Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865
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The Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (28 & 29 Vict. c. 63). Its long title is An Act to remove Doubts as to the Validity of Colonial Laws.
The purpose of the Act was to remove any apparent inconsistency between local (colonial) and British ("imperial") legislation. Thus it confirmed that colonial legislation (provided it had been passed in the proper manner) was to have full effect within the colony, limited only to the extent that it was in contradiction with ("repugnant to") any Act of Parliament that had been applied to the colony. This had the effect of strengthening the position of colonial legislatures, while at the same time restating their ultimate subordination to the Westminster Parliament.
Until the passage of the Act, a number of colonial statutes had been struck down by local judges on the grounds of repugnancy. This had been a particular problem for the government in South Australia, where Justice Benjamin Boothby had struck down local statutes on numerous occasions in the colony's Supreme Court.
By the mid-1920s it was accepted by the British government that the dominions would have full legislative autonomy. This was given legislative effect in 1931 by the Statute of Westminster, which repealed the application of the Colonial Laws Validity Act to the dominions (i.e. Canada, the Irish Free State, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and the Union of South Africa). It took effect in Australia in 1942 with the passing of the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942 but was retroactively dated to September 3, 1939. The Act also remained on the statute books of the individual Australian states until the Australia Act took effect in 1986.
