A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative body, a stage in the process of legislation . Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy . Statutes are laws made by legislative bodies; they are distinguished from case law or precedent , which is decided by courts , regulations issued by government agencies , and oral or customary law . Statutes may originate with the legislative body of a country, state or province, county, or municipality .
48-818: The Queen Elizabeth II National Trust (QEII) is a registered charity and statutory New Zealand organisation independent from the government and managed by a board of directors. It was established in 1977 by the Queen Elizabeth the Second National Trust Act 1977 "to encourage and promote, for the benefit of New Zealand, the provision, protection, preservation and enhancement of open space." QEII enables landowners to protect special features on their land through its open space covenants . QEII does this by partnering with private landowners to protect natural and cultural heritage sites on their land with covenants. The landowner continues to own and manage
96-414: A legal code , i.e. a codex ( book ) of law. Codification is one of the defining features of civil law jurisdictions. In common law systems, such as that of English law , codification is the process of converting and consolidating judge-made law or uncodified statutes enacted by the legislature into statute law . Ancient Sumer 's Code of Ur-Nammu was compiled circa 2050–1230 BC, and
144-795: A Draft Criminal Code. In the United States, a critique of the inherited English tradition of common law and an argument for systematic codification was championed by the United Irish exiles William Sampson (admitted to the New York bar in 1806), and William Duane publisher of the Jeffersonian paper, the Philadelphia Aurora . In 1810, Sampson published Trial of the Journeymen Cordwainers of
192-828: A felony pertains to both criminal law and tax law, but is found only in the Internal Revenue Code. Other statutes pertaining to taxation are found not in the Internal Revenue Code but instead, for example, in the Bankruptcy Code in Title 11 of the United States Code , or the Judiciary Code in Title 28 . Another example is the national minimum drinking age, not found in Title 27 , Intoxicating liquors , but in Title 23 , Highways , §158 . Further, portions of some Congressional acts, such as
240-404: A few and for professional canonists themselves and formed an unwieldy mass of legal material. Moreover, not a few ordinances, whether included in the ‘’Corpus Juris’’ or of more recent date, appeared to be contradictory; some had been formally abrogated, others had become obsolete by long disuse; others, again, had ceased to be useful or applicable in the present condition of society. Great confusion
288-432: A manner that revealed how sound the 1893 original had been. The Marine Insurance Act (mildly amended) has been a notable success, adopted verbatim in many common law jurisdictions. Most of England's criminal laws have been codified, partly because this enables precision and certainty in prosecution. However, large areas of the common law, such as the law of contract and the law of tort remain remarkably untouched. In
336-480: A network of over 4,400 protected areas throughout New Zealand, ranging from small backyard patches to huge swathes of high country. These covenants protect more than 180,000 ha of private land, and play a hugely critical role as a refuge for some of New Zealand's rarest and most endangered biodiversity and ecosystems. QEII also delivered New Zealand's contribution to the Queen's Commonwealth Canopy Initiative (QCC). This
384-665: Is a worldwide initiative set up to mark Queen Elizabeth II's reign and leadership of the Commonwealth. It aims to create a network of native forest throughout the Commonwealth, and QEII is the link to the QCC in New Zealand. The National Trust puts a high priority on securing covenants that support the objectives of the New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy. QEII National Trust was set up in 1977, with
432-749: Is also used to refer to an International treaty that establishes an institution , such as the Statute of the European Central Bank , a protocol to the international courts as well, such as the Statute of the International Court of Justice and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court . Statute is also another word for law. The term was adapted from England in about the 18th century. In
480-624: Is called the United States Code . Generally, only "Public Laws" are codified. The United States Code is divided into "titles" (based on overall topics) numbered 1 through 54. Title 18 , for example, contains many of the Federal criminal statutes. Title 26 is the Internal Revenue Code . Even in code form, however, many statutes by their nature pertain to more than one topic. For example, the statute making tax evasion
528-654: Is called the United States Statutes at Large . A given act may be a single page or hundreds of pages in length. An act may be classified as either a "Public Law" or a "Private Law". Because each Congressional act may contain laws on a variety of topics, many acts, or portions thereof, are also rearranged and published in a topical, subject matter codification by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel . The official codification of Federal statutes
