Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1998

Provisions

Repealed enactments

Section 1(1) of the act repealed 359 enactments and revoked 39 instruments, listed in parts I to X of schedule 1 to the act.

Part I: Administration of Justice

Part II: Ecclesiastical Law

Part III: Education

Part IV: Finance

Part V: Hereford and Worcester

Part VI: Inclosure Acts

Part VII: Scottish Local Acts

Part VIII: Slave Trade Acts

Part IX: Statutes

Part X: Miscellaneous

Slave Trade Acts

The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 73) was entirely repealed. Despite its repeal, slavery remains illegal because the act only applied to the British Empire, as it was already illegal in Britain itself at the time of its passage due to legal precedents set by court cases like Somerset v Stewart and Knight v Wedderburn, a state of law that carried over into the United Kingdom. Sections of the Slave Trade Act 1824 (5 Geo. 4. c. 113), Slave Trade Act 1843 (6 & 7 Vict. c. 98), and Slave Trade Act 1873 (36 & 37 Vict. c. 88) that prohibit and criminalize slavery also remain in force. More recently, the Human Rights Act 1998 incorporated Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits holding people as slaves, into British law; additionally, the Modern Slavery Act 2015 also independently provides for the penalization and prosecution of slavery.

Subsequent developments

Paragraph 3 of schedule 2 to the act was repealed by section 109(3) of, and schedule 10 to the Courts Act 2003, which came into force on 1 April 2005.