Short and long titles

In the United Kingdom, the long title is important since, under the procedures of Parliament, a bill cannot be amended to go outside the scope of its long title. For that reason, modern long titles tend to be rather vague, ending with the formulation "and for connected purposes". The long title of an older act is sometimes termed its rubric, because it was sometimes printed in red.

Short titles for acts of Parliament were not introduced until the mid-19th century, and were not provided for every act passed until late in the century; as such, the long title was used to identify the act. Short titles were subsequently given to many unrepealed acts at later dates; for example, the Bill of Rights, an Act of 1689, was given that short title by the Short Titles Act 1896, having until then been formally referred to only by its long title, An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown. Similarly, in the US, the Judiciary Act of 1789, which was ruled unconstitutional in part by Marbury v. Madison (1803), was called "An Act to establish the Judicial Courts of the United States".

The long title was traditionally followed by the preamble, an optional part of an act setting out a number of preliminary statements of facts similar to recitals, each starting Whereas...

Unlike the long title, which precedes the preamble and enacting formula, and thus sits outside the main body of text, the short title for modern legislation is explicitly defined by a specific section, typically at the very end or very beginning of the main text. As with the above example, short titles are generally made up of just a few words that describe in broad terms the area of law being changed or the thing affected, followed by the word "Act" and then the year in which the legislation is formally enacted.

A notable exception is Israel, in which this convention is reversed. The short title sits outside the main body of legislation, and the summary description of the law, which is made optional, is defined by a specific section if existing. For example, the Combating Iran's Nuclear Program Act, which under the usual convention would have begun with the long title

An Act to sanction entities assisting Iran in promoting its nuclear program or obtaining weapons of mass destruction or means of carrying weapons of mass destruction and to limit corporations who have business relations with Iran, for its favor or in its territory, as part of the international struggle against Iran's nuclear program.

and whose first section might have read

This Act may be cited as the 'Combating Iran's Nuclear Program Act, 5772-2012'.

actually begins with the short title

Combating Iran's Nuclear Program Act, 5772-2012

and its first section reads

The purpose of this Act is to sanction entities assisting Iran in promoting its nuclear program or obtaining weapons of mass destruction or means of carrying weapons of mass destruction and to limit corporations who have business relations with Iran, for its favor or in its territory, as part of the international struggle against Iran's nuclear program.

The Australian state of Victoria follows a similar practice, having a title comparable to a short title outside the main body of the legislation and a purpose section establishing the purpose of the legislation.

The titles of legislation enacted by the United States Congress, if they include a year, invariably add the preposition "of" between the word "Act" and the year. Compare the Australian Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth), Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (UK), and Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (USA). Even if no year was included in the official short title enacted by Congress, it is traditional always to precede the year with an "of" if it needs to be appended in prose after the short title. This convention is followed by most but not all U.S. states; for example, the Act of the Pennsylvania legislature that consolidated the governments of the city of Philadelphia and Philadelphia County is generally (though not formally) called the Act of Consolidation, 1854. The vast majority of acts passed by the Parliament of Canada do not include the year of enactment as part of the short title. In the Philippine Congress, titling of legislation primarily follows the U.S. convention.

Since the early 20th century, it has become popular in the United States to include the names of key legislators in the short titles of the most important acts. This was at first done informally; that is, the names appeared in legal treatises and court opinions but were not part of the statute as enacted. Eventually members of Congress began to formally write their own names into short titles (thereby immortalizing themselves for posterity), as in the Hart–Scott–Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In some states, like California, some short titles consist only of the names of the key legislators, as in the Lanterman–Petris–Short Act, the statutory basis of the "5150" involuntary psychiatric hold used for temporarily detaining psychiatric patients.

Draft legislation (bills) also uses short titles, but substitutes the word "Bill" for "Act".

The Australian Guide to Legal Citation recommends that the definite article at the beginning of the "statute title" should be omitted when citing a statute of the United Kingdom.[1]

Originally short titles had a comma preceding the year. Whether this is retained or not depends on the country involved: it has been dropped in Ireland and the United Kingdom, but retained in Canada.