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#1732802545275576-416: Is how to organize published statutes. Such publications have a habit of starting small but growing rapidly over time, as new statutes are enacted in response to the exigencies of the moment. Eventually, persons trying to find the law are forced to sort through an enormous number of statutes enacted at various points in time to determine which portions are still in effect. The solution adopted in many countries
624-754: Is the earliest known surviving civil code . Three centuries later, the Babylonian king Hammurabi enacted the set of laws named after him . Important codifications were developed in the ancient Roman Empire , with the compilations of the Lex Duodecim Tabularum and much later the Corpus Juris Civilis . These codified laws were the exceptions rather than the rule, however, as during much of ancient times Roman laws were left mostly uncodified. The first permanent system of codified laws could be found in imperial China , with
672-473: Is to organize existing statutory law in topical arrangements (or "codified" ) within publications called codes , then ensure that new statutes are consistently drafted so that they add, amend, repeal or move various code sections. In turn, in theory, the code will thenceforth reflect the current cumulative state of the statutory law in that jurisdiction. In many nations statutory law is distinguished from and subordinate to constitutional law . The term statute
720-717: The California Civil Code and the Consolidated Laws of New York ( New York State ). The English judge Sir Mackenzie Chalmers is renowned as the draftsman of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 , the Sale of Goods Act 1893 and the Marine Insurance Act 1906 , all of which codified existing common law principles. The Sale of Goods Act was repealed and re-enacted by the Sale of Goods Act 1979 in
768-548: The Codex of Justinian to the Napoleonic Code . It contained 2,414 canons and was in force until Canon 6 §1 1° of the 1983 Code of Canon Law took legal effect—thereby abrogating it —on 27 November 1983. Recodification refers to a process where existing codified statutes are reformatted and rewritten into a new codified structure. This is often necessary as, over time, the legislative process of amending statutes and
816-596: The Law Commission , together with the Scots Law Commission, asked him to produce a proposal for the comprehensive codification and unification of the contract law of England and Scotland. Similarly, codification in the law of tort has been at best piecemeal, a rare example of progress being the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945 . Consolidation bills are routinely passed to organize
864-649: The Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. American legal scholar Noah Feldman has written that the Ottoman codification of the sharia reduced the power of the religious scholarly class, upsetting the balance of powers and the traditional uncodified constitution of Islamic societies and leading to the rise of autocrats unconstrained by rule of law in the Muslim world . Civil law jurisdictions rely, by definition , on codification. Notable early examples were
912-735: The Statutes of Lithuania , in the 16th century. The movement towards codification gained momentum during the Enlightenment , and was implemented in several European countries during the late 18th century (see civil code ). However, it became widespread only after the enactment of the French Napoleonic Code (1804), which has heavily influenced the legal systems of many other countries. Common law has been codified in many jurisdictions and in many areas of law: examples include criminal codes in many jurisdictions, and include
960-464: The autonomous communities of Spain , an autonomy statute is a legal document similar to the constitution of a federated state , save that it is enacted by the national legislature, rather than the autonomous community it governs. The autonomy statutes in Spain have the rank of ley orgánica (organic law), a category of special legislation reserved only for the main institutions and issues and mentioned in
1008-608: The 13th century especially canon law became the object of scientific study, and different compilations were made by the Roman Pontiffs. The most important of these were the five books of the Decretales Gregorii IX and the Liber Sextus of Boniface VIII . The legislation grew with time. Some of it became obsolete, and contradictions crept in so that it became difficult in recent times to discover what
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#17328025452751056-606: The 1825 Louisiana Code of Procedure. Later, Sampson's efforts appeared vindicated in New York where in 1846 a new state constitution directed that the whole body of state law be reduced to a written and systematic code, and in David Dudley Field 's subsequent drafting of the New York Code of Civil Procedure (1848). Sampson sought to disassociate codification from the doctrinaire insistence on positive legislation that had marked Jeremy Bentham 's championing of
1104-551: The City of New-York for a Conspiracy to Raise Their Wages, commentary on his (unsuccessful) argument in The People v Melvin (1806) to quash an indictment of illegal worker combination. Insisting on the supremacy of the elected legislature, Sampson's objected that the prosecution was reasoning "abstractedly" from principles of English common law without any reference to statute. It was this, alone, that allowed them to deny journeymen
