Statute law revision


Statute law revision may refer to the printing of, or the editorial process of preparing, a revised edition of the statutes, or to the process of repealing obsolete enactments to facilitate the preparation of such an edition, or to facilitate the consolidation of enactments.

United Kingdom

History

In the United Kingdom, acts of Parliament remain in force until expressly repealed. Consolidation of the statute book has been discussed since at least the 16th-century and the reformation.

Early efforts

In 1549, the House of Commons sent a proposal to the House of Lords that the statute law "should be digested into a body under titles and heads and put into good Latin", in imitation of Roman law.
In 1551, in his Discourse on the Reformation of Abuses, King Edward VI, then aged 14, wrote:
These efforts, culminating in a proposal for bringing common law into the statute law, were observed by Bishop Burnet as "too great a design to be set on foot or finished under an infant king".
Revision of the statutes was regarded by the Parliament of England as desirable as early as 1563. For example, the Statute of Labourers 1562/Statute of Artificers 1562, considered by Courtenay Ilbert as one of the first Consolidation Acts, gave reasons for the expediency of consolidation.
Revision of the statutes was demanded by a petition of the Commons in 1610.
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Nicholas Bacon, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, drew up a scheme for reducing, ordering, and printing the statutes of the realm:
Bacon named twenty committees, each consisting of four members with an assigned title or division of the statute law. This was considered for penal laws in 1584, by Sir Edward Coke and Sir Francis Bacon in 1593 and 1597, and 1601.'
A letter from Lord Bacon, dated 27 February 1608, held amongst the papers of William Petyt, Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London and Treasurer of the Inner Temple, proposed a plan for consolidation using a manuscript collection of the statutes kept by Michael Heneage, Keeper of the Tower Records, which have since been lost.'
Proposing reform to the statutes in Parliament in 1609, King James I spoke from the throne of:
In 1610, the House of Commons, with permission of the House of Lords on 23 July 1610, petitioned the crown to appoint a commission to "make a diligent Survey of all the Penal Statutes of this Realm, to the End that such as are obsolete or unprofitable may be repealed; and that, for the better Ease and Certainty of the Subject, all such as are profitable, concerning One Matter, may be reduced into One Statute, to be passed in Parliament."
In 1616, Sir Francis Bacon, then Attorney General, submitted to King James I a proposal "touching the compiling and amendment of the laws of England". Bacon recommended a reform of all the statute law, proposing that "the work to be done consisteth of two parts, the digest or recompiling of the common laws, and that of the statutes".
For the common law, Bacon proposed three steps:
  1. The compiling of a book.
  2. The reducing or perfecting of the course or corps of the common laws.
  3. The composing of certain introductive and auxiliary books touching the study of these laws.
For the statute law, Bacon proposed four steps:
  1. "The first is to discharge the books of those statutes whereas the case by alteration of time is vanished, as Lombards, Jews, Gauls, halfpence, &c. Those may, nevertheless, remain in the libraries for antiquities, but no reprinting of them. The like of statutes long since expired and clearly repealed; for if the repeal be doubtful, it must be so propounded to Parliament."
  2. "The next is to repeal all statutes which are sleeping and not of use, but yet snaring and in force. In some of those it will perhaps be requisite to substitute some more reasonable law instead of them, agreeable to the time; in others a simple repeal may suffice."
  3. "The third, that the grievousness of the penalty in many statutes may be mitigated, though the ordinance stand."
  4. "The last is the reducing of convenient statutes heaped one upon another to one clear and uniform law."
The work to reduce the statutes into one clear and uniform law had been progress by himself, the Lord Chief Justice Sir Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet, Serjeant Henry Finch, William Noy, and others, by the King's Command, was described by Bacon as making considerable progress. Bacon described this as "An excellent Undertaking, of Honour to His Majesty's Times, and of good to all Times", and, as done in the Ecclesiastical Canons Act 1535, and Canon Law Act 1549, recommended the appointment of commissioners to examine and establish ecclesiastical laws, named by both houses of parliament, to prepare bills for the purpose of consolidation.
The commission most likely published a list based on this work by Sir Francis Bacon, held in the British Museum, of the statutes from 3 Edw. 1 to 2 Jas. 1, describing repealed or expired statutes, as well as suggestions for further repeals, changes, and consolidation bills to replace them, with detailed reasons for each included in table form.
Lord Bacon's fall from grace in 1621, as well as other more immediate priorities on the parliamentary agenda, meant that his attempts at the revision of the statute law were not pursued.

