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A repeal (O.F. rapel, modern rappel, from rapeler, rappeler, revoke, re and appeler, appeal) is the removal or reversal of a law. There are two basic types of repeal; a repeal with a re-enactment is used to replace the law with an updated, amended, or otherwise related law, or a repeal without replacement so as to abolish its provisions altogether.
Removal of secondary legislation is normally referred to as revocation rather than repeal in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Under the common law of England and Wales, the effect of repealing a statute was "to obliterate it completely from the records of Parliament as though it had never been passed."Kay v. Goodwin (1830) 6 Bing. 576, per Tindal C.J. This, however, is now subject to savings provisions within the Interpretation Act 1978.
In parliamentary procedure, the motion to rescind, repeal, or annul is used to cancel or countermand an action or order previously adopted by the assembly.
A full repeal occurs where the entire Act in question is repealed.
For example, the repeal of the in England in 1948 reflected their replacement by modern social welfare legislation.
A repeal without replacement is generally done when a law is no longer effective, or it is shown that a law is having far more negative consequences than were originally envisioned.
If a campaign for the repeal of a particular law gains particular momentum, an advocate of the repeal might become known as a "repealer". The Repeal Association in 19th-century Ireland advocated Irish independence through repeal of the Acts of Union 1800.
Many repeals without replacement are the result of significant changes in society. Major examples include:
Express repeal occurs where express words are used in a statute to repeal an earlier statute. They are now usually included in a table in a schedule to the statute, for reasons of convenience.
In the United States, when a bill is passed by the House and Senate and signed by the president, or Congress overrides a presidential veto, the various provisions contained within the newly enacted law are rearranged according to their policy content and cataloged in the United States Code—a compilation of the general and permanent federal laws of the United States. To repeal any element of an enacted law, Congress must pass a new law containing repeal language and the codified statute's location in the U.S. Code (including the title, chapter, part, section, paragraph and clause). In this way, Congress (and the president) must follow the same rules and procedures for passing any law. When statutes are repealed, their text is simply deleted from the Code and replaced by a note summarizing what used to be there. Once deleted, the repealed statute no longer has the force of law. All repeals of parts of the US Code are, therefore, express repeals.
Implied repeal occurs where two statutes are mutually inconsistent. The effect is that the later statute repeals the earlier statute pro tanto (in so far as it is inconsistent). As past and future parliaments are equally sovereign, later parliaments can carry out implied repeal of earlier statute by passing an inconsistent statute, but inconsistency needs to be established before implied repeal can occur.Ellen Street Estates v. Minister of Health 1934 1 KB 590
A repeal without savings eliminates the repealed statute completely.
A repeal with savings preserves the effect of the repealed statute for limited purposes, such as preventing the reversal of any repeals contained within it, or ensuring that rights granted under its authority are retained. In England and Wales, sections 15 to 17 and 19(2) of the Interpretation Act 1978 set out general savings for all repeals. These re-enact similar provisions from the Interpretation Act 1889, and before 1953 all Statute Law Revision Acts contained a different general savings provision deemed the Westbury saving, which has now fallen out of use. Similar provisions exist in the law of Ireland and other common law countries.
Under Robert's Rules of Order, the rules for this motion protect against instability arising from small variations in attendance from one meeting to the next. For this reason, the requirements for changing a previous action are greater than those for taking the action in the first place. A motion to rescind, repeal, annul or amend something already adopted requires a two-thirds vote, a majority vote with previous notice, or a vote of a majority of the entire membership, any one of which would suffice. Demeter's Manual imposes a similar requirement.
When this motion is used in a committee, RONR requires a two-thirds vote unless all committee members who voted for the motion to be rescinded or amended are present or have received ample notice; in which case a majority vote is required.
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