1152-736: The Hague a conference for the purpose of codification of rules on general matters, but very little progress was made. Following the Second World War, the International Law Commission was established within the United Nations as a permanent body for the formulation of principles in international law. Papal attempts at codification of the scattered mass of canon law spanned the eight centuries since Gratian produced his Decretum c. 1150 . In
1200-599: The QEII National Trust as a statutory organisation independent from government, and gives them power to protect open space in Aotearoa. Specifically it can: As well as their own Act, QEII also often interact with the following legislation: Statutory The word "statute" is derived from the late Latin word "statutum", which means 'law', 'decree'. In virtually all countries, newly enacted statutes are published and distributed so that everyone can look up
1248-458: The United States, acts of Congress , such as federal statutes, are published chronologically in the order in which they become law – often by being signed by the President , on an individual basis in official pamphlets called " slip laws ", and are grouped together in official bound book form, also chronologically, as " session laws ". The "session law" publication for Federal statutes
1296-568: The cause in Britain. But, focussing on the French experience, critics thought it sufficient to comment on the futility of trying to compress human behaviour into rigid categories. President Thomas Jefferson had remained neutral when Duane's attempted to force the issue in the 1805 election in Pennsylvania. Federalists joined with "Constitutional Republicans" to defeat the reform agenda. In
1344-1024: The compilation of the Tang Code in AD 624. This formed the basis of the Chinese criminal code , which was eventually replaced by the Great Qing Legal Code , which was in turn abolished in 1912 following the Xinhai Revolution and the establishment of the Republic of China . The new laws of the Republic of China were inspired by the German codified work, the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch . A very influential example in Europe
1392-535: The constitution (the highest ranking legal instrument in Spain). Leyes orgánicas rank between the constitution and ordinary laws. The name was chosen, among others, to avoid confusion with the term constitution (i.e. the Spanish constitution of 1978). Codification (law) In law , codification is the process of collecting and restating the law of a jurisdiction in certain areas, usually by subject, forming
1440-413: The intention that it was set up by farmers for farmers and other landowners at a time when the New Zealand government offered subsidies to encourage bush and wetland clearance on farms. There was a desire in the community among farmers and other landowners to protect areas on private land that were home to native species. Their vision was for protection to be both voluntary and everlasting, legally protecting
1488-518: The land forever. QEII was founded by Gordon Stephenson, who was also the first covenantor. Founder Gordon Stephenson died in December 2015. QEII is an independent charitable trust, rather than a government institution. The board is responsible for executive control and management of the QEII National Trust. QEII is governed by a board of directors. The board is made up of six directors. The Minister of Conservation appoints four directors who have
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1536-462: The last 80 years there have been statutes that address immediate problems, such as the Law Reform (Frustrated Contracts) Act 1943 (which, inter alia , coped with contracts rendered void by war), and the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 , which amended the doctrine of privity . However, there has been no progress on the adoption of Harvey McGregor 's Contract Code (1993), even though
1584-630: The law in many areas. Since 2006 the Law Reform Commission (LRC) has published semi-official "revised" editions of Acts of the Oireachtas taking account of textual and other amendments to the original version. The Finance Acts are excluded from the LRC programme. Private companies produce unofficial consolidated versions of these and other commercially important pre-2005 laws. An official advisory committee between 2006 and 2010 produced
1632-768: The law. Law of the Republic of Ireland evolved from English law , the greatest point of difference being the existence of the Constitution of Ireland as a single document. The unofficial "popular edition" of the Constitution is regularly updated to take account of amendments to it , while the official text enrolled in the Supreme Court in 1938 has been replaced five times: in 1942, 1980, 1989, 1999, and 2019. As in England, subordinate laws are not officially codified, although consolidation bills have restated
1680-629: The poor". Sampson's summary Discourse on the Common Law (1823), holding common law to be contrary to the ethos a democratic republic and urging, with reference to the Code Napoleon , its replacement by a general law of reference, was hailed as "the most sweeping indictment of common law idealism ever written in America" . It was a source of inspiration for Edward Livingston who drew upon French, and other European, civil law in drafting
1728-475: The protected land, and the covenant and protection stays on the land, even when the property is sold to a new owner. Open space is defined in the QEII National Trust Act as any area of land or body of water that serves to preserve or to facilitate the preservation of any landscape of aesthetic, cultural, recreational, scenic, scientific, or social interest or value. QEII covenants consist of