In citing an act by its short title, a comma immediately before a reference to a year and a comma immediately after such a reference that is not required for the purpose of punctuation may be omitted.[2]

It is not necessary to use the comma as it is not part of an act of Parliament; although normal punctuation is now used by draftsmen, and is included in Queen's Printer's copies of acts of Parliament.[3]

The comma preceding the calendar year in printed copies of acts is omitted on the authority of a note by Sir Noel Hutton QC, First Parliamentary Counsel, as to which see "The Citation of Statutes" 82 LQR 24-24. The validity of this note is questioned by Halsbury's Laws of England, Fourth Edition, Reissue, Volume 44(1), footnote 10 to paragraph 1268.

Glanville Williams said that it "seems sensible" to omit the comma preceding the calendar year in references to acts passed before 1963.[4]

Notwithstanding the repeal of an enactment giving a short title to an act, the act may, without prejudice to any other mode of citation, continue to be cited by that short title.[7]

An act may continue to be cited by the short title authorised by any enactment notwithstanding the repeal of that enactment.[8]

In a few cases, particular acts have had more than one short title given to them, for example because subsequent amendments to their contents have rendered the earlier name inaccurate. For example, when the 1992 version of Basic Law: the Government – the so-called "Direct Election law" – made the post of Prime Minister of Israel elected, it added provisions regarding the Prime Ministerial election to the Knesset Election Law, 1969, and renamed it as "Knesset and Prime Minister Elections Law, 1969". This change was reverted following the abolition of direct Prime Ministerial elections in 2001.

British (and English) legislation that has been "inherited" by the legal systems of other countries has also sometimes ended up with a short title in one jurisdiction that differs from that used in another: for example, the act of Parliament that created Canada in 1867 is formally known in Canada as the Constitution Act, 1867, but is still known as the British North America Act 1867 in British law; note also the differing comma convention. Similarly, the Act "21 & 22 George III c.48" of the Parliament of Ireland is "Yelverton's Act (Ireland) 1781 [I]" in Northern Ireland and "Calendar Act, 1781" in the Republic of Ireland; the short titles were assigned respectively by Acts of the Parliament of Northern Ireland and the Oireachtas.[11][12]

Australian long titles are more like American than British ones in that they are short and broad: for example, "A Bill for an Act to provide for the establishment of the Automotive Transformation Scheme, and for related purposes". However, not all states use long titles and an Act may instead have an explicit "Purpose" section.

Acts in EU law are cited by a combination of letters and numbers, e.g. ‘(EU) 2015/35’ as short titles;[18] but occasionally there are descriptive short titles, e.g. Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 = ‘Single CMO Regulation’, the REACH Regulation.[19]

An act may be cited in an enactment or other document by, amongst other things, the short title of the act.[2]

Long and short titles were used in New Zealand up to and including 1999. From 1 January 2000 they were replaced by a single title.[20]

Long titles in South Africa omit the initial "An".

The wording after "An Act" varies somewhat between jurisdictions. In some jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, the long title opens with the words "An Act to ...". For example, the short title of the House of Lords Act 1999 is House of Lords Act 1999, but its long title is An Act to restrict membership of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage; to make related provision about disqualifications for voting at elections to, and for membership of, the House of Commons; and for connected purposes. UK bills substitute the words "A Bill" for "An Act". Thus, before it passed, the long title of the House of Lords Bill 1999 was "A Bill to restrict membership...". Because of the way they are used to define the scope of bills, many British long titles are quite long.

While the long titles of most acts of the US Congress read, "An Act to...", appropriations bills begin, "An Act making appropriations for...". Bills begin "A Bill for an Act..." Legislation in U.S. states also vary both in the exact wording and the level of detail of long titles. A typical long title in Illinois is, "AN ACT concerning safety", giving only a very broad characterization of the subject matter. On the other hand, a recent New Hampshire law carried the long title, "AN ACT relative to establishing a municipal bond rescission process, authorizing governing bodies to call a special meeting to consider reduction or rescission of appropriations, and clarifying special procedures enabling towns to respond appropriately to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009."