Usually when you are searching for legislation you know the name of the act
So go to legislation and legislation search
Type the name into the title box
Autocomplete will start to give you suggestions. Just watch
that you pick the right one. You can see there's an awful lot of acts
with very similar titles. I know I am looking for the 1995 Act.
Then just hit return. Because we are looking for a specific act
we are only getting one result. Just click on that
and it will open up the legislation for me. This is called the arrangement of the act
So if you can think of these like separate chapters. These are the
different parts and sections. You can see at a glance
whether a section is in force. Just hover over and you will get the icon coming
up. It will tell you what it is. Not yet in force, partially in force
awaiting amendments, repealed
If you click into the section you'll get details
of what that's been replaced by if it's been repealed.
There is lots of really useful information on this page. Westlaw
is not just about the actual legislation, the actual text. It's all the additional information
and that additional information can make it so much easier for you to understand
legislation. As forensic investigation students there's a couple of
key things you will need to be aware of. So the first thing
you need to know the extent of an act or a section of an act.
The extent is whether the act applies to Scotland
or England and Wales, or Scotland, England and Wales or Northern Ireland
so it's all about the jurisdiction. So if you look in preamble and provision details
That is where you'll see the extent and it's the same for
each section of the act. So if I go back to the
arrangement of the act and look in another section
provision details on the left hand side
Extent.
Back to the arrangement of the act. The next thing to be aware of if which version you are looking
at. So let's have a look at a section
when you click into the section on the right hand side you can see
which version you are looking at. It will default to the most recent version
Underneath I can see the previous versions
and the dates that they were in force. So it's very easy to
jump to a previous version or to compare versions.
It will give you a side by side comparison.
The final thing it is worth pointing out are the links to primary references
and commentary references. So primary references, so that's
cases which cite
this section of the act. So it's a really quick way of making links between the
case law and legislation and also being able to understand how
the legislation is being interpreted. Commentary references
are links to books or journal articles, any commentary
which discusses this particular section. So again that's a way of extending your knowledge
and understanding of the legislation and how it is being used.
Searching for legislation on Westlaw is very straight forward and there is lots of added
value there to help you understand what it is you are reading
Key things are. Make sure you are looking at the correct act
a lot of the names are very similar. Be aware of the extent of the act
whether it applies to Scotland. Use the icons so that you are aware
of what's in force, what's been repealed, what's awaiting
amendments. It's very easy to be able to jump between different versions of an act
and finally to help you understand the legislation
and how it is being interpreted use the primary references links
that link to relevant case law and also any of the commentary links as well.
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