1776-488: The provisions for the effective dates of amendments to codified laws, are themselves not codified at all. These statutes may be found by referring to the acts as published in "slip law" and "session law" form. However, commercial publications that specialize in legal materials often arrange and print the uncodified statutes with the codes to which they pertain. In the United States, the individual states, either officially or through private commercial publishers, generally follow
1824-522: The request of the bishops at the First Vatican Council , on 14 May 1904, with the motu proprio Arduum sane munus ("A Truly Arduous Task"), Pope Pius X set up a commission to begin reducing these diverse documents into a single code, presenting the normative portion in the form of systematic short canons shorn of the preliminary considerations ("Whereas...") and omitting those parts that had been superseded by later developments. By
1872-510: The right mix of environmental and conservation values, and who can reflect the interests of rural landowners, and the interests of the Maori community. QEII National Trust members elect the remaining two directors. QEII was established in 1977 by the Queen Elizabeth the Second National Trust Act 1977 "to encourage and promote, for the benefit of New Zealand, the provision, protection, preservation and enhancement of open space." The act establishing
1920-544: The right to "conspire against starvation" while, without notice or challenge, leaving master tradesmen in a "permanent conspiracy" to suppress wages. He went on to argue that an "indiscriminating adoption of common law" had caused the New-World society to carry over "barbarities" from the Old: laws that "can only be executed upon those not favoured by fortune with certain privileges" and that in some cases operate "entirely against
1968-708: The same force as statutory law. Following the First World War and the establishment of the League of Nations , the need for codification of international law arose. In September 1924, the General Assembly of the League established a committee of experts for the purpose of codification of international law, which was defined by the Assembly as consisting of two aspects: In 1930 the League of Nations held at
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2016-433: The same three-part model for the publication of their own statutes: slip law, session law, and codification. Rules and regulations that are promulgated by agencies of the Executive Branch of the United States Federal Government are published in the Federal Register and codified in the Code of Federal Regulations . These regulations are authorized by specific legislation passed by the legislative branch, and generally have
2064-408: The statutory law. This can be done in the form of a government gazette which may include other kinds of legal notices released by the government, or in the form of a series of books whose content is limited to legislative acts. In either form, statutes are traditionally published in chronological order based on date of enactment. A universal problem encountered by lawmakers throughout human history
2112-553: The suggestions. The new code was completed in 1916. Under the aegis of Cardinal Pietro Gasparri , the Commission for the Codification of Canon Law was completed under Benedict XV , Pius X's successor, who promulgated it on 27 May 1917 as the Code of Canon Law ( Latin : Codex Iuris Canonici ) and set 19 May 1918 as the date on which it came into force. In its preparation centuries of material were examined, scrutinized for authenticity by leading experts, and harmonized as much as possible with opposing canons and even other codes, from
2160-399: The winter of 1912, the "whole span of the code" had been completed, so that a provisional text was printed. This 1912 text was sent out to all Latin bishops and superiors general for their comment, and their notations which they sent back to the codification commission were subsequently printed and distributed to all members of the commission, in order that the members might carefully consider
2208-426: Was of obligation and where to find the law on a particular question. Since the close of the ‘’Corpus Juris’’ numerous new laws and decrees had been issued by popes, councils, and Roman Congregations . No complete collection of them had ever been published and they remained scattered through the ponderous volumes of the ‘’Bullaria’’ the ‘’ Acta Sanctae Sedis ’’, and other such compilations, which were accessible to only
2256-449: Was the French Napoleonic code of 1804. Upon confederation, the Iroquois created constitutional wampum , each component symbolizing one of the many laws within the 117 articles. The union of the five original nations occurred in 1142, and its unification narrative served the basis for the Iroquois laws. Systems of religious laws include the halakha of Judaism and the sharia of Islam. The use of civil codes in sharia began with
2304-575: Was thus engendered and correct knowledge of the law rendered very difficult even for those who had to enforce it. When the Vatican Council met in 1869 a number of bishops of different countries petitioned for a new compilation of church law that would be clear and easily studied. The council never finished its work and no attempt was made to bring the legislation up to date. By the 19th Century, this body of legislation included some 10,000 norms. Many of these were difficult to reconcile with one another due to changes in circumstances and practice. In response to
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