EU Legislative Process

Today I learnt where to find a step-by-step guide to the EU legislative process.

There are handy guides to each of the decision making procedures on the European Parliament website. You are helpfully provided with the history and outline of the procedure, a flowchart and links to the relevant primary legislation.

Included are:

Ordinary legislative procedure
Consultation
Consent
Enhanced Cooperation
Appointment procedures
Legislative initiative procedure
Other legislative procedures

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/aboutparliament/en/006ff89b2c/Introduction.html

National Archives recruiting volunteers to update the statute book

Today I learnt that the National Archives hopes to recruit up to 50 volunteers to update legislation.gov.uk.

Legislation.gov.uk is the government-provided online source for legislation in the UK, managed by the National Archive in Kew. According to an article in the Law Society Gazette*, it is not as current as its commercial rivals Lexis Library and Westlaw because the current editorial team don't have the capacity to constantly update it, and there is no money to recruit more staff.

John Sheridan, head of legislative services at the National Archives, hopes to recruit up to 50 volunteers to bring the database up-to-date by 2015. The volunteers need to have an understanding of how legislation works, but they don't have to be laywers.

*Full article in the Law Society Gazette:
http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/opinion/joshua-rozenberg/the-national-archives-recruiting-volunteers-update-statute-book

I read about this on the Inner Temple Library's current awareness blog:
http://www.innertemplelibrary.com/

Locating sections of the US Code using the popular names of the Act

Today I learnt how to locate sections of the US Code using the popular name of the Act.

Those helpful people at the Legal Information Institute at Cornell have made available an A-Z list of popular names. The popular names are generally the names given to pieces of legislation as they pass through Congress. This list allows you to look up the popular name and see exactly which parts of the US code it has ended up in. For some popular names you will also be given a Public Law number and a link to the bill as it was originally passed by Congress. That link will take you to the LRC THOMAS legislative system, or GPO FDSYS site.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/topn/0

US Code of Federal Regulations - Checking for amendments to Federal Regulations

Today I learnt how to check for amendments to a US Federal Regulation.

Believe it or not that is not an easy task for a UK law librarian like me, who is not overly familiar with the US legal system. The first step was to find out what exactly is a Federal Regulation. IALS Research Guides by Jurisdiction (United States) told me that Federal Regulations are equivalent to UK Statutory Instruments; i.e. secondary legislation.*

Federal Regulations are codified on an annual basis, and this codification takes the form of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). This is not the same as the US Code. The CFR (annual edition) is available on the US Government Printing Office (GPO) website. It is divided into 50 titles, which correspond to broad subject areas. The Code is codified every year as follows:

Titles 1-16 are revised as of 1 January

Titles 17-27 are revised as of 1 April

Titles 28-41 are revised as of 1 July

Titles 42-50 are revised as of 1 October

When you have found the most up-to-date version of the Title / Chapter you need you can view it in a PDF document which includes a list of all of the amendments that have been made to that Title to date. There may be better ways to tackle this kind of research, but it worked for me!

Access the CFR on the GPO website:

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collectionCfr.action?collectionCode=CFR

* IALS Research Guides by Jurisdiction: United States

http://ials.sas.ac.uk/library/guides/research/res_united.htm#fedregs

Kate Follen's 50 States in 50 Weeks US Legislation Challenge

Today I learnt about Kate Follen's US State legislation project.

Kate Follen, President of Monroe Information Services, has set herself the challenge of creating links to legislation for all 50 US states in just 50 weeks. Week by week she will provide the links in her blog:
http://monroeinfoblog.typepad.com/my_weblog/

There's a link to this on the US Legislation page of BIALL's excellent How Do I? Wiki:
http://biallpr.pbworks.com/w/page/5259246/US%20legislation

This nugget comes from the latest BIALL newsletter:
http://www.biall.org.uk/data/files/Publications/Newsletter/11_09_Newsletter.pdf

Private Members' Bills

Today I learnt that only a minority of Private Members’ Bills become law because little time is allocated to them.

Private Members’ Bills are Public Bills introduced by MPs and Lords who aren not government ministers. They follow the same stages through Parliament as other Public Bills but because less time is allocated to them they are less likely to go through all stages.

There are three ways to introduce a Private Members' Bills in the House of Commons:

The Ballot

Ballot Bills have the best chance of becoming law, as they normally get a day of debate each. The names of Members applying for a Bill are drawn from a ballot at the beginning of the parliamentary year.

Ten Minute Rule

Members make 10 minute speeches outlining their proposal. Ten Minute Rule Bills are “are often an opportunity for Members to voice an opinion on a subject or aspect of existing legislation, rather than a serious attempt to get a Bill passed”.*

Presentation

Members “formally introduce a title of the Bill but do not speak in support of it”.*

All of this information is taken from the Parliament website:

http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/laws/bills/private-members/

Index of Legal Terms on Westlaw UK

Today I learnt there's a "new way to start your legal research" on Westlaw UK. Westlaw has launched an Index of Legal Terms, that provides the full text of the following legal dictionaries:

• Jowitt's Dictionary of English Law
• Stoud's Judicial Dictionary of Words and Phrases
• Osborn's Concise Law Dictionary

This is in addition to the Statutory Definition search on the legislation tab, launched a couple of months ago, that allows you - no surprises here! - to search for statutory definitions in UK legislation.

http://westlaw.co.uk/books/index_of_legal_terms.shtm

Tracking the Passage of Bills Through Parliament

Today I learnt that the UK Parliament website publishes guides explaining the passage of Bills through Parliament. There are two guides; one for Bills starting in the House of Commons and one for Bills starting in the House of Lords. Each stage of the process is described, from First Reading to Royal Assent:

http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/laws/passage-bill/

Bill Index Database - Providing Links to Hansard Debate for Individual Bills

Today I learnt that there is a Bill index database that provides links to the Hansard debate for each stage of a Bill as it passes through Parliament. It can be accessed here:

http://bills.ais.co.uk/AC.asp

The legislation.gov.uk website says the Bill index database provides “links to the full text of a Bill, the Hansard debate, and any proposed amendments.” *

* http://www.legislation.gov.uk/new

Personally I can’t see where it links to the full text of the Bill (perhaps I’m missing something). I also can’t quite figure out whether it only includes Bills currently before Parliament or also older ones (again, perhaps I’m missing something). If I don’t need to see the Hansard, I think I’ll probably stick to tracking Bills before Parliament using the Parliament website:

http://services.parliament.uk/bills/

TSO's Daily List - More Useful Than legislation.gov.uk?

Today I learnt that TSO provides a Daily List on its website which records all publications published by TSO each day. It is really handy because Draft Statutory Instruments are not published in order on the legislation.gov.uk website. Boo. How else are we supposed to tell what's been published each day? Thank you to my colleague Nicky for the tip:

http://www.tsoshop.co.uk/bookstore.asp?FO=38797

You can also take out a subscription to the hardcopy of the Daily List, if that's your thing:

http://www.tsoshop.co.uk/parliament/bookstore.asp?DI=546133