4.3 The internal layout of legislation: a statute There is a standard method of laying out statutes which, when recognised and understood, becomes a great help for analysis or evaluation. Most large statutes will be divided into parts for ease of reference. Each part will deal with different aspects of the overall collection of rules and their meanings. Each part contains sections which give more details in each area. Where appropriate, sections will deal with definitions. Sections can be further divided with the use of arabic numerals into sub-sections. Sub-sections are capable of further division, with the use of roman numerals, into paragraphs. Paragraphs can be further divided with alphabetical ordering into sub-paragraphs. At the end of the statute, there will often be schedules and these are numerically divided as well. These deal further with matters raised in the various parts. Schedules can only relate to previous sections in the Act. They cannot create anything new without an anchoring in the main body of the statute. All statutes also contain marginal notes, headings and sub-headings. These organising devices, however, are said not to form part of the law. Correct understanding of the relationship between parts, sections, sub-sections, paragraphs, sub-paragraphs, marginal notes, headings and schedules enables the general layout of the Act to be ascertained. Assistance is also obtained from the ‘long title’ of the Act, which looks more like a long sentence about what the statute is about! Central to the analysis of statutes is the ability to understand these intratextual relationships. Figure 3.8, below, sets out the general layout of statutes and Figure 3.9, below, is an annotated first page of the Human Rights Act. Figure 3.8: general layout of statutes