How to Use the Pakistan Statutes Library on Legalise

How to Use the Pakistan Statutes Library on Legalise

The Pakistan Statutes Library on Legalise provides the full text of 58 major Pakistani acts with section-level navigation. This tutorial covers how to locate the right act, how to navigate to a specific section, and how to use the library as a practical reference during drafting and hearing preparation.

Step 1: Access the Statutes Library

The statutes library is available to all signed-in users without a subscription. Navigate to it from the main navigation after signing in. The library opens with a list of all 58 available statutes, organized by name.

Step 2: Find the Relevant Act

Scroll through the list or use the search bar to find the specific Act needed. The library includes the foundational legislation of Pakistani law: the Code of Civil Procedure 1908, the Criminal Procedure Code 1898, the Pakistan Penal Code 1860, the Transfer of Property Act 1882, the Contract Act 1872, the Stamp Act 1899, the Registration Act 1908, the Family Courts Act 1964, the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961, the Limitation Act 1908, the Companies Act 2017, and 47 others covering the full range of civil, criminal, property, family, corporate, and constitutional practice.

Step 3: Navigate to a Specific Section

Once an Act is opened, the sections are displayed with their headings in a navigable structure. Clicking on a section heading jumps directly to that section's text. This section navigation makes it possible to move directly to a specific provision rather than scrolling through a long Act from the beginning.

For Acts with interpretation sections, navigating to Section 2 or the definitions section first gives an immediate grounding in the Act's statutory vocabulary before reading the operative provisions.

Step 4: Read the Section Text

Each section is presented in its enacted text. The library does not include commentary, annotations, or case law cross-references within the section text itself. The text is the authoritative statutory language as enacted. For case law on a specific provision, use the IHC case law database after identifying the relevant section in the library.

Step 5: Cross-Reference With the Glossary

When a statutory section uses a term that is defined elsewhere in the Act or in another statute, that definition can be checked in the Legal Glossary without leaving the platform. The recommended workflow for statutory research on Legalise is to locate the section in the library, identify any defined terms in it, check those definitions in the glossary, and then search the IHC case law database for judgments on that section's application.

Step 6: Use It During Drafting

When generating a document on Legalise, keeping the statutes library open in another tab allows quick verification of the statutory language being referenced in the draft. For property documents, confirming the exact wording of the relevant Transfer of Property Act provision or the Registration Act requirement before finalizing a clause ensures consistency between the document language and the statute it invokes.

Step 7: Use It for Submission Preparation

Before a hearing, looking up the exact text of the statutory provision at issue is often more useful than relying on a paraphrase of it. When the opposing argument rests on a particular reading of a provision, having the precise statutory language in front of the bench is a more authoritative reference than a summary from a secondary source. The statutes library gives that text in seconds.