By Prasun Sonwalkar
London(IANS) : Did you know that there is a law in Britain that prohibits people from dying while in the houses of parliament? That law has topped the list of the most ludicrous pieces of legislation in a poll held by a television channel.
The law that won the dubious second place states that it amounts to treason if you use a postage stamp upside down. Nearly 4,000 people selected the ludicrous laws from a shortlist of bizarre rules in the poll conducted by UKTV Gold.
Experts say that the law that prohibits people from dying while in the Houses of Parliament is actually a bizarre misunderstanding of a genuinely anachronistic law still on the statute books.
The 1887 Coroners Act, re-enacted by the 1988 Coroners Act, created a separate Coroner of the Queens Household. He still has to hold the inquest into the death of anyone whose body is lying “within the limits of any of the Queen’s palaces; or within the limits of any other house where Her Majesty is then residing”.
As parliament is still classed as a royal palace, any death of an MP would in theory have required members of the royal household to sit as the coroner’s jury. As this would have raised all sorts of questions of parliamentary privilege, the polite convention arose that no parliamentarian dies until they are safely in the ambulance to a hospital.
A total of 27 percent of those questioned thought the law against dying in the houses of parliament was the most absurd, while seven percent voted for the legislation banning placing postage stamps upside down.
In third place, with six percent, came a law stating that only a clerk in a tropical fish store has permission to be topless in public in Liverpool. The BBC reported that other lesser-known laws making the top 10 included one banning eating mince pies on Christmas Day and another stating it is illegal to enter the houses of parliament wearing a suit of armour.
Last year, the Law Society revealed other bizarre laws that are still in existence on the statute book. They included a ban on firing a cannon close to a dwelling house (Met Police Act 1839); a ban on the use of any slide upon ice or snow (Town Police Clauses Act 1847); and the prohibition of driving cattle through the streets of London (Metropolitan Streets Act 1867).
The top 10 most ridiculous British laws listed in the polls were:
1. It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament (27 percent)
2. It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British king or queen’s image upside-down (seven percent)
3. It is illegal for a woman to be topless in Liverpool except as a clerk in a tropical fish store (six percent)
4. Eating mince pies on Christmas Day is banned (five percent)
5. If someone knocks on your door in Scotland and requires the use of your toilet, you are required to let them enter (four percent)
6. In the UK a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants, including in a policeman’s helmet (four percent)
7. The head of any dead whale found on the British coast automatically becomes the property of the King, and the tail of the Queen (3.5 percent)
8. It is illegal not to tell the taxman anything you do not want him to know, but legal not to tell him information you do not mind him knowing (three percent)
9. It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament wearing a suit of armour (three percent)
10. It is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls of York, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow (two percent)