The court echoed the description of the rule against retrospectivity in an Act so as to remove existing right, quoting Maxwell ‘Upon the presumption that the legislature does not intend what is unjust rests the leaning against giving certain statutes a retrospective operation. They are construed as operating only in cases or on facts which come into existence after the statutes were passed unless a retrospective effect is clearly intended. It is a fundamental rule of English law that no statute shall be construed to have a retrospective operation unless such a construction appears very clearly in the terms of the Act, or arises by necessary and distinct implication.’
Judges:
Scarman J
Citations:
[1964] 1 WLR 511
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Oxfordshire County Council v Oxford City Council, Catherine Mary Robinson ChD 22-Jan-2004
Land had been registered in part as a common. The council appealed.
Held: The rights pre-existing the Act had not been lost. The presumption against retrospectively disapplying vested rights applied, and the application had properly been made. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Constitutional
Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.192182