# South African By-laws

## Short titles

South African By-laws don't all have 'Short title' sections, and they aren't named consistently when they do have them. This means alphabetical lists of By-laws aren't easy to scan. 

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For example, where would you look look for a By-law on air quality in the Swartland municipality? Under **B** for By-law, **S** for Swartland, or **A** for Air Quality?
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We standardise the titles for By-laws by:

1. Excluding **By-law relating to the** or similar from the *start* of the title.

   > By-law relating to the Keeping of Dogs → Keeping of Dogs By-law, 2012
   >
   > By-law relating to Animals → Animals By-law, 2023
2. Always including or adding **By-law(s), \<year>** at the end of the title — capital B, hyphen, lowercase l — and if they use 'By-laws' with an 's' in the original, keep it.

   > Animal bylaw → Animal By-law, 2012
   >
   > Guns, Germs and Steel By-Laws → Guns, Germs and Steel By-laws, 2023
3. Excluding **of the XYZ Municipality** or similar.

   > Liquor by-law of the Cape Town Metro Municipality → Liquor By-law, 2020
   >
   > Cape Town: Liquor by-law → Liquor By-law, 2021
   >
   > Air Quality By-law of the Swartland Municipality → Air Quality By-law, 2018
4. Using **Title Case**: lowercase words like 'of, and, in, the, for, on', and capitalise the rest.

   > Air quality by-law, 2016 -> Air Quality By-law, 2016

### **Examples of By-law titles**

* Electricity Supply By-law, 2012
* Fire Safety By-law, 2023
* Keeping of Bees By-law, 2001
* Municipal Planning By-law, 2014
* Property Rates By-law, 2020
* Rates By-law, 2019
* Street Trading By-law, 2022
* Tariff By-law, 2018

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For stubs, use the name of the main By-law (excluding its year) followed by ': Commencement / Amendment / Repeal'.

> Street Trading By-law: Commencement
>
> Keeping of Bees By-law: Amendment
>
> Electricity Supply By-law: Repeal

See <https://edit.laws.africa/places/za-cpt/works?stub=stub> for examples.
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Oddities and edge cases:

* If the By-law is for a more local council or municipality than say a district municipality we're monitoring, include the name of the more local council in brackets at the end of the title.

  > Keeping of Bees (Municipal Council of Piketberg) By-law, 1998
  >
  > Levying of an Availability Charge for Sewerage (Municipal Council of Velddrif) By-law, 1994