THE LAWS (REVISED EDITION) ACT, 1994.

Arrangement of Sections.

Section

Interpretation.

Appointment of commissioners.

Contents of the Revised Edition.

Powers of the commissioners.

Attorney General to approve other omissions.

No power to change substance and meaning.

Permanent Secretaries to furnish proposals.

Volumes to be printed.

Bringing the Revised Edition into force.

Validity of the Revised Edition.

Construction of references to repealed or amended enactments.

Revised Edition to be authentic text.

Place of this Act in the Revised Edition.

THE LAWS (REVISED EDITION) ACT, 1994.

Commencement: 14 October, 1994.

An Act for the preparation and publication of a revised edition of the

Laws of Uganda.

1. Interpretation.

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires—

“commissioners” means the persons appointed under section 2;

“Revised Edition” means the Revised Edition of the Laws of Uganda to be prepared under the authority of this Act.

2. Appointment of the commissioners.

The President shall, on the advice of the Attorney General, by statutory instrument, appoint two suitable persons to be commissioners of law revision to prepare a revised edition of the Laws of Uganda.

Whenever it appears to the President that a commissioner is unable, from any cause, to perform the functions of his or her office under this Act, he or she may, by notice published in the Gazette, appoint another person to be commissioner for such period as the President may determine.

3. Contents of the Revised Edition.

(1) The Revised Edition shall, subject to this Act, contain—

the Uganda Independence Act, 1962; the Uganda Act, 1964, of the United Kingdom and the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda;

Acts, Decrees, Statutes, Ordinances, statutory instruments and legal notices in force on the 31st day of December, 1995;

any Constitution, Acts, Decrees, Statutes, Ordinances, statutory instruments and legal notices which have been enacted but not yet brought into operation on the 31st day of December, 1995.

(2) Each Act, Decree, Statute and Ordinance shall form a separate
chapter, and the chapters shall be arranged under such titles as the
commissioners shall determine.

Below the number of each chapter, the commissioners shall set out the short title of the Act and the date of commencement of the Act.

Statutory instruments shall be grouped into chapters on the basis of the Acts they implement.

Statutory instruments may be placed within the same chapter as the Act they implement or in a separate chapter at the discretion of the commissioners.

Legal notices may be placed in an appropriate location as determined by the commissioners.

The commissioners shall set forth a history note for each Act, statutory instrument and legal notice.

The history note shall include the number and year of each principal Act, Decree, Statute or Ordinance not included in the 1964 Revised Edition. It shall also include for each Act, statutory instrument or legal notice, the number and year of each amending Act, Decree, Statute, Ordinance, statutory instrument or legal notice which came into force after 1964.

Nothing in this section shall be construed as preventing the commissioners from including in any volume of the Revised Edition, any Act, Decree, Statute, Ordinance, statutory instrument or legal notice enacted after the 31st day of December, 1995; and all Acts, Decrees, Statutes, Ordinances, statutory instruments and legal notices so included shall be deemed to form part of the Revised Edition and have effect accordingly.

Notwithstanding subsection (1)(b), the commissioners may omit from the Revised Edition, any Act, Decree, Statute or statutory instrument which is in force on the 31st day of December, 1995, but which is repealed before the coming into force of the Revised Edition.

4. Powers of the commissioners.

In the preparation of the Revised Edition, the commissioners shall have the following powers—
(a) to omit—

(i) all Acts, Decrees, Statutes, Ordinances, statutory instruments, legal notices or parts of those documents, which have been expressly repealed or which have had their full effect;

(ii) all repealing Acts, Decrees, Statutes, Ordinances, statutory instruments, legal notices or parts of those documents and all tables and lists of repealed enactments, whether contained in Schedules or otherwise;

(iii) all preambles to Acts, Decrees, Statutes, Ordinances, statutory instruments, legal notices or any part of them, where the omission can, in the opinion of the commissioners, conveniently be made;

(iv) all words of enactment in any Act, Decree, Statute, Ordinance, statutory instrument or legal notice;

(v) all provisions appointing the date when an Act, Decree, Statute, Ordinance, statutory instrument, legal notice or part of those documents is to come into force, where that omission can, in the opinion of the commissioners, conveniently be made;

(vi) all amending Acts, Decrees, Statutes, Ordinances, statutory instruments, legal notices or any part of those documents, where the amendments effected thereby have been incorporated by the commissioners in the Act, Decree, Statute, Ordinance, statutory instrument or legal notice to which they relate;

(vii) all statutory instruments made under the authority of Acts, Decrees, Statutes and Ordinances which have been repealed and not reenacted;

