Template talk:Infobox legislation

Request for addition to template: "Veto date," "Vetoed by," and "Veto override" parameters

I would like to request that the template be modified to include dates for instances where a bill has been vetoed and when a bill has had a veto overridden, and the name of the person performing the veto. For example, Marriage Equality Act (Vermont) is about legislation in the U.S. state of Vermont that was passed by the Vermont General Assembly, vetoed by the Governor of Vermont, then that veto was subsequently overridden by the General Assembly, after which the bill enacted into law. This process of veto and veto override exists in all 50 states (in addition to the federal government), but the template currently does not have a way to accurately show instances where that process is used. Musashi1600 (talk) 00:39, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Seems OK to me. Anyone else have views? — SMUconlaw (talk) 07:41, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Status

The options for |status= do not seem to cater for the Cancer Act 1939, of which only on section remains in force. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:42, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

"Not fully in force"? — SMUconlaw (talk) 16:05, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

The status options do not fully cover the common situation in the United States where controversial laws are challenged in court on constitutional grounds and often temporarily enjoined pending court review and then possibly struck down in whole or in part. The option "not yet in force" doesn't adequately represent the possibilities.--agr (talk) 09:42, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Second 'assented' field for infobox legislation?

[Relocated from "User talk:Jacklee".] Hi, I'm trying to use {{infobox legislation}} on Bail Act 2013 and am running into some difficulties, could you please help me? The relevant Bill's Hansard can be accessed here. In NSW, the term 'assented' is used, but you can see that it's used for both the upper and lower houses. There is only one 'assented' field available in the information box. Could you please add a second 'assented' field? --110.20.234.69 (talk) 06:59, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

The suggestion seems fine to me. Does anyone have views on this? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:44, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

"Enacted by"

The template requires stating that legislation is "enacted by" each part of a bicameral legislature, but this is incorrect in a parliamentary context, and I suspect incorrect in all contexts. To take Canada as an example, legislation is enacted by Parliament (consisting of the King represented by the Governor General, Senate, and House of Commons), or by a provincial legislature (the lieutenant governor and legislative assembly). It is incorrect to describe the House of Commons, Senate, or a provincial legislative assembly as enacting legislation; they pass bills. In the US, legislation is enacted by Congress, not by the House or Senate acting alone.--Trystan (talk) 18:23, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Deleted comment re committees; realised I was looking at the wrong parameter. But we still need a "passed" parameter for each house, not "enacted", Mr Serjeant Buzfuz|talk]]) 17:41, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Can we get a "Passed by" option?

@Glide08: Thanks for all the work you put into the template to record votes. It's appreciated. Is there any way to have an option for "Passed by" a chamber, rather than "Enacted by"? In Canadian usage, only Parliament enacts a bill; an enactment is a law. A bill passes a chamber, but that doesn't mean it's been enacted. Without that option, we won't be able to use your voting additions, because it won't be correct for Canada. See previous comment by Trystan. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 00:16, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't think "enacted by" is correct for individual houses of a bicameral legislatures in general, but I think that the "Enacted -> Passed" replacement should happen automatically if the enacted_by2= parameter is filled. Glide08 (talk) 06:11, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, that is very helpful. Is there a way to get it to say "Passed by" if enacted_by2= isn't completed, for unicameral legislatures that consist of a legislative assembly (which considers and passes bills) and another component (typically the Sovereign or representative, which grants royal assent)? E.g., the New Zealand House of Representatives considers and passes bills, but the New Zealand Parliament as a whole enacts legislation. It is similar with the unicameral legislatures of Queensland and all Canadian provinces.--Trystan (talk) 15:06, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

@Glide08:, I'm sorry, but I'm just not getting it. I'm not good with templates generally, and this one is particularly complex, so it could just be me. I'm experimenting with the infobox in this article: An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code, and I just can't make it come out right.

• If I fill in the "enacted_by" field with "Parliament of Canada", and "enacted_by2" with "Senate", then it correctly says that the Parliament of Canada passed the statute, listed right after "Territorial extent" in the infobox.
• But if I do that, then in the section on Legislative History, it says that the first chamber is the Parliament of Canada, and the Senate is the second chamber. That's incorrect. The Parliament of Canada is composed of the Commons and the Senate; Parliament is not a chamber of itself.
• But if I change "enacted_by" to "House of Commons", then the infobox says that the law was passed by the House of Commons, in the section of the infobox under "Territorial extent". That's just wrong. The House of Commons cannot pass laws by itself.
• When I do that option, it does correctly list the House of Commons as the first chamber, and the Senate as the second chamber.
• How do we make the "Enacted_by" field say "Passed by the Parliament of Canada", the "first chamber" the "House of Commons", and the "second chamber" the "Senate"?

