Treason Felony Act 1848

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The Treason Felony Act 1848 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (11 & 12 Vict. c. 12.) The Act is still in force. It is a law which protects the Queen and the Crown.

The offences in the Act were formerly high treason under the Treason Act 1795, and consequently the penalty was death. However it was found that juries were often reluctant to convict people of capital crimes, and it was thought that the conviction rate might increase if the sentence was reduced to exile to the penal colonies in Australia (the penalty today is life imprisonment). Consequently in 1848 three categories of treason (all originally from the 1795 Act) were reduced to felonies. (This occurred during a period when the death penalty in the United Kingdom was being abolished for a great many offences.)

In 2003, The Guardian newspaper mounted an unsuccessful legal challenge to the Act in the House of Lords, alleging that the act "...makes it a criminal offence, punishable by life imprisonment, to advocate abolition of the monarchy in print, even by peaceful means..."[1] However in a unanimous judgement Lord Steyn decided that "the part of section 3 of the 1848 Act which appears to criminalise the advocacy of republicanism is a relic of a bygone age and does not fit into the fabric of our modern legal system. The idea that section 3 could survive scrutiny under the Human Rights Act is unreal."

The last prosecution under the Act was in 1883.

[edit] Text

The wording of the relevant section of the Act is:

3. Offences herein mentioned declared to be felonies

...If any person whatsoever shall, within the United Kingdom or without, compass, imagine, invent, devise or to deprive or depose our Most Gracious Lady the Queen, ...from the style, honour, or royal name of the imperial crown of the United Kingdom, or of any other of her Majesty's dominions and countries, or to levy war against her Majesty, ...within any part of the United Kingdom, in order by force or constraint to compel her... to change her... measures of counsels, or in order to put any force or constraint upon her or in order to intimidate or overawe both Houses or either House of Parliament, or to move or stir any foreigner or stranger with force to invade the United Kingdom or any other of her Majesty's dominions or countries under the obeisance of her Majesty... and such compassings, imaginations, inventions, devices, or intentions, or any of them, shall express, utter, or declare, by publishing any printing or writing, ...or by any overt act or deed, every person so offending shall be guilty of felony, and being convicted thereof shall be liable, ...to be transported beyond the seas for the term of his or her natural life.