AGLC4 Rule 25.3.2: Public Law, Private Law or Chapter Number

After the title give the public law number, the private law number or the chapter number, followed by a comma. From the 60th Congress laws are numbered by Congress and sequence (Congress number, a hyphen, then the sequence number), and that form is used whatever form the statute itself prints. Earlier laws are identified by chapter number, which together with the year identifies the law because chapters restart each year.

AGLC4 page 280

Formatting

  • Public law is Pub L No and private law is Priv L No, roman with no full stops.
  • Chapter is ch, roman with no full stop.
  • The law number keeps its hyphen between the Congress number and the sequence number; the Congress number has no ordinal ending.
  • A comma follows the number.

Examples

Quoted from the Guide, page 280
  1. 58
    1997 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Recovery from Natural Disasters, and for Overseas Peacekeeping Efforts, Including Those in Bosnia, Pub L No 105-18, 111 Stat 158.
  2. 59
    Railroad Right-of-Way Conveyance Validation Act of 2004, Priv L No 108-2, 118 Stat 4025.
  3. 60
    Act of 7 June 1897, ch 4, arts 2–5, 30 Stat 96, 96–7. [Not: An Act to Adopt Regulations for Preventing Collisions upon Certain Harbors, Rivers, and Inland Waters of the United States, …]

Not

Quoted from the Guide, page 280
  • An Act to Adopt Regulations for Preventing Collisions upon Certain Harbors, Rivers, and Inland Waters of the United States, …
    the long title must not be used for a law without a short title

Forms in the rule

Quoted from the Guide, page 280
  • Pub L No 108-37

See also

Check your footnotes against these rules

Paste your paper into the free AGLC4 checker and each footnote is graded against the Guide, with the rule it breaks. To write a citation from scratch, use the AGLC4 citation generator.

AGLC4 citation checker AGLC4 citation generator

Formats, examples, passages, tables and the forms marked Not are quoted from the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (4th ed, Melbourne University Law Review Association, 2018), with the page of the Guide they appear on. Titles, summaries and explanations are our own.