Links to Legislation of the British Isles Available Free on the Internet
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LEGISLATION FOR THE BRITISH ISLES AVAILABLE FREE ON THE INTERNET by John Copeland Version 3.12.2020 Please send any comments or corrections to [email protected]. There is firstly listed links to websites and then scanned volumes of collections of statutes. For up to date legislation it is best to check the relevant website. The links to collections of statutes are mainly to those provided by Google Books., the Hathi Trust (those with a university name shown) and the Internet Archive. As far as the scanned volumes are concerned, Google Books and the Hathi Trust do not automatically provide access to books published 140 years or less ago to non-US IP addresses because of copyright worries although this is over-cautious if reproducing just the text of the UK and Irish legislation is concerned. In 2020 both seem to become more relaxed. For US IP addresses, the period used is 95 years but links to items only available in the United States are not included in the links shown. The Internet Archive is more relaxed and odd volumes to 1908 are available. More than one link may be shown, (although once one link has been found, others have not been deliberately looked for) as defects in one copy of a book may not appear in another and, even if the same copy of a book or even scan has been used to provide scans for the different providers, the formats available may differ. As far as the scanned volumes are concerned, for England & Wales there are initially listed links to the Statutes of the Realm, which aimed to be comprehensive to 1714. Then up to 1801 for Great Britain there are listed separately various series of statutes. These series are not comprehensive, particularly as far as local and private Acts are concerned, and links to some volumes have not been found, so if an Act cannot be found in one series, other series covering the same period should be checked. From 1801 for the United Kingdom the volumes, whoever the publisher is, are listed in year order and there are listed volumes for all years to 1921 save 1897. The series covering the period prior to the Union of England and Scotland in 1707 just relate to England while those covering the period between that and the Union of Great Britain with Ireland in 1801 only cover Great Britain. Separate lists for links relating to subordinate legislation, to Ireland pre-1801, Scotland pre-1707 and the Crown Dependencies and for the Commonwealth period follow. INDEXES TO UNITED KINGDOM STATUTES Chronological table and index to the statutes to the end of the Session of 1877. 4th edition https://archive.org/details/chronologicalta01commgoog https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=uQAVAAAAYAAJ Volume 2 index to the statutes to 1899. 15th edition – subject index to the statutes then in force https://archive.org/details/chronologicalta00commgoog Chronological Table of Local Acts 1797- http://www.legislation.gov.uk/changes/chron-tables/local Chronological Table of Private and Personal Acts (1539-2006) http://www.legislation.gov.uk/changes/chron-tables/private WEBSITES UNITED KINGDOM Government website http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ Comprehensive for statutes from 1988. For the United Kingdom it includes some coverage from 1801 becoming more comprehensive the more recent the legislation is. Often it will have the original version and a current or nearly current one. It also includes current Welsh, Scottish & Northern Irish legislation and some earlier British, English (back to 1267), Scottish & Irish legislation. It is comprehensive for statutory instruments from 1987 and has some coverage of earlier secondary legislation. The coverage of older legislation is gradually being increased. BAILII It appears to take the information from the Government website. United Kingdom Acts of the United Kingdom Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom Northern Ireland Acts of Northern Ireland Statutory Rules of Northern Ireland Orders in Council of Northern Ireland Scotland Acts of Scotland Statutory Instruments of Scotland Wales Acts of Wales Statutory Instruments of Wales Legislative Measures of Wales Matthew Williams http://www.matthewlippoldwilliams.com/data-sets/ “This section contains all UK parliamentary legislation from 1900-2015. These data have been collected for my forthcoming book: ‘How Language Works in Politics: The Impact of Vague Legislation on Policy’ (University of Bristol Press). Each year from 1900 to 2015 has three folders containing all legislation (.txt), the preambles to all legislation (~pr.txt) and all financial legislation (~Fin.txt). Please note that the legislation is in plain text form and intended for natural language processing (NLP).” The Statutes Project - John Levin http://statutes.org.uk/site/ “The primary aim of The Statutes Project is quite simple: