Statutes
| Date | 01 May 1960 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1960.tb00598.x |
| Published date | 01 May 1960 |
STATUTES
THE OBSCENE
PUBLICATIONS
ACT,
1959
THIS
Act is described in the Long Title as “An Act to amend
the law relating
to
the publication of obscene matter;
to
provide
for the protection of literature; and to strengthen the law
con-
cerning pornography.”
It
is a compromise measure, the result
of a long struggle between the Home Office and the would-be
reformers, which began over five years ago, and was only brought
to a successful conclusion by the patience and diligence of the
small group of private Members of Parliament who were determined
to see
it
through. The steps in the parliamentary history of the
measure are described by Mr. Roy Jenkins,
M.P.,
elsewhere.’ The
law
of
obscene publications is now consolidated by the Act,
so
that henceforth all prosecutions will
be
under its provisions.
Defects
in the existing
law
It
was almost universally acknowledged that there were, prior
to
this Act, serious defects in the existing law relating to obscene
publications, both with regard to the misdemeanour of publishing
an obscene libel and with regard to the destruction order procedure
under the Obscene Publications Act,
1857.’
The main complaints
were as follows
:
of the tendency of the matter
in question to deprave and corrupt those whose minds were
open to immoral influences and into whose hands a publica-
tion of this sort might fall, was felt to be unduly narrow
and unfair in its scope and operation.
It
failed
to
make
the intention of the accused the paramount consideration,
and subjected him to an objective test with regard
to
the
tendency
or
likely effect of the work in question. The courts
had shown themselves to be extremely capricious in the
application
of
this test.
2.
The possibility that a work might
be
judged
on
the strength
of
isolated passages instead of by looking at the work as a
whole.
3.
The non-availability of any defence of publication for the
public good.
1.
The soccalled
“
Hicklin
test
”
1
Roy
Jenkins, “Obscenity, Censorship, and the Law: The Story of
a
Bill,”
2
For
a
full critique, see
Norman
St.
John-SFs,
Obscenity and the
Law,
See also the present writer’s article, Obscenity in Modern English
s
Derived from Cookburn C.J.’e judgment
in
R.
v.
Hicklin
(1866)
L.R.
9
Q.B.
Encountev,
Vol. XIII,
No.
4,
October
1969,
p.
62
et
seq.
1956.
Law,”
Law
and
Contemporary Problems,
Autumn
1955,
p.
830
et seq.
360.
285
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