The Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860 (23 & 24 Vict c 32) is an Act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...

. It is one of the Ecclesiastical Courts Acts 1787 to 1860. The Act is sometimes known as the "ECJA."

Section 1

Section 1 provided that it was not lawful for an ecclesiastical court in England or Ireland to entertain or adjudicate on a suit or cause of

brawling Brawl or Brawling may refer to: * Brawl, a large-scale fist fight usually involving multiple participants *''Brawl Stars'', a game desarrollated by Supercell, created at 2018 * Brawl, Scotland, a crofting community on the north coast of Scotland * ...

defamation Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...

against any person not in Holy Orders. Where a person had been committed to gaol under a writ ''

de contumace capiendo ''De contumace capiendo'' (literally, "Of (for) contempt seize him!") is a writ issued out of the Court of Chancery for the arrest of a defendant who is in contempt of an ecclesiastical court An ecclesiastical court, also called court Christian ...

'', that person was to be discharged. This section was repealed by section 87 of, an
Schedule 5
to, the

Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963 The Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963 was introduced to simplify ecclesiastical law as it applied to the Church of England, following the recommendations of the 1954 Archbishops' Commission on Ecclesiastical Courts. Superseding the Ecclesia ...

Section 5

This section repealed the Brawling Act 1551. This section was repealed by the

Statute Law Revision Act 1875 The Statute Law Revision Act 1875 (38 & 39 Vict c 66) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Bill for this Act was the Statute Law Revision Bill. This Act was partly in force in Great Britain at the end of 2010. The enactments ...

Section 6

This section provided that nothing contained hereinbefore in this Act was to be taken to repeal or alter the

Brawling Act 1553 The Brawling Act 1553 (1 Mary Sess 2 c 3) was an Act of the Parliament of England. Section 6 of the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860 provided that nothing contained in that Act was to be taken to repeal or alter the Brawling Act 155 ...

, the

Act of Uniformity 1558 The Act of Uniformity 1558 was an Act of the Parliament of England, passed in 1559, to regularise prayer, divine worship and the administration of the sacraments in the Church of England. The Act was part of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement ...

or section 18 of the

Toleration Act 1688 The Toleration Act 1688 (1 Will & Mary c 18), also referred to as the Act of Toleration, was an Act of the Parliament of England. Passed in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, it received royal assent on 24 May 1689. The Act allowed for f ...

. This section was repealed by section 1 of, and Part II of th
Schedule
to, the

Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969 The Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It implemented recommendations contained in the first report on statute law revision made by the Law Commission. The enactments which were repealed (whether ...

Developments

In 1998,

political campaigner A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, by which representatives are chosen or referend ...

Peter Tatchell Peter Gary Tatchell (born 25 January 1952) is a British human rights campaigner, originally from Australia, best known for his work with LGBT social movements. Tatchell was selected as the Labour Party's parliamentary candidate for Bermondsey ...

was charged under Section 2 of the Act for "indecent behaviour in a church." In 2002, the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminst ...

' Select Committee on Religious Offences in England and Wales delivered their First Report. In Chapter 3 of this report, they examined the "Law as it stands," including looking at "Old statutes." This included the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860, where they revealed that "According to statistics made available by the Home Office, there were 60 prosecutions under this Act in the six years 1997-2002, with 21 convictions." In his evidence to the Committee,

David Calvert-Smith Sir David Calvert-Smith, KC (born 6 April 1945), styled The Hon. Mr Justice Calvert-Smith, is a retired British judge. He was Director of Public Prosecutions of England and Wales from 1998 to 2003 and then a High Court judge. Educated at Eto ...

, the

Director of Public Prosecutions The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is the office or official charged with the prosecution of criminal offences in several criminal jurisdictions around the world. The title is used mainly in jurisdictions that are or have been members o ...

said that: "We use it sufficiently often or have used it in the past for it obviously to be the right offence to use and a redrafted Section 2 would probably be a (albeit infrequently used) valuable offence." In a landmark decision in 2017, a new law was enacted, nicknamed "

Turing's Law The "Alan Turing law" is an informal term for the law in the United Kingdom, contained in the Policing and Crime Act 2017, which serves as an amnesty law to pardon men who were cautioned or convicted under historical legislation that outla ...

," which will allow posthumous pardons for anyone convicted under former law, including, but not exclusively the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860, the 1956 and 1967 Sexual Offences Acts, both of which yet remain to be overturned. Under the new law, descendants, relatives, and advocates can now apply to have the records of dead gay and bisexual men cleared in the law. Several restrictions, as yet, remain in place. The restrictions mean that pardons might not be granted in more complicated cases like that of

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

, who was convicted of gross indecency with evidence that he frequented prostitutes. Justice minister Sam Gyimah, who advocated for the legislation, said, “This is a truly momentous day. We can never undo the hurt caused, but we have apologised and taken action to right these wrongs. I am immensely proud that ‘Turing’s law’ has become a reality under this government.” Human rights advocate

estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 men who were convicted under various anti-gay laws in the UK may be eligible for pardons. Tatchell noted that some laws are not specifically mentioned as being up for pardon. “It does not explicitly allow for the pardoning of men convicted of soliciting and procuring homosexual relations under the 1956 and 1967 Sexual Offences Acts. Nor does it pardon those people, including some lesbians, convicted for same-sex kissing and cuddling under laws such as the

Public Order Act 1986 The Public Order Act 1986 (c 64) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It creates a number of public order offences. They replace similar common law offences and parts of the Public Order Act 1936. It implements recommendations

, the common law offence of outraging public decency, the

Town Police Clauses Act 1847 The Town Police Clauses Act 1847 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (10 & 11 Vict c. 89). The statute remains in force in both the United Kingdom (except Scotland) and the Republic of Ireland, and is frequently used by local coun ...

, the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860 and the army, navy and air force acts and other diverse statutes.” The law only applies to cases where the offenses would not be considered crimes today. The law was modeled on the Queen’s 2013 posthumous pardon of

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical ...

, who helped decode encrypted messages sent by Nazi Germany in World War II but was convicted of gross indecency after the war.

References

Halsbury's Statutes ''Halsbury's Statutes of England and Wales'' (commonly referred to as ''Halsbury's Statutes'') provides updated texts of every Public General Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, Measure of the Welsh Assembly, or Church of England Mea ...

External links

The Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860
as amended, from Legislation.gov.uk.
The Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860
as originally enacted, from Legislation.gov.uk. {{UK legislation United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1860 1860 in religion