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This section provides an introduction to the ''Divorce Act'', the ''Family Law Act'', the Child Support Guidelines and the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines. The next two pages go into the ''Divorce Act'' and the ''Family Law Act'' in a lot more detail.
Before moving on, let's talk about how to read laws made by the government, called ''legislation'', ''statutes'', and ''acts''. (All of these terms mean the same thing.) We'll use British Columbia's ''Family Law Act'' as an example.
The name of a statute is written in italics. The names of another kind of law, called ''regulations'', are written without italics in legal documents. For example:*The ''Family Law Act'' is a statute, so it appears in italics.*The Federal Child Support Guidelines is a regulation, so it is not written in 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'', and the Family Law Act Regulation is, like the name suggests, a regulation to the ''Family Law 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 British Columbia."
*'''2011''' means that the statute was passed by the provincial legislature in 2011.
*'''c.''' stands for "chapter."
In this resource, we don't worry about using the full legal titles of legislation, and we mostly talk about sections rather than parts and divisions.
{{:Divorce Act}}