What am I missing? Thanks, Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 01:24, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

The enacted_by field is supposed to be for the House of Commons, and enacted_by2 for the Senate, (i.e. it should say "Passed by the House of Commons" and "Passed by the Senate"), that's simply how the template works.

The Parliament as a whole should go in the legislature= parameter. Glide08 (talk) 05:25, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Trystan, Regarding making the "enacted by" variable say "passed by" for unicameral legislatures that have the head of state as components, the practice of having a component in legislatures other than just the houses is more-or-less unique to the British Commonwealth.

Even in (the rare) non-UK derived systems that do vest legislative power in the Head of State as well as the house(s) of Parliament, they're considered separate elements, even if there's an overarching structure over two houses of a bicameral legislature: e.g. the Constitution of Jordan says that "The Legislative Power shall be vested in the National Assembly and the King. The National Assembly shall consist of a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies.", and not "The Legislative Power shall be vested in the National Assembly. The National Assembly shall consist of the King, a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies.".

This template is supposed to be universal, and making the variable say "passed" instead of "enacted" because of a shared constitutional quirk that only former British colonies have seems less pressing than e.g. making it say "passed" instead of "enacted" in the case of bills that were passed by a unicameral legislature, but later vetoed – and that poses a question of what makes a bill "enacted" (is passage by the house(s) enough, or only the bill becoming law?). Glide08 (talk) 11:55, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

To "enact" is to "make into law", so legislation is not enacted until all the necessary steps to make it law are complete. In the case of Jordan, draft laws passed by both houses still require either ratification by the King, or, if refused, to be re-passed by a 2/3 majority of both houses, so I wouldn't describe a draft law as enacted until that happens. I suppose the question isn't whether the King is definitionally part of Parliament, but whether there is any necessary step in the legislative process beyond a bill being passed by the legislative house.

A change I would propose is to have completing the "Royal assent" field cause the "Enacted by" label switch to "Passed by", which would address the issue for unicameral legislatures in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.--Trystan (talk) 15:04, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I made it match "passed by" if date_passed is used, and "enacted by" otherwise. Glide08 (talk) 16:28, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, that works.--Trystan (talk) 19:07, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

veto_type, Disallowance and Reservation

Can we add "Disallowance" and "Reservation" under veto_type, these were pretty frequently used vetoes over British Colonial legislation, as well, the powers also still technically exist in Canada, although they haven't been used in over 50 years.

• Disallowance was a type of Absolute Veto that would only happen *after* the Act had been granted royal assent by the viceregent, where usually with a time limit the Monarch or Canadian Governor General could veto already enacted legislation.
• Reservation was where the viceregent would neither assent nor refuse assent to the bill, and would hand it off to the Monarch or in the Case of Canadian Provincial legislation the Governor General to decide whether to assent or not.

WanukeX (talk) 19:25, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Reservation is essentially the same as the Referendum veto (so the referendum could be folded into "reservation"), but Disallowance is a post-legislative action - it doesn't count as a veto any more than an abrogative referendum. (In fact, the referendum veto and abrogative referendum are Disallowance and Reservation respectively, just manifested within a constitutional theory of "the people are sovereign" rather than "the monarch is sovereign"). The best way to handle cases such as disallowance, abrogative referendum, and even bills being struck down as unconstitutional is either the "repealed" parameter or a separate "abrogated" parameter Glide08 (talk) 21:06, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Status of "halted"

Israel's controversial judicial reform has been paused for one month. We're currently using "halted" as the status but the English meaning of "halted" does not contain any implication that the process that has been halted is due to resume shortly. One often sees that something has been "halted, pending X" but the Infobox status of halted does not allow one to indicate that the halt is of a strictly limited duration. Wouldn't a status of "paused" be useful for cases such as this? Misha Wolf (talk) 16:21, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

in this case, it should just be pending. Glide08 (talk) 12:30, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Removing image

In some legislatures, this image is a coat of arms or a flag, in others it is a picture of a legislature. In all cases the role of the image is exclusively decorative. Therefore, this should be removed on the basis of MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE. DotCoder (talk) 07:34, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

I have removed the mechanism that displays an image for the appropriate parliament by default if none is specified by the using article. If we want to remove the image parameter completely, it would be a good idea to see which articles use it and what for.