Commonwealth

During the Commonwealth, in 1650 a committee was appointed, "to revise all former statutes and ordinances now in force and consider, as well, which are fit to be continued, altered or repealed, as how the same may be reduced into a compendious way and exact method for the more base and clear understanding of the people." The membership of the committee included the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, Bulstrode Whitelock. The committee was empowered "to advise with the Judges, and to send for and to employ and call to their Assistance therein any other Persons whom they should think fit, for the better effecting thereof, and to prepare the same for the further Consideration of the House, and to make Report thereof". On 26 December 1651, Lord General Fairfax, John Carew, Lieutenant General Charles Fleetwood, Major General Thomas Harrison, Thomas Westrow, Alderman Francis Allein, Colonel Algernon Sidney, Lord Commissioner Bulstrode Whitelocke, Lord Commissioner John Lisle, the Lord Chief Baron, Richard Lane, Sir Walter Ralegh, Colonel Henry Bennet, Walter Strickland, Augustine Garland, John Dove, Sir John Corbet, Sir Henry Heyman, Robert Dormer, 1st Earl of Carnarvon, William Bond, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Colonel Philip Jones, Sir Henry Mildmay, Colonel John Feilder, Colonel Nathaniel Rich, Sir Arthure Hesibrig, Colonel Richard Norton and John Cook. On 17 January 1651, Colonel Thomas Blunt, Sir Henry Blunt, Josias Berners, Major General John Desboroe, Samuel Moyer, Colonel Matthew Tomlinson, John Fountaine, Alderman John Fowke, Hugh Peters, Major William Packer, Sir William Roberts, William Methold, John Mansell, John Rushworth, John Sparrow, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, Sir Matthew Hale, William Steele, Recorder of London, Charles George Cock, Thomas Manby, John Sadler and John Berners were added to the committee. They reported a revised system of the law to the House of Commons that year. The committee reported on 20–21 January 1652.
On 19 December 1653, a second committee was appointed to consider a new model or body of the law, consisting of Colonel Edmund West, Praise-God Barebone, Sir Charles Wolseley, 2nd Baronet, William Spence, Nathaniel Taylor, Arthur Squib, Samuel Highland, William Kenrick, Colonel Thomas Blunt, Sir Gilbert Pickering, 3rd Baronet, Augustine Wingfield, Samuel Moyer and Major General Thomas Harrison, with a quorum of five and the power to send for "papers, persons and records".
Records of both committee, including proceedings and reports, were lost.

Restoration

After the Stuart Restoration, a committee was appointed in 1666 to "confer with such of the Lords, the Judges, and other Persons of the Long Robe, who have already Taken Pains and made progress in perusing the Statute Laws; and to consider of repealing such former Statute Laws as they had to be repealed; and of Expedients for reducing all Statute Laws of one Nature under such a Method and Head as may conduce to the more ready Understanding and better Execution of such Laws." The committee consisted of the Solicitor General, Heneage Finch, Serjeant John Maynard, Sir Robert Atkins, William Prynne and others.
Nothing came of the work of the committee, and this was the last recorded effort of statute law revision by Parliament for some time.

18th-century

's Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in the late 18th-century, raised questions about the system and structure of the common law and the poor drafting and disorder of the existing statute book.
On 12 April 1796, the Select Committee on Temporary Laws, Expired or Expiring was appointed to inspect and consider temporary laws, expired or expiring. The committee reported on 12 May 1796, resolving that it was "highly expedient for the honour of the nation and the benefit of all His Majesty's subjects that a complete and authoritative edition of all the statutes should be published", and publishing a Register of Expiring Laws and a Register of Expired Laws.
On 2 November 1796, the Select Committee on the Promulgation of the Statutes was appointed to consider the promulgation of the statutes of the United Kingdom. The committee reported on 5 December 1796, making recommendations for the increased printing and distribution of public acts and for the improved drafting of temporary law.
The work of both committees drew attention to the unsatisfactory state of the statute book. Following a resolution of the House of Commons on 20 March 1797 that "His Majesty's Printer should also be authorized to class the general and the special statutes of each session in separate volumes, and to number the chapters of each volume, together with a general table of all the acts passed in that session", the King's Printer adopted the classification for acts passed from the next session onwards. This led to the distinction now recognised between public general acts, local and personal acts and private acts.