Chalmers, James. "Frenzied Law Making': Overcriminalization by Numbers". Current Legal Problems, Vol.67, No.1 (2014): 483-502.

Chalmers, James. "Frenzied Law Making': Overcriminalization by Numbers". Current Legal Problems, Vol.67, No.1 (2014): 483-502.

• The sheer scale of legislation in the UK, and the difficulties in staying up to date on regulations, is demonstrated by the R vs. Chambers case, in which a court realized during an appeal that an important database had not been updated and that the defendant was being prosecuted by a law repealed 7 years prior (484).
• Another example occurred in 2006, when the Labour government was accused of creating a law a day during its time in power, mostly as secondary legislation. When asked to respond, the Attorney-general could not confirm or deny, saying that he didn't know how many laws actually exist or had been passed (486).
• Another case was the publication in 2013 of a document by the Law Commission attempting to establish the truth about several popular 'weird' laws, like the prohibition on wearing armor in Parliament. There were four cases, however, including female fishmongers being exempted from laws on toplessness, were the court claimed a lack of evidence. If the government Law Commission cannot determine these laws, how can the public be expected to (487-488).
• Criminal and regulatory measures are repealed at a rate almost as quickly as they are created, with over 60% of statutes created by the Blair government being repealed within a year as they were replaced with new, updated, regulations (491).
• Most of the new laws created during the Blair government and the Cameron government were created to bring the UK into accordance with its international obligations under EU law or international treaties. The necessary transposition of these laws into UK law results in many, but not all, of the weird and repetitive aspects of British law (491-492).
• Measuring the number of statutes passed under the title 'criminal law' does not get a full picture of the range of criminal offenses created during a period. Most offenses with criminal liability and harsh punishment related to fields of agriculture and workplace health regulations, while many 'criminal law' statutes actually deal with procedure, not crime (494).
• Most of the current laws, often because they regulations are in specific non-criminal fields, do not affect the general public. Instead, they only apply to specific persons with special capacity, from traffic law applying to all drivers to specific regulations criminalizing the actions of certain government offices (498).
• Despite the number an complexity of criminal legislation created in the past years, and existing in the UK, most crimes brought before courts are still restricted to a core of 'normal' crimes committed by the general public as well as some specific crimes regarding regulation. The complexity and insanity of criminal law appears to have limited affect on the application of criminal law in the UK (500-501).