Section 51 – Abolition of offences of sedition and leasing-making
250.Section 51 abolishes the common law offences of sedition and leasing-making. This follows amendments made in section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (c.25) to abolish the common law offences of sedition, seditious libel, defamatory libel and obscene libel, which applied in the rest of the UK.
251.Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Schedule 7 to the Act repeal the Libel Act 1792 (c.60) and the Criminal Libel Act 1819 (c.8) in their entirety.
252.Paragraphs 6, 19, 64 and 72 of Schedule 7 to the Act provide for consequential amendments to the Defamation Acts of 1952 and 1996, the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 and the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003. These remove references that are made redundant either by the abolition of the offence of sedition in Scotland or the abolition of the various forms of criminal libel in the rest of the United Kingdom.