Act of Parliament | |
Long title | An Act to abolish the Jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts in Ireland in Cases of Defamation, and in England and Ireland in certain Cases of Brawling. |
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Citation | 23 & 24 Vict. c. 32 |
Territorial extent |
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Dates | |
Royal assent | 3 July 1860 |
Status: Amended | |
Text of statute as originally enacted | |
Text of the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk. |
The Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860 (ECJA [2] ) (23 & 24 Vict. c. 32) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is one of the Ecclesiastical Courts Acts 1787 to 1860. [3]
Section 2 provides that it is not lawful for any person to behave in a 'riotous, violent, or indecent' way in a number of religious locations, whether during 'the celebration of divine service or at any other time'. Locations include cathedral, parish and district churches, chapels of the Church of England or other religious denominations or locations outlined in the Places of Worship Registration Act 1855. Locations also include any churchyards or burial grounds.
Furthermore, Section 2 states that it is not lawful for any person to interfere with any preacher or clergyman in any cathedral, church, chapel, churchyard or burial ground, by way of molesting, letting, disturbing, vexing, troubling or by 'any other unlawful means disquiet or misuse'.
If a person is found guilty of those offences, they are liable to a fine or imprisonment of up to two months. [4]
Section 3 relates to Section 2, stating that a person 'in the premises after the said mis-demeanor' may be apprehended by a constable or church warden and taken before a magistrates' court. [5]
Section 4 also relates to Section 2, stating that a person who is 'aggrieved' by their conviction under Section 2, may appeal it at a Crown Court. [6]
Section 7 states that 'provided also, that nothing herein contained shall limit, restrain or abolish the power possessed by the ordinary over the fabric of any church or over the churchyard or burial ground connected therewith'. [7]
Section 1 provided that it was not lawful for an ecclesiastical court in England or Ireland to entertain or adjudicate on a suit or cause of brawling or defamation against any person not in holy orders.
Where a person had been committed to gaol under a writ de contumace capiendo , that person was to be discharged.
This section was repealed by section 87 of, and Schedule 5 to, the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963. [8]
This section repealed the Brawling Act 1551. This section was repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1875.
This section provided that nothing contained hereinbefore in this Act was to be taken to repeal or alter the Brawling Act 1553, the Act of Uniformity 1558 or section 18 of the Toleration Act 1688. This section was repealed by section 1 of, and Part II of the Schedule to, the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969.
In 1966, a church service at the Labour party’s annual conference in Blackpool was interrupted by several protesters calling out, angered by Labour’s stand on Vietnam. Under Section 2 of the Act, one of the group was sentenced to two months in prison and a £200 fine. [9]
In 1998, during a church service at Cantebury Cathedral, homosexual rights campaigner Peter Tatchell and others from the campaign group OutRage! interrupted a service led by Archbishop Dr George Carey, by climbing into the pulpit. Their protest was in relation to what the group called Archbishop Carey’s ‘support for discrimination against lesbians and gay men’. Under Section 2 of the Act, Tatchell was fined £18.60 and ordered to pay costs of £320. [9] [10]
In 2002, the House of Lords' Select Committee on Religious Offences in England and Wales delivered their First Report. In Chapter 3 of this report, they examined the "Law as it stands", including looking at "Old statutes". This included the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860, where they revealed that "According to statistics made available by the Home Office, there were 60 prosecutions under this Act in the six years 1997–2002, with 21 convictions." In his evidence to the Committee, David Calvert-Smith, the Director of Public Prosecutions said that: "We use it sufficiently often or have used it in the past for it obviously to be the right offence to use and a redrafted Section 2 would probably be a (albeit infrequently used) valuable offence." [2]
In a landmark decision in 2017, a new law was enacted, nicknamed "Turing's Law", which will allow posthumous pardons for anyone convicted under former law, including, but not exclusively the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860,[ dubious ] the 1956 and 1967 Sexual Offences Acts, both of which yet remain to be overturned. Under the new law, descendants, relatives, and advocates can now apply to have the records of dead gay and bisexual men cleared in the law. Several restrictions, as yet, remain in place. The restrictions mean that pardons might not be granted in more complicated cases like that of Oscar Wilde, who was convicted of gross indecency with evidence that he frequented prostitutes. Justice minister Sam Gyimah, who advocated for the legislation, said, "This is a truly momentous day. We can never undo the hurt caused, but we have apologised and taken action to right these wrongs. I am immensely proud that 'Turing’s law' has become a reality under this government." Human rights advocate Peter Tatchell estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 men who were convicted under various anti-gay laws in the UK may be eligible for pardons. Tatchell noted that some laws are not specifically mentioned as being up for pardon. "It does not explicitly allow for the pardoning of men convicted of soliciting and procuring homosexual relations under the 1956 and 1967 Sexual Offences Acts. Nor does it pardon those people, including some lesbians, convicted for same-sex kissing and cuddling under laws such as the Public Order Act 1986, the common law offence of outraging public decency, the Town Police Clauses Act 1847, the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860 and the army, navy and air force acts and other diverse statutes."
