South African By-laws
Style guide for municipal By-laws in South Africa.
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.
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?
We standardise the titles for By-laws by:
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
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
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
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
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.
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
Last updated