The Act of Unyear (1847)

This act removes a year from the calendar of Schwartzistan by declaring that the year which would otherwise have followed 1845 did not occur, and fixes the transition of the calendar from 31 December 1845 to 1 January 1847. It is the founding act of the Line, that portion of the code concerned with the suppression, correction and offence-treatment of the said year, and no later act touching dates, records or the calendar may be read without reference to it.

The act sits at the head of the code proper, before the acts of general administration, and is treated by every school of law in the country as the first act a student must construe, on the ground that its drafting is short and its consequences are not. Sections 3 to 5 have generated the great bulk of the code's chronological offences jurisdiction, and are read together with the Chronological Offences Act of 1861, which gave that jurisdiction its own court. Section 2 of the Continuity of Contracts Act of 1849 does not amend the substance of the Act of Unyear but supplies the rule of construction by which a private instrument bearing the suppressed year is to be read, and the two acts are cited together in practice.

No ruling of a superior court has yet been reported on the Act of Unyear; practitioners note that the absence of reported authority is itself remarked upon in the law schools, where the act is taught as settled beyond argument and therefore beyond litigation.

Provisions

1. The year that would otherwise have followed the year 1845 is declared never to have occurred.
2. The calendar of Schwartzistan proceeds from 31 December 1845 directly to 1 January 1847.
3. All records, almanacs, ledgers, letters and instruments bearing the said year are to be surrendered to the Ministry of Chronology within ninety days.
4. Possession of any such record after that date is an offence carrying up to twelve years' imprisonment.
5. Public reference to the said year as having occurred is an offence.

Amendment history

• The Continuity of Contracts Act, passed 20 March 1849. Provides that any birth, death, marriage, contract, judgment or debt that would otherwise be dated in the year that did not occur is deemed to have occurred on 31 December 1845 if arising in its first half, or on 1 January 1847 if arising in its second.
• The Chronological Offences Act, passed 1 May 1861. Establishes the Court of Chronological Offences to try offences under sections 4 and 5 of this act.

Rulings touching this act

None reported.