Metadata within legislation

This section explains how to identify legislation metadata from a piece of legislation.

Assent date

The date signed by the relevant authority (the President for Acts and a Minister for subsidiary legislation). This date will usually appear at the top or bottom of the piece of legislation.

Or

Date of commencement

Date that the piece of legislation commences. This can be found in a section called “short title and commencement” which usually appears either as the first or the last section.

This section will either state (as below) that the commencement is the date of publication in the Gazette, or that the commencement will be announced at a later date by publication of a notice in the Gazette, or it will not say anything about the date of commencement. In the latter case, the date of commencement is assumed to be the date of publication in the Gazette