(viii) all Appropriation Acts, Decrees and Statutes;

(ix) all statutory instruments granting remission of sales tax, customs tariff duties and excise duties and similar measures to the extent omission is approved by the Attorney General by statutory instrument;

(x) all statutory instruments which the Attorney General has, by statutory instrument, specified as inconsistent with any enactment repealing and reenacting the enactment under which the statutory instrument was made;

(xi) all expressions which have become obsolete as a result of constitutional changes or changes specified in Acts,

Decrees, Statutes, Ordinances, statutory instruments and
legal notices and substitute the expressions authorised by

those changes; (xii) marginal notes which trace the pre-1964 edition history of

a provision; (xiii) the laws of the Federal States and Administrations; (xiv) the laws of the East African Community;

to arrange the Acts, Decrees, Statutes, Ordinances, statutory instruments and legal notices in any sequence and groups that may be convenient, irrespective of the dates of enactment;

to redesignate a Decree, Statute or an Ordinance as an Act;

to redesignate any legal notice as a statutory instrument;

to renumber sections and other subdivisions within amended Acts, Decrees, Statutes, Ordinances, statutory instruments and legal notices;

to substitute to the nearest reasonable unit metric denominations of measurement for imperial denominations of measurement;

to convert marginal notes to headnotes and to supply, alter and delete headnotes;

(h) to correct cross references;

(i) to correct grammatical and typographical errors, and for that

purpose, to make verbal additions, omissions or alterations; (j) to correct punctuation; (k) to make capitalisation consistent; (l) to make such formal alterations as to names, localities, offices

and otherwise as may be necessary to bring an Act, Decree,

Statute, statutory instrument or legal notice into conformity with

the circumstances of Uganda; (m) to provide editorial notes by way of amplification; (n) to add such indexes, tables and other editorial features as the

commissioners consider appropriate; (o) to do all things relating to form and method which appear to the

commissioners as necessary or useful for perfecting the Revised

Edition.

5. Attorney General to approve other omissions.

The Attorney General may, by statutory instrument, approve omission from the Revised Edition, of the following documents—

(a) statutory instruments referred to in section 4(a)(ix); and

(b) statutory instruments referred to in section 4(a)(x).

6. No power to change substance and meaning.

Except as otherwise provided, nothing in this Act shall be taken to imply any power in the commissioners to make any alteration or amendments in the substance of any enactment.

7. Permanent Secretaries to furnish proposals.

For the better performance of the commissioners’ duties under section 4(l), every Permanent Secretary shall, within sixty days from the commencement of this Act, send to the commissioners, comments, if any, on the alteration authorised by section 4(l) in any Acts, Decrees, Statutes, Ordinances, statutory instruments and legal notices being administered by the department under that Permanent Secretary’s supervision.

If the commissioners do not receive any comments from a Permanent Secretary within sixty days from the commencement of this Act, the commissioners shall presume that the Permanent Secretary has no comments to make and shall proceed with the preparation of the Revised Edition.

8. Volumes to be printed.

The Revised Edition shall be printed in the number of volumes and format determined by the commissioners.

9. Bringing the Revised Edition into force.

The Attorney General may, by statutory instrument, approve the Revised Edition or any volume of it, and order that it shall come into force from such date as he or she shall, in the instrument, appoint.

10. Validity of the Revised Edition.

From the date appointed under section 9, all Acts, Decrees, Statutes, Ordinances, statutory instruments and legal notices included in the Revised Edition, or any volume of any of those documents, shall be deemed to be and shall be taken by all courts and for all purposes to be the laws of Uganda and
shall be judicially noticed as such.

11. Construction of references to repealed or amended enactments.

Where in any enactment or in any instrument or document, reference is made to any written law which is repealed or otherwise affected by the operation of this Act, the reference shall, unless the context otherwise requires, be deemed to be a reference to the corresponding law comprised in the Revised Edition; and all cross references in that enactment, instrument or document shall, where they are affected by the operation of this Act, be construed with such modification as circumstances require.

12. Revised Edition to be authentic text.

Except insofar as concerns any Act, Decree, Statute, Ordinance, statutory instrument or legal notice omitted from the Revised Edition under section 4(a), from the date referred to in section 9, the Revised Edition is, in all courts and for all purposes, the sole authentic text of the laws of Uganda.

13. Place of this Act in the Revised Edition.
This Act shall be printed at the commencement of the Revised Edition.
History: Statute 12/1994.

Cross References

Uganda Independence Act, 1962. Uganda Act, 1964, of the United Kingdom. Constitution of 1995.