How to Read Statutes Title Number Section Number
Statutes
Statutes are the laws of a land as enacted by the legislature and canonical by, or allowed to take effect without approval of, the governor. Bills, the legislative documents used to laissez passer or amend laws, are read in the context of existing statutes. Understanding existing law and how it is affected by a neb is cardinal to reading and understanding a neb. With a bones agreement of how to read the statutes, you volition be better prepared to read and understand a nib.
Each bill passed by the legislature and non vetoed by the governor becomes constructive co-ordinate to the terms outlined in the bill or general effective date provisions in the country constitution. Once effective, the text of the bill becomes police force. Such law can be establish in the 27 codes that are organized past topic, Vernon'south Texas Civil Statutes, or the session laws.
Texas has revised its statutes iv times: 1879, 1895, 1911, and 1925. The 1925 revision organized the statutes into a unified code. Each statute was titled and assigned a sequence article number that corresponded with its alphabetized title. This organization was published and bound in black volumes known as Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes by the same third-political party publisher used today—W.
Subsequent additions to the constabulary were incorporated into the system established in 1925. To maintain the integrity of the statutes' numerical and alphabetical organization, West oftentimes added letters to the cease of article designations for new laws relating to the aforementioned subject matter.
Presently the statutes had become unwieldy and casuistic in their numbering and arrangement. In 1963, the legislature charged the Texas Legislative Quango with conducting an ongoing nonsubstantive revision of the 1925 statutes. Nether the revision programme, the statutes are arranged into topical codes (east.g., Family Code or Health and Safety Code) and numbered using a system that accommodates future expansion of the law. In addition, the revision eliminates repealed, invalid, and duplicative provisions. The few 1925 statutes that have non been incorporated into a code may be plant in Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes.
In contrast, sure bills enact new law without reference to a lawmaking or civil statute section. These laws can be establish only in the session law volumes, which are published and bound past West as the Full general and Special Laws. Subsequently a nib is signed past the governor or the governor allows the bill to become law without a signature, it is assigned a affiliate number that corresponds with the order in which the bill is fi led with the secretary of land. The session law volumes are organized by chapter number. This chapter designation is often used to identify a specific neb from a specific session, such as Affiliate 981 (H.B. 1125), Acts of the 74th Legislature, Regular Session, 1995. Still, almost bills improve codes or the uncodified ceremonious statutes, and the changes they brand are incorporated into the appropriate code or Vernon's Texas Ceremonious Statutes.
Westward publishes the printed sources for the statutes—the Vernon'southward Texas Civil Statutes (for those laws still to exist codified) and the Vernon's Texas Codes Annotated. The Vernon'due south volumes contain pocket parts, which are temporary additions to each book that reverberate changes in the statutes that take occurred since the hardbound book was last published. Pocket parts are found in the back of the appropriate hardbound volume. The statutes are about hands accessed online via the Texas Constitution and Statutes website, which is maintained by Texas Legislative Council staff and regularly updated and corrected.
How Codes and Statutes Are Organized
How to Read a Statute
Many statutes are straighƞ orward and easily understood. Others are complicated and hard to comprehend. Frequently the difficulty is considering of the way the statute is constructed rather than because of the complexity of the subject matter. Long, complex sentences, numerous cross-references, dependent subdivisions, and phrases that except application of the statute can make the meaning difficult to follow.
Below are a few tips to assist you when you start read a statute. Develop a habit of reading each statute at to the lowest degree three times. First, read it straight through without stopping. Then read it more carefully, using the following techniques to aid in your understanding. Finally, read it straight through once more.
- Check for the context of the statute. Think of the statute as a unit of law that is role of a series of units of law and browse the tabular array of contents to see what sections precede and follow the section you are reading. If there is a short championship section (normally at the beginning of the chapter or subchapter), read it.
- Expect for a definitions section (if nowadays, it is normally found at the beginning of a affiliate or subchapter) and read it. Make sure you understand references to full general terms like "department," "agency," or "executive director." A definition may be used in the statutes to avoid repetition of a long term, for example, using the term "department" to refer to the Department of Land Wellness Services. Other sources for existing definitions are the Code Construction Human activity (Chapter 311, Government Code), which applies to all codes enacted as office of the legislature's statutory revision program; Chapter 312, Authorities Code, which applies to civil statutes generally; and SecƟ on 1.07, Penal Lawmaking, which is amidst several provisions of that code that employ to penal laws generally.
- Read the complete heading (code/title/chapter/subchapter/section) to establish how the section fits into the entire lawmaking's organization.
- Pay close attention to the statute's format and arrangement. Look for breaks in the text. Assume everything in the statute has meaning, including punctuation and format.
- Look for keywords:
- important "activity" words such as "may," "shall," or "must" that establish whether a provision requires or authorizes some action or condition;
- exceptions to the application of the statute, signaled by keywords such as "just," "under," "over," "more than than," "less than," "if," and "unless"; or
- a serial catastrophe in "and" or "or" that indicates whether all the elements of the series are included or merely i of the elements needs to exist included to satisfy the series.
- Do not skip over words that you practice not know or fully understand. Do not rely on context for the meaning of a word about which you lot are unsure. Exercise non assume a word (eastward.thou., "person") has the aforementioned pregnant that it has in everyday chat.
- Read through cross-referenced sections in their entirety. If a cross-reference is to an entire affiliate or subchapter, read through the chapter'southward or subchapter'southward table of contents and definitions department to learn the context. In the following example, without reading the cross-referenced Section 93.011, the reader will not know the circumstances under which the savings bank has closed.
Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/masterybusinesslaw/chapter/how-to-read-a-statute/