law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

, coming into force or entry into force (also called commencement) is the

process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management * Business process, activities that produce a specific s ...

by which

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred ...

regulation Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. Fo ...

treaties A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by international law. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention ...

and other

legal instrument Legal instrument is a law, legal term of art that is used for any formally executed written document that can be formally attributed to its author, records and formally expresses a legally enforceable act, process, or contractual duty, obligation ...

s come to have legal force and effect. The term is closely related to the date of this transition. The point at which such instrument comes into effect may be set out in the instrument itself, or after the lapse of a certain period, or upon the happening of a certain event, such as a proclamation or an objective event, such as the birth, marriage, reaching a particular age or death of a certain

person A person (: people or persons, depending on context) is a being who has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations suc ...

. On rare occasions, the effective date of a law may be backdated to a date before the enactment. To come into force, a treaty or Act first needs to receive the required number of votes or ratifications. Although it is common practice to stipulate this number as a requirement in the body of the treaty itself, it can also be set out in a superior law or legal framework, such as a

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...

or the standing orders of the

legislature A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial power ...

in which it originated. "Coming into force" generally includes publication in an official gazette so that people know the law or treaty exists.

Treaties

After their adoption, treaties as well as their amendments may have to follow the official legal procedures of the organisation, such as the United Nations, that sponsored it, including

signature A signature (; from , "to sign") is a depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and intent. Signatures are often, but not always, Handwriting, handwritt ...

ratification Ratification is a principal's legal confirmation of an act of its agent. In international law, ratification is the process by which a state declares its consent to be bound to a treaty. In the case of bilateral treaties, ratification is usuall ...

, and entry into force.

Legislation

The process of enactment, by which a bill becomes an Act, is separate from commencement. Even if a bill passes through all necessary stages to become an Act, it may not automatically come into force. Moreover, an Act may be repealed having never come into force. A country's law could determine that on being passed by lawmakers a bill becomes an act without further ado. However, more usually, the process whereby a bill becomes an Act is well prescribed in general

al or administrative legislation. This process varies from country to country, and from

political system In political science, a political system means the form of Political organisation, political organization that can be observed, recognised or otherwise declared by a society or state (polity), state. It defines the process for making official gov ...

to political system. Typically, the process by which a bill becomes an Act includes signature or some other token of assent by the

head of state A head of state is the public persona of a sovereign state.#Foakes, Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representative of its international persona." The name given to the office of head of sta ...

and publication in an official

gazette A gazette is an official journal, a newspaper of record, or simply a newspaper. In English and French speaking countries, newspaper publishers have applied the name ''Gazette'' since the 17th century; today, numerous weekly and daily newspapers ...

. In some systems, the head of state or some other official is required to definitely signify his approval, as for example in the granting of

royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in othe ...

in the

Commonwealth realms A Commonwealth realm is a sovereign state in the Commonwealth of Nations that has the same constitutional monarch and head of state as the other realms. The current monarch is King Charles III. Except for the United Kingdom, in each of the ...

. In others, a bill automatically becomes an Act unless vetoed, as for example in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. But these steps do not, in themselves, make an act legally binding on the population. An act is typically brought into force in one of three ways: * By means of an explicit commencement date (and sometimes time of day) written into the act itself. It is possible for different sections of an act to come into force at different dates or times. * As a result of a commencement order. Usually, an Act or part of an Act may only be brought into force by a commencement order if explicit provision is made. Commencement orders are typically issued by the executive branch of government, though they may also require legislative approval, or at least that the legislature be informed. As with explicit commencement dates, different parts of an act may be brought into force by different commencement orders at different times. * Automatically. An Act that does not include explicit commencement dates or provision for commencement orders, or that has dates or provides for commencement orders for only some of its contents, will typically be interpreted as having come into effect at a certain time relative to its enactment. This time is usually specified by an interpretive statute, or, in the absence of such a statute, a legal rule. For example, in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, until late in the 18th century a legal rule interpreted statutes as coming into effect at the start of the legislative session in which they were passed, but Acts of Parliament (Commencement) Act 1793 ( 33 Geo. 3. c. 13) stipulated that future laws without explicit commencement provisions would come into effect on the day on which they received royal assent. A similar example is provided by

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, where an Act without commencement provisions comes into force on the day after the day on which it received royal assent. * It is possible for an Act to come into effect through any combination of these three methods. It is not necessarily the case that a statute which comes into force remains in force until it is repealed; it may be explicitly brought out of force, and perhaps later brought back into force. For example, in Ireland, Section V of the Offences against the State Act 1939 (which provides for the Special Criminal Court) goes in and out of force by

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

proclamation: it was brought into force on 24 August 1939, out of force on 2 October 1962, and back into force on 26 May 1972.

National practice

Netherlands

Since 2007 the government of the Netherlands has been experimenting with common commencement dates for legislation concerned with: *public health expenses *education *environmental matters *construction of houses and buildings *financial markets *

taxation A tax is a mandatory financial charge or levy imposed on an individual or legal person, legal entity by a governmental organization to support government spending and public expenditures collectively or to Pigouvian tax, regulate and reduce nega ...

. In these fields, commencement dates must be either 1 January or 1 July.

United Kingdom

Section 4 of the Interpretation Act 1978 (c. 30) provides: This replaces the corresponding provision in the Acts of Parliament (Commencement) Act 1793 ( 33 Geo. 3. c. 13). Schedule 1 of that act contains the following definition:

Northern Ireland

Sections 14(1) and (2) of the Interpretation Act (Northern Ireland) 1954 (c. 33 (N.I.)) read: In an enactment the expression "commencement", when used with reference to any statutory provision, means the time at which that provision comes into operation.

Scotland

Sections 2 and 3 of the Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, which applies to Acts of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Statutory Instruments, provide- This replaces the temporary provision made by the Scotland Act 1998 (Transitory and Transitional Provisions) (Publication and Interpretation etc. of Acts of the Scottish Parliament) Order 1999.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Coming Into Force Legal terminology