Short title

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The short title is one of the parts, together with the long title, and the operative provisions (sections and Schedules), which comprise an Act of Parliament or Bill (or other Statutory Instrument) in the United Kingdom and various other Commonwealth Realms and other states influenced by Westminster traditions.

An Act or Bill is usually identified by its short title, which is often contained within a specific section towards the end of the Act or Bill and which provides a short summary of the scope of the Act or Bill, and usually ends with words "Act" and the year when the Act was passed.

The short title may be contrasted with the long title (properly, the "title"), which sets out the full ambit of the Act cursively. For example, the short title of the House of Lords Act 1999 is House of Lords Act 1999, but its long title is An Act to restrict membership of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage; to make related provision about disqualifications for voting at elections to, and for membership of, the House of Commons; and for connected purposes.

Like other descriptive components of an act (such as the preamble, section headings, side notes, and long title), the short title seldom affects the operative provisions of an Act, and rarely contains a sufficiently clear statement of Parliament's intention to resolve issues where operative provisions are unclear or ambiguous.

Many early Acts were enacted without a short title, and the long title was used to identity that Act, although short titles were given to many of the extant Acts at later dates. For example, the Bill of Rights was given that short title (without a year) by the Short Titles Act 1896; previously, it was known formally by its long title, An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown. The long title for older Acts is sometimes termed its rubric because it was sometimes printed in red.

An example of a lengthy short title is the "Artisans and Labourers Dwellings Act (1868) Amendment Act (1879) Amendment Act 1880". Some Acts have more than one short title: the Small Debts Act 1846 (9&10 Vict. c.95 (1846)) is also known as the County Courts Act 1846.

Statutory Instruments are also given short titles, as well as their reference codes (they tend not to have long titles). For example, in the Republic of Ireland, S.I. 21/1956 (meaning the 21st S.I. of 1956) notes that it "may be cited as the Rabbits (Control) Order, 1956".

Acts of the United States Congress are also often given short titles. An example is the Native American Language Preservation Act of 2006, which uses the Short Title section to give the name for the bill.