Statute Law Revision Act 2007
The Statute Law Revision Act 2007 was an Act of the Oireachtas of the Republic of Ireland which repealed a large amount of pre-1922 legislation of Ireland, England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom while preserving a shorter list of statutes.
Scope
The Attorney General of Ireland examined 26,370 public general statutes enacted before the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922. Of these 9,219 were already wholly repealed prior to 1 May 2007, and 12,562 were not applicable to Ireland. This left 4,589 statutes still in force, of which 3,225 were to be repealed by the Act and were listed in Schedule 2, some of which were in any case by then unconstitutional. The Act repealed all public general statutes enacted before 6th December 1922, listed or not, except for 1,364 explicitly in Schedule 1 of the Act; these were given short names where they did not already have them.
Private, local or personal Acts remained in force, with many of these repealed in the Statute Law Revision Act 2009.
The number of Acts repealed in this one piece of legislation exceeded the number of public general Acts passed after 6 December 1922 (the start of the Irish Free State) up to 1 May 2007 (3,189). The Act was the largest single Statute Law Revision Act or repealing measure ever enacted internationally.[1]
Acts repealed
Among the Acts repealed were Poynings' Act 1495, an Act of 1542 providing that the Kings of England should be Kings of Ireland, the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act 1922 and the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922.
Acts retained
Among the older Acts retained were the Great Charter of Ireland (a version of the English Magna Carta) and the Mayor of Dublin Act 1229. The English Bill of Rights 1688 was retained but partly repealed, including the provision that guaranteed the right to bear arms to Protestants only. The Marriage Act (No 2) 1537 was also retained and this retention has been the subject of academic criticism from Dr Maebh Harding.[2]