Treason Act 1695

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The Treason Act 1695 is an Act of the Parliament of England (citation 7 & 8 Will. III c. 3) which laid down rules of evidence and procedure in treason trials. It was passed by the English Parliament but was extended to cover Scotland in 1708. Some of it is still in force today.

Provisions

The Act provided that:

People accused of treason should have the right to be represented by up to two counsel.
Nobody could be convicted of treason except by the evidence of two witnesses to the same overt act. (This rule was inherited by the United States and incorporated into the Constitution.)
Nobody could be prosecuted or punished for treason or misprision of treason unless the indictment was signed by the grand jury within three years of the crime being committed (except in cases of an attempt on the life of the King).
A defendant should be allowed to have a copy of the indictment against him (at his own expense).
No evidence could be used against him except what was pleaded in the indictment.

History

The Act was passed because previously the law had been extremely harsh, allowing little opportunity for a defendant to defend himself and enabling trumped-up charges of treason to succeed.

Today most of the Act has been repealed, but the three year time limit still survives (see below), and of course the rights to be represented and to have a copy of the indictment (now free of charge) still exist in other legislation. However the "two witnesses" rule no longer exists in the United Kingdom. In 1800 this rule, and all other special rules of evidence in treason cases, were abolished for cases of killing or attempting to kill the Sovereign. The Treason Act 1842 extended this exception still further, to all attempts to maim or wound the Sovereign (non-lethal assaults on the Sovereign had been made treason in 1795.) Finally in 1945 the special status of treason was removed for all kinds of treason, and ever since then the evidence required, and the procedure followed, in treason proceedings has been the same as in murder trials.

The Act Today

The three year time limit described above - and the original exception to it - are still on the law books today, and are contained in sections 5 and 6 of the Act. However grand juries were abolished in England in 1933, and now indictments are signed by judges. When in the 1990s a British newspaper attempted to have James Hewitt prosecuted under the Treason Act 1351 for an alleged affair with Diana, Princess of Wales, no charges were brought, in part because it could not be proved that the affair had ended less than three years previously.

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