Positive Law Codification

Positive Law Codification

Positive law codification refers to the preparation and enactment of a codification bill that will restate existing law as positive law in the United States (U.S). While the restatement of the law conforms to the intent, policy, and objective of the congress in the original enactment, the organizational structure of the law is improved alongside the elimination of ambiguous and obsolete provisions.

Process of Positive Law Codification

In drafting a codification bill, the Office of the Law Revision Counsel first looks into existing laws and aims for their improvement without changing its intent and policy. This exercise is achieved through consultations from federal agencies, congressional committees, and experts in the legal field of the law being codified (Hudson, 2011). After that, an explanation of the bill is prepared alongside the codification bill, which contains a disposition table and section by section analysis. After the codification bill and explanation are finalized, they are submitted to the Committee of the Judiciary of the House of Representatives for an introduction and later formal review and comment period (Sappideen, 2014). When the comment period is over, an amendment is prepared that reflects the corrections is made by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel and submitted to the Judicial Committee for action (Hudson, 2011). The House of Representatives later passes the bill by the suspension of rules and by the Senate by unanimous consent (Sappideen, 2014). Once the bill is enacted, the title is a positive law of the title code.

Importance of Positive Law Codification

The significance of Positive law codification is that it improves the usefulness of a code. For instance, some of the legislations may contain grammatical, typographical, and defective cross-references (Sappideen, 2014). Through Positive law codification, there is an opportunity to correct the mistakes (Hudson, 2011). Besides, this exercise is significant in eliminating ambiguities, duplication and inconsistencies in the laws.

References

Hudson, M. (2011). The Progressive Codification of International Law. The American Journal of International Law, 20(4), 655. doi: 10.2307/2188688

Sappideen, R. (2014). Harmonizing International Commercial Law through Codification. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.1533087