I was also going to say that the image for the Parliament of India is black-on-transparent, which is hard to see in Dark Mode (which makes a dark grey background), but removing the image obviates the need for a fix. If we re-enable images, that would mean going image by image and deciding if "class=skin-invert-image" should be applied. So removing them saves a lot of work. -- Beland (talk) 02:02, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I did a database scan, and found about 1500 instances of the "image" parameter. About 1000 of those have no value. Of the remaining 500, almost all are a decorative image of the legislature, and should be removed. A few images are relevant to the specific law which is the topic of the article, but these could be moved outside the infobox. So I'm in favor of removing this parameter entirely. I can provide a list of articles if anyone is willing to help with the cleanup. -- Beland (talk) 04:16, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I have removed the image parameter and related parameters from the template and its documentation, and I'm in the process of removing them from articles (and moving non-decorative images outside the infobox). The template, by the way, is giving a lot of warnings about being used with lots of (unrelated) parameters by its documentation, when I preview changes. -- Beland (talk) 08:00, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Please restore the image function to this template

@Beland: I strongly object to the unilateral removal of the image field from this template and request that you restore it, and restore the fields in particular articles which you have deleted. My reasons are:

No consultation As far as I can tell, you have made this change unilaterally, without any consultation, based on a suggestion from a permanently blocked sockpuppeteer. The general rule for templates is that significant changes should be raised for consultation, not made unilaterally. (If I am wrong and there was some discussion prior to this change, please point me to it.)

Images are not merely decorative Some people who look at Wikipedia articles are text-focussed, but others are visual readers. Distinctive images in an infobox can provide useful information about the subject matter of the page, at a glance. Images, whether coat-of-arms, seals, or pictures of legislative bodies perform a very useful function. A picture of the legislature can itself be distinctive, such as the Canadian Parliament Centre Block, which is a readily identifiable symbol of the Parliament of Canada. That type of image helps to orient the reader immediately.

Aesthetics A colourful image draws attention to a page and encourages a reader to look at it. The infobox now displays entirely in drab shades of black, grey and white.

Special treatment for US, UK and EU legislation Images are displayed in the templates for US federal legislation, US state legislation, UK legislation and EU legislation. What is the rationale for saying that images are inappropriate for all other legislation? The "big" countries get images, and all the other countries (eg Australia, Canada, India and New Zealand) can suck eggs? Wikipedia purports to be an international encyclopedia, not a US one. If that's the case, then all countries should be treated equally, not special status for infoboxes relating to the US. This special treatment for some countries is fundamentally unfair and biased, and a violation of NPOV. Either restore the image field for this template, or please go and unilaterally remove the image field for those four other templates. Fair is fair.

Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 15:15, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I've partially reverted the edit so that an image can be added. However, I didn't restore this edit. I'm not sure an image is helpful but I do think a discussion should be held first and include other legislation. CambridgeBayWeather (solidly non-human), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 17:11, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

It sounds like you would not object if the image parameter were removed, if it was removed from all five templates? -- Beland (talk) 22:04, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't object. I looked at the first 15 uses of this template. Ten had no image (United States trademark law seems like a very odd use of the template), four had an image that provided no information about the article (Swedish Act of Succession, Civil Code of Quebec, Judiciary Act 1903, Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973) One had a useful image, Corpus Juris Civilis, but that could exist elsewhere in the article. This is done at Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 where File:Americans with Disabilities Act 1988.jpg in the body of the article and File:Great Seal of the United States (obverse).svg used in the infobox. CambridgeBayWeather (solidly non-human), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 23:19, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I can't say that "unilaterally" and "based on a suggestion" are logically compatible. I did not notice that DotCoder was blocked, but their suggestion does seem to be supported by the consensus style guidelines. I object to the characterization "without any consultation". The talk page of a template is the appropriate place to propose changes to the template, and no one objected to the suggestion, even after several months.

MOS:DECOR seems to specifically discount the aesthetic argument: "Icons should not be added only because they look good: one reader's harmless decoration may be another reader's distraction." I could see a picture of a parliament building being slightly informative - "this is the building where this law was made". But the coat of arms of the parliament is just the decorative logo of the group that made the law, and seems like more of a stretch and more like a decorative icon which is to be avoided as a visual distraction.

I agree all countries should be treated the same; I'm happy to remove the images from those other templates, too; it appears they display decorative logos exclusively. It did not occur to me to check other templates. -- Beland (talk) 17:13, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

It seems different countries actually differ in how they use these logos. A black-and-white version of the coat of arms of the United Kingdom appears on official copies of acts of the UK Parliament. As far as I can tell, the Great Seal of the United States is not used for acts of the US Congress, but is instead used by the federal government for passports and money and flags and military things. Official copies of US laws seem to have "UNITED STATES CONGRESS" (among other words) in big serif letters. The EU flag does seem to be used in connection with acts of the EU parliament.[1] I don't know about all the other countries of the world, but if we knew what logo each country actually put on its laws, I think we'd have a better idea what images were relevant for infoboxes. -- Beland (talk) 23:08, 30 November 2024 (UTC)