Date Published:
March 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Colonial Laws Validity Act

Colonial Laws Validity Act (28 and 29 Victoria, C. 63), an Act passed by the British parliament in 1865 to remove doubts as to the validity of colonial laws. It laid down that a colonial law cannot be repugnant to the laws of England, and defined the meaning of "repugnancy."

[Note by Claude Bélanger: Passed in 1865 by the Parliament of Great Britain, the Act reasserted the doctrine of Imperial Parliamentary Supremacy: all colonial laws repugnant to the provisions of British Statutes were invalid if the British law specified that it was applicable to the colonies. Under this principle, the Constitution Act, 1867, contained provisions by which Canadian Statutes would be reviewed by the Imperial authorities and, if necessary, disallowed. The power of dissallowance gradually fell into disuse and finally, in 1931, the Statute of Westminster abolished the provisions of the Colonial Laws Validity Act.]

Source : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. II, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 411p., p. 103.