The Act of Settlement is an act of the Parliament of England that was passed in 1701 to settle the succession to the English and Irish crowns and thrones on the Electress Sophia of Hanover ( a granddaughter of James I ) and her Protestant heirs.

Since the implementation of the Statute of Westminster 1931 in each of the Commonwealth realms ( on successive dates from 1931 onwards ), the Act of Settlement cannot be altered in any realm except by that realm's own parliament and, by convention, only with the consent of all the other realms, as it touches on the succession to the shared throne.

The Act of Settlement provided that the throne would pass to the Electress Sophia of Hanover – a granddaughter of James VI of Scotland and I of England, niece of Charles I of Scotland and England – and her Protestant descendants who had not married a Roman Catholic ; those who were Roman Catholic, and those who married a Roman Catholic, were barred from ascending the throne " for ever ".

For different reasons, various constitutionalists have praised the Act of Settlement: Henry Hallam called the act in the United Kingdom " the seal of our constitutional laws " and David Lindsay Keir placed its importance above the Bill of Rights 1689.

Naamani Tarkow has written: " If one is to make sweeping statements, one may say that, save Magna Carta ( more truly, its implications ), the Act of Settlement is probably the most significant statute in English history ".

The original Act of Settlement

The Act of Settlement was, in many ways, the major cause of the union of Scotland with England and Wales to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.

The Parliament of Scotland was not happy with the Act of Settlement and, in response, passed the Act of Security in 1704, through which Scotland reserved the right to choose its own successor to Queen Anne.

By virtue of Article II of the Treaty of Union, which defined the succession to the throne of Great Britain, the Act of Settlement became part of Scots Law as well.

Since the passage of the Act of Settlement, the most senior member of the Royal Family to have married a Roman Catholic, and thereby been removed from the line and later lines of succession, is Prince Michael of Kent, who married Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz in 1978 ; he was fifteenth in the lines of succession at the time of his marriage.

Under the Act of Settlement, male-preference primogeniture succession of an Anglican legitimate descendant of the Electress Sophia is automatic and immediate, neither depending on, nor waiting for, any proclamation.

In the Australian Capital Territory, the Act of Settlement was, on 11 May 1989, converted, from an act of the Parliament of England into an ACT enactment, by section 34 ( 4 ) of the Australian Capital Territory ( Self-Government ) Act 1988 ( Cwlth ), and then renamed The Act of Settlement 1700 by the Legislation Act 2001.

Challenges have been made against the Act of Settlement, especially its provisions regarding Roman Catholics and preference for males.

It was reported in October 2011 that the Australian federal government had reached an agreement with all of the states on potential changes to their laws in the wake of amendments to the Act of Settlement.

Canadian scholar Richard Toporoski theorised in 1998 that " if, let us say, an alteration were to be made in the United Kingdom to the Act of Settlement 1701, providing for the succession of the Crown ... t is my opinion that the domestic constitutional law of Australia or Papua New Guinea, for example, would provide for the succession in those countries of the same person who became Sovereign of the United Kingdom.

In Canada, where the Act of Settlement is now a part of Canadian constitutional law, Tony O ' Donohue, a Canadian civic politician, took issue with the provisions that exclude Roman Catholics from the throne, and which make the monarch of Canada the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, requiring him or her to be an Anglican.

Before the Draft Act was passed Baker had confidentially briefed governors, sheriffs, and prospective draft board members on the administration of the measure -- and the confidence was kept so well that only one newspaper learned what was going on.

It was Baker, working through Provost Marshal Enoch Crowder and Major Hugh S. ( `` Old Ironpants '' ) Johnson, who arranged for a secret printing by the million of selective service blanks -- again before the Act was passed -- until corridors in the Government Printing Office were full and the basement of the Washington Post Office was stacked to the ceiling.

When the United States entered the First World War Baker made certain that the Draft Act of 1917 prohibited the sale of liquor to men in uniform and that it provided for broad zones around the camps in which prostitution was outlawed.

The authority for the program was renewed several times until the vocational rehabilitation program was made permanent as Title 5, of the Social Security Act in 1935.

Throughout these years, the statutory authorization was for such sums as were necessary to carry out the provisions of the Act.

For the States which maintain two separate agencies -- one for the vocational rehabilitation of the blind, and one for the rehabilitation of persons other than the blind -- the Act specifies that their minimum ( base ) allotment shall be divided between the two agencies in the same proportion as it was divided in fiscal year 1954.

Petitioner, who claims to be a conscientious objector, was convicted of violating 12a of the Universal Military Training and Service Act by refusing to be inducted into the armed forces.

The latest major change in this program was introduced by the National Defense Education Act of 1958, Title 8, of which amended the George-Barden Act.

For the Smith-Hughes, George-Barden, and National Defense Act of 1958, the cumulative total of Federal expenditures in 42 years was only about $740 million.

The Title 8, program of the National Defense Education Act of 1958 was a great spur to this trend toward area schools.

However, the Federal Court held that since the State had accepted the provisions of the Wagner-Peyser Act into its own Code, and presumably therefore also the regulations, it was now a State matter.

The passage of the Sherman Act was aimed at giant monopolies.

In 1914, the Clayton Act attempted to take labor out from under the anti-trust legislation by stating that human labor was not to be considered a commodity.

