Coming Into Force – Know How, the blog of the Great Library

Coming into force of Federal Regulations and Statutory Instruments

When conducting legislative research, many researchers will know that locating a piece of legislation is only half the battle. The next hurdle lies in decoding commencement information or coming into force date(s).

As outlined in previous posts, deciphering this information can be tricky and confusion often arises from the wording used. In this post we hope to shed light on three frequently used coming into force (CIF) phrases of Federal SORs and SIs.

CIF dates for Revised Statutes

When we talk about commencement for statutes, we normally think of annual or amending statutes. However, did you know that printed official revised statutes also have commencement dates?

Shhh… Be very, very quiet, we’re hunting CIF dates!

As a reminder, statutes are not necessarily in force upon royal assent – however, most statutes and regulations come with a commencement section these days. That said, if you conduct historical legislative research, you may find that some annual statutes are ‘silent’ about their commencement!