A by-law made by a county council under s 16 of the 1888 Act, was in the following terms: ‘No person shall in any street or public place, or on land adjacent thereto, sing or recite any profane or obscene song or ballad, or use any profane or obscene language’
Held: that the by-law was invalid, since even if the words ‘or on land adjacent thereto,’ which were clearly too wide, were struck out, it was still unreasonable, because it did not contain any words importing that the acts must be done so as to cause annoyance.
Lindley LJ discussed the validity of a byelaw where part appeared invalid: ‘I have no doubt whatever that those words are bad. But that being so, is the rest of the byelaw bad? There is plenty of authority for saying that if a byelaw can be divided, one part may be rejected as bad while the rest may be held to be good. In the present case there is, I think, no difficulty whatever in severing the byelaw. If the words ‘on any land adjacent thereto’ are omitted, the rest of the byelaw reads quite grammatically. The byelaw is, therefore, distinctly severable.’
Lindley LJ
[1896] 1 QB 290, [1896] UKLawRpKQB 380
Commonlii
Local Government Act 1888 16
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Hutchinson; Director of Public Prosecutions v Smith HL 12-Jul-1990
Protesters objected that byelaws which had been made to prevent access to common land, namely Greenham Common were invalid.
Held: The byelaws did prejudice the rights of common. The House was concerned to clarify the test applicable when . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Local Government
Updated: 22 January 2022; Ref: scu.259757