to put the entire corpus of English / British parliamentary law online, for free, in multiple and easily reusable formats” Irish Government website http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/pre-acts.html has various selected statutes for UK 1801-1922, Ireland 1169 to 1800 & GB 1707 to 1800 parliaments. Searchable but any statute may be an amended version. Namibian Parliament https://laws.parliament.na/gazettes/gazette-listings.php?id=4 A few late 19th century UK statutes REPUBLIC OF IRELAND Government website http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ Contains all Irish statutes and statutory instruments from 1922. BAILII Appears to take the information from the Government website. Acts of Ireland Statutory Instruments of Ireland CROWN DEPENDENCIES GUERNSEY legislation http://www.guernseylegalresources.gg/ “The website includes: Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and Bailiwick Laws enacted and published since 1950 as well as some key earlier items. Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and Bailiwick Ordinances enacted and published since 1950 as well as some key earlier items. Guernsey and Bailiwick Statutory Instruments enacted and published since 1949”. ISLE OF MAN legislation https://legislation.gov.im/cms/ The website has legislation currently in force, which includes current versions of laws the originals of which may have been passed many years ago and laws as enacted 2001 on. Tynwald Statutory Documents 1993- http://www.tynwald.org.im/links/tls/SD/Pages/default.aspx JERSEY legislation https://www.jerseylaw.je “"Laws as enacted" section https://www.jerseylaw.je/laws/enacted/Pages/search.aspx?k contains – All Laws enacted up to the end of 1960 and still in force on 11th May 1981. It also includes Laws enacted in the 1950s and repealed before 11th May 1981. All Laws enacted since 1st January 1961. All R&Os enacted up to the end of 1969 and still in force on 31st March 1979. All R&Os enacted since 1st January 1970.” SCOTLAND to the Union in 1707 Includes statutes to 1707 both original and in translation http://www.rps.ac.uk/ and includes a Chronological list of statutes, 1424-1707 www.rps.ac.uk/static/parliamentary_statutes.pdf . SHORT TITLES Originally Acts of Parliament only had one title which could be rather long. Gradually from the 1840’s Acts started including a “Short Title” by which the Act could be legally referred to. In 1892 an Act was passed with short titles which could be used for some of the earlier Acts and this was re-enacted by the Short Titles Act 1896. COPYRIGHT UK legislation is subject to Crown Copyright which expires 50 years after the end of the year of publication and in the meantime, can be used if the Open Government Licence v3.0 is followed or one of the normal exemptions applies. Any commentary will be subject to the normal rules. The copyright in Irish enactments “vests in the Houses of the Oireachtas.” “and shall expire 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was ... made available” but there is also the Oireachtas Open Data PSI Licence for later works. Government copyright is for the same period and there is a similar licence. ENGLAND & WALES to 1707 AND GREAT BRITAIN to 1801 The Statutes of the Realm “an authoritative collection of Acts of the Parliament of England from the earliest times to the Union of the Parliaments in 1707, and Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain passed up to the death of Queen Anne in 1714. It was published between 1810 and 1825 by the Record Commission as a series of 9 volumes, with volume IV split into two separately bound parts, together with volumes containing an Alphabetical Index and a Chronological Index.” [per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Statutes_of_the_Realm] Searchable on British History online Statutes of the Realm: volume 5 1628-80 The statutes that passed into law under Charles I and Charles II, including the legislation of the Long and Short Parliaments before the Interregnum, and of the Restoration after. Statutes of the Realm: volume 6 1685-94 The statutes of the last years of James II, the Glorious Revolution, and the first years of William and Mary. Includes the 'Bill of Rights' of 1688-9 and the Triennial Act of 1694. Statutes of the Realm: volume 7 1695-1701 Statutes passed into law under William III, including the Civil List Act of 1697 and the Act of Settlement of 1701. Scanned volumes Volume 1 The Statutes of the Realm - Charters of Liberties Henry I to Edward I Statutes Henry III to Edward III Full view v.1 (Pennsylvania State University) Volume 2 The Statutes of the Realm - Richard II to Henry VII Full view v.2 (Pennsylvania State University) Volume 3 The Statutes of the Realm - Henry VIII 1509-1545 -p1032 + index https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=B7o4AQAAMAAJ https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IiTDHUw6Wq4C Full view v.3 (Pennsylvania