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→Two important statutes, one important regulation and one influential paper
Before moving on, let's talk about how to read laws made by the government, called ''legislation'', ''statutes'', ''acts'', and ''regulations''. We'll use British Columbia's ''Family Law Act'' as an example.
The name of a statute is written in italics. The names of other kinds of law, called regulations, are written without italics. In British Columbia, we talk about the provincial ''Family Law Act'' and the Family Law Act Regulation, and the federal ''Divorce Act'' and the Child Support Guidelines. The Child Support Guidelines are a regulation to the ''Divorce Act''.
The proper legal title of the ''Family Law Act'' is the '''''Family Law Act'', SBC 2011, c. 25'''. '''SBC''' stands for "Statutes of Britsh Columbia." '''2011''' means that the statute was passed by the provincial legislature in 2011. '''c.''' stands for "chapter" and '''25''' means that the ''Family Law Act'' was the twenty-fifth statute passed by the legislature in 2011, or the twenty-fifth ''chapter'' of the statutes passed by the legislature in 2011.