Creation of Statutes

Session laws are the laws as enacted by the Georgia legislature, and they are published chronologically in Georgia Laws. The legislature meets yearly beginning on the second Monday in January for a legislative term that lasts no longer than 40 legislative days. You can track pending legislation here and here.

After the legislative session is over, the legislature provides general summaries of the new laws. See here for the 2023 version.

Also, the session laws are arranged topically into the Official Code of Georgia Annotated. This code is published by Lexis. Another annotated code is published by Westlaw, but it is an unofficial code.

Finding Statutes

Current Statutes

There are several finding aids for Georgia statutes:

• Find by Citation (i.e. you already have a statute)
• Citators such as Shepard’s and KeyCite (citators can let you know if there is any  proposed legislation that may amend your statute. They can also let you know if a court opinion has overruled or called your statute into question.)
• Browsing
  • by Table of Contents
  • by Index (for the OCGA, on Westlaw, Lexis, and in print)
  • by Popular Name Table (for the OCGA, only on Westlaw and in print)
• Keyword searching
  • Why is it so hard to search using keywords?
    • Statutes can contain both vague and technical wording
    • In annotated codes, keyword searching also includes notes of decisions (case annotations). You can go to advanced search and use the text field to search only the text of the statute.
• Field searching (advanced)

See the videos for more information.

Statutes and Finding Aids

Searching Statutes

Reading & Interpreting Statutes

Questions to Ask:

• Has the statute been amended or repealed?
• Is there pending legislation that would amend or repeal it?
• Has the statute been found unconstitutional or criticized in case law?
• Dates can be very important:
  • When did your fact pattern occur?
  • What is the effective date of the statute?

Why is statutory language sometimes ambiguous?

• Legislators might have intentionally chosen ambiguous language because they were unable to agree on the specifics.
• Legislators may not have realized the language was ambiguous.
• New situations and technologies may have arisen since the drafting.

Guidelines for interpretation

• Always read the sections before and after your section. Entire chapters of the code are often necessary to fully describe what is permitted/prohibited or how to accomplish something.
• Check to see if your statutory section has a statement of purpose.
• Take a birds-eye view of the statute’s place in the overall organization.
  • Many statutes include a definitions section at the beginning of the chapter or sub-chapter.
  • Read and interpret the statute as a whole.
• Statutory interpretation begins with the plain meaning of the language.
  • Use dictionaries when necessary.
  • Check to see if terms are defined in a definitions section.
  • Specific provisions prevail over general provisions.