498
The Green Bag
remedial provisions will almost certainly be found in it; and where a code of procedure has been built up independently, some civil code matter is apt to have slipped in. This is true of the old codes now in force in the Philippines. Complemental adjective provisions were necessary to quicken substantive pro visions, and vice versa, and as only the one code was in hand at the time, the really misplaced matter was included. The work of codification involves the most exhaustive study and intimate knowledge not only of the laws to be included in the codes but also of the judicial interpretation and construction of them. In the effort to state the law plainly and correctly and to eliminate doubt and ambiguity, not only conflict ing existing legal enactments but also conflicting decisions must be studied and reconciled. Full annotations are therefore incidental to the preparation of the codes and should be published with the text when it has been adopted by the legislature. The preliminary steps in the work of codification should include: (a) the adoption of a plan showing the number of the proposed codes or books into which the laws are to be grouped, and the name and scope of each such code or book; (b) the careful examination of all laws in force, and the preparation of tables showing the distribution of such laws to the proposed codes; (c) the study of the arrangement of the contents of like codes in similar systems adopted by previous codifiers. To avoid the danger of overlooking a provision of existing law in the prepara tion of the new codes, a set of books should be prepared and preserved con taining all such laws. On the margins of these books the committee should account for each section of such laws by showing where it has been placed in the new codes or why it has been omitted
therefrom. Conversely, the source or sources of the text of each section of the new codes should be stated in a marginal note to such section. As the work proceeds and the necessity or advisability of new legislation or con siderable amendments to existing legis lation becomes evident, proposed acts embodying such changes should be pre pared for presentation to the legislature, so that new principles which it is desired to introduce into the codes may be threshed out and approved prelimi narily, and be then embodied in the codes without fear of endangering them when they come up for final adoption. When the drafts of the new codes have been matured and completed to the point where they are deemed ready for adoption, they should be printed with marginal notes indicating the source or sources of the text of each section, and accompanied by a table showing where each section of every existing law has been placed in the new codes, or why it has been omitted therefrom. Enough copies of the proposed new codes should then be distributed to place a set in the hands of each member of the legisla' ture, each chief of a department or bureau of the state government, each judge, each prosecuting officer, and each prominent lawyer, banker, mer chant, professor, writer, or other per son who may be induced to consider and criticise them, pointing out errors and suggesting advantageous changes. With the proposed codes should go a circular letter urging the distributees to examine particularly those portions of the codes embodying the laws with which they are specially familiar or in which they are peculiarly interested, and requesting that the committee be promptly notified in writing of errors and advisable changes. The circular should also state the period of time dur ing which criticisms and suggestions can
