Creating an inline amendment

Introduction

Lawmaker can create traditionally formatted amendments from changes made to the text of the bill.   This can make drafting amendments easier and often a quicker process.  The traditional amendments that are generated can be submitted to the relevant Parliament for tabling/lodging.  

How to get started

1. From the Amendment Workspace tab, click on the + New button in the top right

2. Select 'Inline' and fill in the usual information in the dialog box

3. A new tab will open with a copy of the bill in the Editor ready to start amending

How to create inline amendments

You can create ‘insert’, ‘leave out’ and ‘substitute’ amendments using the inline feature. It is not possible to create ‘divide’, ‘transpose/move’ or amendments to amendments.

• Once you have created an inline amendment a card appears in the Inline Amendments right-hand panel showing what type of amendment it is and the name of the member.

• When you save your inline amendments, each amendment will be assigned a unique number (DNumber) which appears on the card in the right-hand panel, but also after the inline amendment in your document.

• Only when you have saved your inline amendments can you view them in traditional format.

• You can only submit amendments from the traditional view

How to create 'Insert' type amendments

Insert text amendments e.g. a word or sentence in an existing provision

1. Place your cursor where you want to insert the new text

2. Press Enter to bring up the insert menu and select Insert text

3. A new ‘text’ placeholder element will appear, surrounded in square brackets allowing you to type in the new text

Inserting new provisions e.g. new subsection(s)

1. Place your cursor where you want to insert the new provision

2. Press Enter to bring up the insert menu and select the appropriate provision

3. An empty provision will be inserted in the next valid place after the cursor location, surrounded in square brackets, allowing you to type in the new text

How to create 'Leave out' type amendments

1. Highlight the text or provision(s) that you want to leave out (use the structure view or breadcrumb to help you select whole provisions)

2. You can either:

   1. From the floating tool bar, select Leave out, or (if the floating tool bar doesn’t appear - and it won’t if you select using the structure view or breadcrumb)

   2. From Inline Amendment Tools in the right-hand panel, select Leave out

3. The text/structure you selected will be highlighted in red and struck out with a start and end square bracket denoting the extent of the leave out amendment

How to create 'Substitute' type amendments

1. Highlight the text or provision(s) that you want to leave out (use the structure view or breadcrumb to help you select whole provisions)

2. You can either:

   1. From the floating tool bar, select Substitute, or (if the floating tool bar doesn’t appear - and it won’t if you select using the structure view or breadcrumb)

   2. From Inline Amendment Tools in the right-hand panel, select Substitute

3. The text/structure you selected will be highlighted in red and struck out with a start and end square bracket denoting the extent of the leave out part of the substitute amendment. Additionally an empty element will be inserted allowing you to insert text/provision depending on what you leave out:

   • if you left out a whole provision, the same provision will be automatically inserted for you after the left out provision (i.e. a direct substitution)

   • if you left out some text, a 'Text' placeholder will appear after the text that you left out, ready for you to add substitution text.  You can continue adding further provisions after the text if required

   • if you left out a combination of text and provisions:

     • if the selection to be left out starts with text followed by provisions then a 'Text' placeholder will be inserted after the last left out provision. You can continue adding further provisions after the text if required.

     • if the selection to be left out starts with provisions followed by text, then the same kind of provision that is being left out will be inserted after the end of the leave out selection, and the trailing text in the last provision will be moved into that newly inserted provision after the 'Text' placeholder.

How to view your inline document in traditional amendment format

1. Once you have saved all changes in your inline document, from Inline Amendment Tools in the right-hand panel, select View Traditional Amendments

2. A new tab will open with a LoDA showing all your inline amendments in traditional format.

How to update Member information from inline documents

1. From the Inline Amendment Tools in the right-hand panel, select Manage Members

2. You can add or remove proposers and supporters and this will update all amendments in the inline document

The recommendation is to update Members when the amendments are in traditional format using existing Member editing tools as this will be a more efficient tool.