How does the U.S. Code organizational structure work? The U.S. Code has the following organizational structure: Title > Chatper > Subchapter > Part > Section A good example of that is shown on the Cornell law site. How are these components actually defined? What specifically is a title, chapter, subchapter, part and section?
This detailed guide to the U.S. Code is the source for this answer. Titles are the largest organizational units, with each title focused on a fairly broad, but closely related area of legislation. For example, Title 17 is Copyrights, Title 35 is Patents, Title 18 is Crimes and Criminal Procedure. Within each chapter, the main unit of organization is the Section (§). For example, 35 USC §101 is the section that outlines subject-matter-eligibility for patents. Between the Title level and Section level, the U.S. Code uses chapters, subchapters, parts, and subparts, not necessarily in that order, and not consistently from title to title. Title 35 is divided into Parts, then Chapters, then Sections. Title 17 is divided into Chapters, then sometimes Subchapters, then Sections. Title 26 is divided into Subtitles, then Chapters, then Subchapters, then Parts, then Sections. In the end though, you always get to Sections. Sections can be subdivided quite finely into subsections, paragraphs, subparagraphs, clauses, subclauses, items, subitems. Here is an example of a section that is organized quite finely: 26 USC §401. It includes divisions all the way down to subclauses (the things identified with capital roman numerals: I, II, III).
This appears to be a fairly straightforward construction. Section 9(2) and 18b share a number of requirements, so 18b points back instead of repeating them. But not all requirements are shared. In particular, requirement 3 (covering pensions) does not apply to newly-graduated students. That's not strange since students are not paid wages. Also, they're not subject to the 5 year residence permit requirement. As for "sentences 2 to 6 shall apply accordingly.", this covers waivers to these requirements.
There is no one answer, but here are some examples. India is famous for deriving general principles of more important constitutional law concepts that can be used to find constitutional amendments to be unconstitutional. The U.S. has not gone to that extreme but does derive constitutional protections for the overall scheme of the constitution and from the legal context of the nation when constitutional provisions were enacted that don't obvious flow from the text of the legislation (e.g. the 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution) has been interpreted to establish state sovereign immunity that the text of that amendment does not expressly provide for). Another somewhat weird source of law in the U.S. (constitutional at the federal level and usually common law at the state level) is that the 21st century right to a jury trial in a civil case depends upon whether the claim would have been litigated in England in 1789 in the courts of law or the courts of chancery in England. Customary international law is a thing. It also often arises from international practices or diplomatic norms, rather than tribunal adjudications. In the jurisprudence of the legislative process and some aspects of federalism, historical practices that have not been litigated are frequently resorted to as a source of law. For example, the question of whether a legislature is in recess has been resolved based upon historical practice. Prior to the French Revolution, customary practice was an important source of law in France. Customary practice was an important source of the English common law. In many British colonies and former British colonies (e.g. South Africa and Kenya and Sudan), lower tribal or village courts were often expressly permitted to apply local custom in their decision making. In the U.S., a collection of secondary authority texts compiled by the American Law Institute, an affiliate of the American Bar Association, called the Restatements, which summarize in codified form, various subjects in common law, are often used by courts as a source of law where there is no case law on point in a jurisdiction. In civil law countries, the leading legal treatises of law professors are an important source of interpretive authority of the civil code and other major codification of the law. Most Islamic countries provide in their constitutions that Islamic law is the highest authority and supersedes any secular law including other provisions of the constitution to the contrary. In many parts of the United States, mostly in the west, but also in Florida and Louisiana, property rights arising under Spanish/Mexican law, or under Native American law continue in force even though they derived from legal systems other than U.S. statutes and common law. See, for example: Tribe: We have &quot;aboriginal title&quot; to these lands in New Mexico because we had exclusive occupation of them from around 1300 to 1650, and then still used them a lot since then. Further, the &quot;sovereign&quot; (the U.S.) has never properly taken them away, so they're still ours. District court: No. Tribe on motion to reconsider: How about just these bits of the lands? District court: Still no. Tenth Circuit: There's still a claim for one of the bits. Concurrence 1: No bits for you. Concurrence 2: Two bits. (Source)
As a linguist who reads laws for a hobby, I would say that "and" legally means what it was intended to mean. There are often interpretive statutes which say that "and" can be read as "or" or vice versa, when necessary (as in ORC 1.02 "And" may be read "or," and "or" may be read "and" if the sense requires it. Delaware doesn't have that as a rule, but it is a rule employed by courts "as required". One approach to interpretation is to discern intent from surrounding text, so we would look at the whole code. The general context is the rule that "A building or land shall be used only for the following purposes". Following Article XXVII of the code, other uses could be permitted because "§115-32. Special use exceptions may be permitted by the Board of Adjustment and in accordance with the provisions of Article XXVII of this chapter and may include...". That section ends with "C:Other special use exceptions as follows", and includes "Private garages for more than four automobiles and with floor area of more than 900 square feet in a residential district". From the list of things enumerated in §115-32, there is no coherent pattern – some things are in the list of special