Peel's Acts (as they are commonly known) were acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. They consolidated provisions from a large number of earlier statutes which were then repealed. Their purpose was to simplify the criminal law. The term refers to the Home Secretary who sponsored them, Sir Robert Peel.
Some writers apply the term Peel's Acts to the series of acts passed between 1826 and 1832.[1] Other writers apply the term Peel's Acts specifically to five of those acts, namely chapters 27 to 31 of the session 7 & 8 Geo. 4 (1827).[2]
According to some writers, the Criminal Law Act 1826 (7 Geo. 4. c. 64) was the first of Peel's Acts.[3]
The acts were the product of a failed[4] attempt to codify the criminal law.
- ^ James Fitzjames Stephen. A History of the Criminal Law of England. Macmillan and Co. London. 1883. Volume 2. Pages 216 and 217. Encyclopædia Britannica. Eleventh Edition. 1911. Volume 7. Page 485. "Stephen's History of the Criminal Law" (1883) 133 Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 731 at 735 (No 812 June). "Art IX - The Criminal Law of England" (1864) 18 Law Magazine and Law Review 139 at 153 and [1].
- ^ William Robinson. An Analysis of, and Digested Index to the Criminal Statutes. Saunders and Benning. London. 1829. Page v.
- ^ "Preliminary Note". Halsbury's Statutes of England. (The Complete Statutes of England). First Edition. 1929. Volume 4. Page 255.
- ^ No Criminal Code was passed
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