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s 3(2)(a) — section, subsection, paragraph, in a fixed hierarchy.
Also known as: Section reference, Numbers and letters in brackets in a law
An address within an Act, read outside in. The section is the numbered unit, the round bracket a subsection, the letter a paragraph, and a further roman numeral a sub-paragraph — and the hierarchy is fixed, so a reference can be resolved without seeing the Act.
A reference into an Act: s for section, a number in round brackets for the subsection, a lower-case letter in brackets for the paragraph, and a lower-case roman numeral for the sub-paragraph.
A record about how a reference is written, not about what the law says. Nothing here is legal advice.
United Kingdom
Strictly hierarchical, so the levels are read from the outside in and the reference resolves to exactly one passage however long the Act is.
Statutory instruments use regulation, rule or article in place of section, which is why the abbreviation changes between an Act and the regulations made under it.
Sections inserted by later amendment take a letter — s 3A between s 3 and s 4 — so an Act's numbering records its own amendment history.
A lower-case s followed by a numeral, then one or more short groups each enclosed in round brackets containing a numeral, a letter or a roman numeral.
The section sign abbreviates the word this notation spells.