How Do I Find the Laws That Concern My Legal Problem?
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This page from JP Boyd on Family Law—and other pages from this Wikibook that discuss BC family law litigation topics—are under editorial review to provide more thorough, current, and practical guidance. Since 2020, procedures, forms, and laws have changed significantly. While gross inaccuracies have been corrected, some details may still be outdated. These pages were not included in the 2024 print edition, and have been highlighted in orange where they appear in the navigation menu on this website. |
Finding and reading applicable laws can be helpful for understanding your legal situation. This section will show you an overview of how to find legislation and use for your own situation. Legislation is the laws passed by governmental legislative bodies, such as the Legislative Assembly of BC. A legislative law is also referred to as an act or a statute. Regulations are rules or laws, made under the authority of a specific statute, and are also considered legislation. Regulations may include information about fees, procedures and forms. An example is the Hunting License Regulation under the BC Wildlife Act.
Searching for the law on a specific topic
As mentioned in the section, What is Case Law, we have a system of law in Canada (other than Quebec) that is known as common law. This means that our law comes from both legislation, and decisions from the courts (case law). Because law comes from more than one source, it can be tricky to find the law that applies to a specific subject area.
For example, someone may want to see the law about child support. This is complicated because a federal act, provincial act, and federal regulation all cover this topic. There are also many variables discussed in case law. This means it’s not possible to look at one law and know everything that applies to child support issues. And this is why when you’re looking for the law on a specific area, it’s best to look at a secondary source first because they will describe any relevant legislation as well as sources of further help. See the section in this guide Secondary Sources and How to Find Them.
Searching for a known law
You will generally want to find the most up to date laws, which are available on the site BC Laws for BC legislation, and Justice Laws for federal legislation.
To search for a current law on BC Laws:
- Go to BC Laws
- Click on Laws of British Columbia
- Click on the first letter of the act you’re looking for, e.g. “E” for Employment Standards Act
- Now you can look at the Act, some of the Regulations and past versions of the Act.
Finding a law as it read on a certain date
You might need to see what the law was at a certain point in time. For example, if you need to see how the Strata Property Act looked in 2012 when you bought your condominium, you can go to the CanLII site. When you search for the Strata Property Act, you will see it offers older versions of the Act as well.
Add instructions for looking at CanLii or BC Laws here
If you are having trouble finding older versions of laws, you can contact Courthouse Libraries BC for help.
To find municipal bylaws, go to your municipal website or Legaltree – BC Bylaws. Copies of Indian band by-laws may be obtained by contacting the band office. For self governing First Nations, check their website, such as Tsawwassen and Nisga’a.
How to read a statute
Statutes usually follow the same structure:
- Table of Contents – you can see at a glance the main headings and scope of the act. Online versions have links to each section of the act.
- Definitions - are usually at the beginning of the act or at the beginning of each section in a long act. They will help you understand how the act uses certain words.
- Body of the act - the main contents of the act. Lengthy acts are divided into parts and divisions.
- Other important information that acts may contain include:
- which government Ministry or body is responsible for administering the act and regulations
- how to appeal
- date of "in force" or when the act comes into effect.
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Beginner's Guide to Finding Legal Information © Courthouse Libraries BC 2015 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada Licence. |