exceptions, some things are in this list, some not. So the "surrounding text" approach doesn't help in this case. Scrutiny of legislative debate is sometimes invoked, especially at the federal level, but there is negligible chance that there is any such evidence here. The almost-final approach is to spell out the competing interpretations, and see if anything jumps out as ridiculous (because it is assumed that lawmakers do not pass ridiculous laws). The two interpretations are "both must be true", versus "one must be true". Since the general rule is that you can go ahead unless it is restricted, then with the "both" interpretation, you need a special exception permit if you simultaneously plan to have more than 4 automobiles (which means, 5+, so 4 is allowed) and floor area greater than 900 sf. Thus if you plan for only 4 cars, or can fit the 5 cars into 900 sf, then you would not require a permit (on the "both" interpretation). Which btw is the literal interpretation of "and". This is not an absurd scenario (using a generous 10'x18' space, which I derived from parking slot regulations in Danbury CT). So it is reasonable to think they meant "both". The "either of these" interpretation says that they are being even more restrictive – you need permission to have a 5+ car garage (regardless of size), and you need permission to have a garage larger than 800 sf (even if there were only 1 car in it). This seems a bit specific since there isn't generally a size restriction on structures in the code – except that playhouses are limited to 150 sf. and can't be tall enough for an adult to stand up. Since the literal meaning of "and" is "both at once", and since no facts about the code say otherwise (i.e. that interpretation does not result in an absurd nullification of some other provision), an objective court should interpret this rule to mean "both at once", thus the government imposes the fewest restrictions on your property. No way to know what they will do.
See Article VI of the Constitution: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. This seems to me that it pretty clearly establishes the Constitution as taking the place of any previous laws. In particular, Article XI of the Articles is in conflict with Article IV Section 3 of the Constitution ("New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union"). The Constitution says that Congress's action is required to create a new state, and doesn't mention any exceptions. The Constitution's terms presumably take precedence. If Canada wanted to become a state, it would have to be admitted by Congress under Article IV Section 3.
Yes, explicitly. It even laid out the procedure and method (i.e. on equal footing) of these new states. Specifically, Article IV, Section 3, the &quot;Admissions Clause&quot;: New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress. Note that many of the things in your quoted section are forbidden to the States, but are explicitly granted to the Federal Government (in various sections). So it's not &quot;this shall not be done&quot;, but rather &quot;the individual states shall not do these things; Federal Government shall be the only one to do these things if they can, as else where they may be banned from doing so&quot;.
5 CFR 2635.102 provides definitions for 5 CFR Part 2635 (which contains 5 CFR 2635.502). (h) Employee means any officer or employee of an agency, including a special Government employee. It includes officers but not enlisted members of the uniformed services. It includes employees of a State or local government or other organization who are serving on detail to an agency, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 3371, et seq. For purposes other than subparts B and C of this part, it does not include the President or Vice President. Status as an employee is unaffected by pay or leave status or, in the case of a special Government employee, by the fact that the individual does not perform official duties on a given day. Subparts B &amp; C pertain to gifts and range from §2635.201-304, whereas the section you are asking about is in Subpart E. So §2635.502 expressly does not apply to the VP. The "why" part is more challenging. The statutory authority invoked for these regulations is 5 USC 7301, 7351, 7353, 5 USC App, acts passed by Congress. The rule-making rationale is in 57 FR 35042, which does not overtly invoke any specific statutory authority for this specific item. In contrast, Subpart B is the implementation of 5 USC §7353, which governs gifts to federal employees, and (d)(2) of that section says the term "officer or employee" means an individual holding an appointive or elective position in the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of Government, other than a Member of Congress. In other words, the mixed definition of "employee" (the VP is an employee only for subparts B, C) under the regulations is because Congress passed some laws that included the VP, but did not pass a law that required non-appearance of conflict. Such a regulation would be within the authority given the president in 5 USC 7301, which simply says that "The President may prescribe regulations for the conduct of employees in the executive branch". Since there is no Congressional authority to subject the VP to 5 CFR 2635.502, it is written to exclude that person (also the president).
§1 states what the design of the flag shall be (§2 mandates addition of stars when a new state is added). In essence, 4 USC 1-2 define what the flag is, and the rest of that chapter addresses what you can do with it. These are laws (passed by Congress), not rules or customs. That is, it's not a custom that the flag is 50 starts and 13 stripes, it's the law. POTUS cannot unilaterally change the law. (4 USC 3 also specifies punishments for certain kinds of flag abuse, and this too is outside the scope of that the president can do by declaration). 4 USC 5 in fact states that "The flag of the United States for the purpose of this chapter shall be defined according to sections 1 and 2 of this title", and that The following codification of existing rules and customs pertaining to the display and use of the flag of the United States of America is established for the use of such civilians or civilian groups or organizations as may not be required to conform with regulations promulgated by one or more executive departments of the Government of the United States. §§6-9 specify standard flag etiquette (violation of which incurs no legal punishment), and those are the rules that the president can rewrite.