was approved on June 22, 1874 for the laws in effect on December 1, 1873. Congress reinstated a corrected version in 1878. The 1874 version of the revised statutes was passed as positive law, but the 1878 version was not, and subsequent congressional decrees were not included in the official code, so scholars had to sift through many volumes of the statutes over time.