Glossary

• Author: Ted Tjaden
• Profession: Faculty of Law and Faculty of Information Sciences University of Toronto
• Pages: 323-332

GLOSSARY

[Words

in

boldface

within

the

definitions

are

defined elsewhere

in the

Glossary]

Abridgment:

In

legal literature,

a

summary

or

digest

of a

court case.

Many

publishers

provide compilations

of

these summaries

or

digests

organized

by

topic

or

theme.

A

well-known case

law

digest

in

Canada

is

Carswell's

Canadian

Abridgment,

available

in

print,

on

CD-ROM,

and

on

WestlaweCARSWELL

(by

subscription),

which

has

summaries

of

Canadian court decisions, organized

by

topic. Quicklaw

has an

online

digest service

in its CCS

database.

See

Chapter

2,

section

D for

more

information

on

abridgments.

Bill:

A

draft

piece

of

legislation introduced

in the

applicable legislature.

Most

often,

it is the

ruling party that introduces

draft

legislation,

but

members

of the

opposition

can

also introduce bills; however opposi-

tion bills generally

do not

pass

the

requisite three readings needed

to

become

law if

they

are too

controversial. Bills

can be

public

(if

they

are

of

general application)

or

private

(if

they only

affect

one

organization

or

entity).

A

bill

must

pass

all

three readings

and

come into

force

prior

to the

proroguing

of the

legislature

to

become law.

See

also Prorogued.

Bluebook: This

is the

colloquial name

of the

legal

citation

guide used

in the

United States.

Its

formal

name

is The

Bluebook:

A

Uniform

Sys-

tem

of

Citation

(published

by the

Harvard

Law

Review Association

and

revised

regularly).

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