The law only applies to cases where the offences would not be considered crimes today. The law was modelled on the Queen's 2013 posthumous pardon of Alan Turing, who helped decode encrypted messages sent by Nazi Germany in World War II but was convicted of gross indecency after the war. [11]
Indecent exposure is the deliberate public exposure by a person of a portion of their body in a manner contrary to local standards of appropriate behavior. Laws and social attitudes regarding indecent exposure vary significantly in different countries. It ranges from outright prohibition of the exposure of any body parts other than the hands or face to prohibition of exposure of certain body parts, such as the genital area, buttocks or breasts.
The Statute of Frauds (1677) was an act of the Parliament of England. It required that certain types of contracts, wills, and grants, and assignment or surrender of leases or interest in real property must be in writing and signed to avoid fraud on the court by perjury and subornation of perjury. It also required that documents of the courts be signed and dated.
Gross indecency is a crime in some parts of the English-speaking world, originally used to criminalize sexual activity between men that fell short of sodomy, which required penetration. The term was first used in British law in a statute of the British Parliament in 1885 and was carried forward in other statutes throughout the British Empire. The offence was never actually defined in any of the statutes which used it, which left the scope of the offence to be defined by court decisions.
The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, or "An Act to make further provision for the Protection of Women and Girls, the suppression of brothels, and other purposes," was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the latest in a 25-year series of legislation in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland beginning with the Offences against the Person Act 1861. It raised the age of consent from 13 years of age to 16 years of age and delineated the penalties for sexual offences against women and minors. It also strengthened existing legislation against prostitution and homosexuality. This act was also notable for the circumstances of its passage in Parliament.
The Offences against the Person Act 1861 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It consolidated provisions related to offences against the person from a number of earlier statutes into a single Act. For the most part these provisions were, according to the draftsman of the Act, incorporated with little or no variation in their phraseology. It is one of a group of Acts sometimes referred to as the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts 1861. It was passed with the object of simplifying the law. It is essentially a revised version of an earlier consolidation act, the Offences Against the Person Act 1828, incorporating subsequent statutes.
Brawling, in law, was the offence of quarrelling, or creating a disturbance in a church or churchyard. Brawling was covered in ecclesiastic courts until 1860. It has rarely been prosecuted since then.
The Act of Uniformity 1548, the Act of Uniformity 1549, the Uniformity Act 1548, or the Act of Equality was an Act of the Parliament of England, passed on 21 January 1549.
The Malicious Damage Act 1861 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It consolidated provisions related to malicious damage from a number of earlier statutes into a single Act. For the most part these provisions were, according to the draftsman of the Act, incorporated with little or no variation in their phraseology. It is one of a group of Acts sometimes referred to as the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts 1861. It was passed with the object of simplifying the law. It is essentially a revised version of an earlier consolidation Act, the Malicious Injuries to Property Act 1827, incorporating subsequent statutes.
The Piracy Act 1837 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It abolished the death penalty for most offences of piracy, but created a new offence often known as piracy with violence, which was punishable with death. This offence still exists in the United Kingdom and in the Republic of Ireland, but is no longer punishable by death in either country.
The Short Titles Act 1896 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It replaces the Short Titles Act 1892.
The Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797 was an Act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain. The Act was passed in the aftermath of the Spithead and Nore mutinies and aimed to prevent the seduction of sailors and soldiers to commit mutiny.
R v. Fellows; R v. Arnold [1997] 1 Cr App R 244; [1997] 2 All E.R. 548, is a prominent English case on the statutory interpretation of section 1 of the Protection of Children Act 1978, and the Obscene Publications Act 1959, the definitions have since been amended by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The Court of Appeal held that data on a computer that represents the original photograph is a copy of a photograph under the 1978 Act, therefore, downloading an indecent photograph from the internet constitutes making a copy or reproduction of an indecent photograph.
The Piracy Act 1850, sometimes called the Pirates Repeal Act 1850, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It relates to proceedings for the condemnation of ships and other things taken from pirates and creates an offence of perjury in such proceedings.
The Criminal Procedure Act 1853 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It makes provision for the giving of evidence by prisoners otherwise than at their own trial.
The Perjury Act 1911 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It creates the offence of perjury and a number of similar offences.
The Burial Laws Amendment Act 1880 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is one of the Burial Acts 1852 to 1885.
The Statute Law Revision Act 1876 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
The Brawling Act 1551 was an Act of the Parliament of England.
The Criminal Law Act 1827 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, applicable only to England and Wales. It abolished many obsolete procedural devices in English criminal law, particularly the benefit of clergy. It was repealed by the Criminal Law Act 1967.
The "Alan Turing law" is an informal term for the law in the United Kingdom, contained in the Policing and Crime Act 2017, which serves as an amnesty law to pardon men who were cautioned or convicted under historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts. The provision is named after Alan Turing, the World War II codebreaker and computing pioneer, who was convicted of gross indecency in 1952. Turing received a royal pardon posthumously in 2013. The law applies in England and Wales.
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