So the audience last night was all ears and eyes just after Act 2, got a rousing opening chorus, `` Where's Charley??

In July 1862, the Second Confiscation Act was passed, which set up court procedures that could free the slaves of anyone convicted of aiding the rebellion.

The passage of the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Acts was made possible by the absence of Southern congressmen and senators who had opposed the measures in the 1850s.

The American Film Institute ( AFI ) is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act.

By the Naturalisation Act 1870, it was made possible for British subjects to renounce their nationality and allegiance, and the ways in which that nationality is lost are defined.

" On July 27, 1868, the day before the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, U. S. Congress declared in the preamble of the Expatriation Act that " the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ," and ( Section I ) one of " the fundamental principles of this government " ( United States Revised Statutes, sec.

ACSI opposed the Act primarily because the ADA labeled religious institutions " public accommodations ", and thus would have required churches to make costly structural changes to ensure access for all.

Access Now v. Southwest Airlines was a case where the District Court decided that the website of Southwest Airlines was not in violation of the Americans with Disability Act because the ADA is concerned with things with a physical existence and thus cannot be applied to cyberspace.

In the United Kingdom, His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act was, with the consent of the Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, and South African governments, passed through parliament and the Crown thus passed to the next-in-line descendant of Sophia: Edward's brother, Prince Albert, Duke of York.

Everything thus turns upon the status and meaning of clause 2 in the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900, which provides: " The provisions of this Act referring to the Queen shall extend to Her Majesty's heirs and successors in the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.

) Criticism of the Act of Settlement due to the Phillips-Kelly marriage was muted when Autumn Kelly converted to Anglicanism shortly before her marriage thus preserving her husband's place in the line of succession.

Per the Broadcasting Act the commission also gives priority to Canadian signals — many non-Canadian channels which compete with Canadian channels are thus not approved for distribution in Canada.

Physician-assisted suicide is thus not classified as euthanasia by the US State of Oregon, where it is legal under the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, and despite its name, it is not legally classified as suicide either.

By 2006, such was the confusion from these multiple Acts, each amending the others ( and not all of which were ever actually commenced and thus were in the public record but not enforced as actual legislation ); and the amendments of Irish firearms legislation by other Acts ranging from the Wildlife Acts ( mostly relating to hunting law ) to the Road Traffic Acts ( relating to how and where firearms could be transported ) and others ; the large amount of secondary legislation ( Statutory Instruments, which set out regulations, the design of application forms for licences and so forth, as well as the details of when various parts of the Acts came into force ); as well as the introduction of EU firearms law into the canon of Irish legislation ; led the Irish Law Reform Commission to recommend that all the extant legislation be restated a legal process by which all the existing primary and secondary legislation would be read as one and a single document produced as the new Firearms Act ( and all prior Acts would be repealed ).

* 1900 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom gives Royal Assent to an Act creating Australia thus uniting separate colonies on the continent under one federal government.

* 1989 – A federal grand jury indicts Cornell University student Robert T. Morris, Jr. for releasing the Morris worm, thus becoming the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Though it was a private institution to be located in the middle of urban Boston, the new institute had a mission that matched the intent of the 1862 Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act to fund institutions " to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes ", and was thus named a land-grant school.

At age 37, Mary turned her attention to finding a husband and producing an heir, thus preventing the Protestant Elizabeth ( still her successor under the terms of Henry VIII's will and the Act of Succession of 1544 ) from succeeding to the throne.

" In denying his request, the Court held that it lacked jurisdiction because Section 13 of the Judiciary Act passed by Congress in 1789, which authorized the Court to issue such a writ, was unconstitutional and thus invalid.

These disagreements were resolved only in time for the passage of the Canada Act of 1982, thus completing the so-called patriation of the Canadian constitution to Canada.

The act also expanded the definition of terrorism to include domestic terrorism, thus enlarging the number of activities to which the USA PATRIOT Act ’ s expanded law enforcement powers can be applied.

* 1707: Act of Union passed merging the Scottish and the English Parliaments, thus establishing the Kingdom of Great Britain.

* May 29 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the Capital Punishment Amendment Act, thus ending public hanging.

This Act gave the Federal government jurisdiction over Unemployment Insurance thus allowing such a program to be established on a national level.

After the première and before leaving Paris, Verdi authorised the Opéra authorities to end Act 4, Scene 2 with the death of Posa ( thus omitting the insurrection scene ) if they thought fit.

Also, in a prelude to the Act of Settlement to come twelve years later, the Bill of Rights barred Roman Catholics from the throne of England as " it hath been found by experience that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant kingdom to be governed by a papist prince "; thus William III and Mary II were named as the successors of James VII and II and that the throne would pass from them first to Mary's heirs, then to her sister, Princess Anne of Denmark and her heirs and, further, to any heirs of William by a later marriage.

Second, Section 230 of the Act has been interpreted to say that operators of Internet services are not to be construed as publishers ( and thus not legally liable for the words of third parties who use their services ).

The Internet, however, had only recently been opened to commercial interests by the 1992 amendment to the National Science Foundation Act and thus had not been taken into consideration by previous laws.

The passing of the Act seven years later enfranchising " male persons " was, however, a more significant event ; it has been argued that it was the inclusion of the word " male ", thus providing the first statutory bar to women voting, which provided a focus of attack and a source of resentment from which, in time, the women's suffrage movement grew.