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English & UK Law in the Law Library

STATUTES AND LEGISLATION

Official sources for statutes / legislation and bills working their way through the legislative process:

The print materials listed below are no longer updated and should be used for historical research only. 

Halsbury's Statutes of England and Wales, 4th—KD135 .H3 1985. Legal abbreviation: Halsbury, or Halsbury's Statutes

  • Note: the Law Library's subscription to Halsbury's Statutes was canceled in July 2002. Use online sources for updating.
  • While there is no official codification of English statutes, Halsbury's serves as one of the chief print compilations of the laws of England and Wales. It contains the text of all currently in-force statutes arranged by subject.
  • The Law Library has the 2nd through the 4th editions (1948-current). This annotated set is updated by an annual cumulative supplement and a Current Statutes Service, which updates the bound statute volumes with the text of all public general acts passed since publication of those volumes.
  • The arrangement of these Current Statutes Service volumes (currently six) replicates the subject arrangement of the main set. There is also a Tables of Statutes and Consolidated Index issued annually, which contains both alphabetical and chronological lists of statutes contained in the set, as well as an index.
  • Is It in Force? is another annual addition to the service.
    • This tool indicates which public acts are actually in force as of the date of issue of this supplement.
  • The Noter-Up volume, issued six times/year, updates the main set, the Current Statutes Service volumes, and the Is It in Force? volume.
    • This volume describes the effect of newly-enacted legislation on the acts printed in the set.
  • The Halsbury's Statutes service also includes Destination Tables.
    • These indicate when previous legislation has been "consolidated" into subsequent legislation and where the older law may be found in the new act.

Current Law Statutes—KD135 .C8, Legal abbreviation: C.L. Stats

  • Known as Current Law Statutes Annotated until 1993, these hardcover annual volumes contain a full-text, chronological arrangement of all Public General Acts, Private Acts, Acts of the Scottish Parliament, and Commencement Orders issued during that year.
  • They include extensive annotations. Each annual set (usually four volumes) contains an index in the fourth volume, as well as a citator. See the Service File volumes for legislation passed since issuance of the hard bound volumes. The Law Library has coverage from 1983.

Law Reports Statutes—KD135 .C8, Legal abbreviation: L.R. Stat.

  • This is a commercially-produced, verbatim reprint of the official Public General Acts and General Synod Measures (session laws).
  • The official HMSO publication, not owned by the Law Library, covers 1831 to date.
  • The Law Library's coverage through the commercial version from the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting begins in 1866 and runs to 1999 (title canceled). This set is updated annually by the Chronological Table of the Statutes and Index to the Statutes in Force, but the Law Library does not receive these. The most current indexes owned by the library are quite old, covering the dates 1235-1981 and 1235-1952, respectively. (KD142.3 .C5 and KD142.4 .I15)

The following statutory titles may also be useful for historical research:

Statutes of the Realm—KD130 1101 and Microfiche 10, Legal abbreviation: Stat. Realm.

  • Covering the time period 1215-1713, Statutes of the Realm includes both alphabetical and chronological index volumes.
  • The years 1642-1660 are not included here, but legislation covering that time period may be found in Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum. Note: an online version of the Statutes of the Realm is available on Heinonline.

Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum—KD130 1642, Legal abbreviation: Acts and Ords. Interregnum

  • These are laws from the period of the Civil War (1642-49 and the Protectorate under Cromwell (1649-1660). Arrangement is chronological with an index at the end of volume three of this three-volume set.

Statutes at Large—KD130 1225, Legal abbreviation: For vols 1-14, cite as Ruff.; for vols. 15-40, cite as Runn.; for remaining vols, or generally, use Stat. or Stat. at L., or St. at Large.

  • The Law Library contains the complete set of the statutes (1215-1866), arranged by monarch. Volume ten is an index to the first nine volumes (Magna Carta through Geo. III). Subsequent volumes of this forty-five volume set include an alphabetical index for those volumes.

Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial Series—KD4460 .A3 1966, Legal abbreviation: Act. Pr. C. Col. S

  • The Law Library has the six-volume set covering the years 1613-1783.