Welsh Law After The Laws in Wales Acts
The last recorded case to be heard under Welsh law was a case concerning land in Carmarthenshire in 1540, four years after the 1536 Act had stipulated that only English law was to be used in Wales. Even in the 17th century in some parts of Wales there were unofficial meetings where points of dispute were decided in the presence of arbiters using principles laid down in Welsh law.
Antiquarian interest in the laws continued, and in 1730 a translation by William Wotton was published. In 1841 Aneurin Owen edited an edition of the laws entitled Ancient laws and institutions of Wales, and was the first to identify the various Redactions, which he named the "Gwentian Code" (Cyfnerth), the "Demetian Code" (Blegywryd) and the "Venedotian Code" (Iorwerth). His edition was followed by a number of other studies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Carmarthenshire County Council has set up the Hywel Dda Centre in Whitland, with an interpretative centre and garden to commemorate the original council.
Contemporary Welsh Law is a term applied to the body of primary and secondary legislation generated by the National Assembly for Wales, according to devolved authority granted in the Government of Wales Act 2006. Each piece of Welsh legislation is known as an Act of the National Assembly for Wales. The first Assembly legislation to be officially proposed was called the NHS Redress (Wales) Measure 2008. These powers have been effective since May, 2007. It is the first time in almost 500 years that Wales has had its own laws, since Cyfraith Hywel was abolished and replaced by English law through the Laws in Wales Acts, passed between 1535 and 1542 by King Henry VIII of England.
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Famous quotes containing the words welsh, law, laws, wales and/or acts:
“For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish or a German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making “ladies” dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)
“I believe it was a good job,
Despite this possible horror: that they might prefer the
Preservation of their law in all its sick dignity and their knives
To the continuation of their creed
And their lives.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“Surely it is one of the simplest laws of taste in dress, that it shall not attract undue attention from the wearer to the worn.”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)
“I just come and talk to the plants, really—very important to talk to them, they respond I find.”
—Charles, Prince Of Wales (b. 1948)
“It is not enough to ask, ‘Will my act harm other people?’ Even if the answer is No, my act may still be wrong, because of its effects on other people. I should ask, ‘Will my act be one of a set of acts that will together harm other people?’ The answer may be Yes. And the harm to others may be great. If this is so, I may be acting very wrongly, like the Harmless Torturers.”
—Derek Parfit (b. 1943)