44 FOURTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT

HALL OF RECORDS

HALL OF RECORDS—ARCHIVIST—MAY NOT CERTIFY THOSE CODES OF
THIS STATE THAT ARE MERELY EVIDENCE OF THE LAW.

April 4, 1941.
MR. MORRIS L. RADOFF,
Archivist,
HALL OF RECORDS.

We have your letter of March 27, 1941, enclosing a copy of Article
43 of the Annotated Code of 1924 that the Hall of Records Commission
has been asked to certify. You state that you realise that the Commission
is empowered to certify copies of original laws in its possession, but that
you are uncertain as to its authority to certify printed portions of Codes,
and you, therefore, ask to be advised in this connection.

Your only authority as to the certification of laws is contained in
Section 127 of Article 41 of the Code (1939 Ed.), which provides:

"Every State, county, city, town or other public official in
the State in custody of public records or documents is hereby
authorized and empowered, in his discretion, to turn over to the
Commission and deposit for preservation any original papers,
official books, records, documents, files, newspapers, printed books,
or portraits, not in current use in his office, and when so sur-
rendered, and accepted by the Commission, copies may be made
and certified under the seal of the Commission upon application
of any person, which certification shall have the same force and
effect as if made by the officer originally in charge of same, and
the Commission shall charge for such copies the same fees as such
officer is allowed by law to charge, which fees shall be accounted
for and paid into the State Treasury."

Your letter does not indicate the reason for the request, but it seems
that the applicant for certification is under a misapprehension as to the
nature of this Code. Some of the earlier ones, such as the Code of 1860
were adopted in full as the law of the State and as such, were laws re-
quired by Section JO of Article III of the Constitution to be recorded in
the office of the Court of Appeals in the same manner as other Acts of
the General Assembly. If any Codes of this nature have been deposited by