The doctrine ofimplied repeal is aconcept inconstitutional theory which states that where anact of Parliament or anact of Congress (or of some other legislature) conflicts with an earlier one, the later Act takes precedence and the conflicting parts of the earlier Act become legally inoperable. This doctrine is expressed in the Latin phraseleges posteriores priores contrarias abrogant or "lex posterior derogat priori".
Implied repeal is to be contrasted with the express repeal of legislation by the legislative body.
In Canadian law, it is possible for a law to be protected from implied repeal by way of a "primacy clause" which states that the act in question supersedes all other statutes until it is specifically repealed. Acts with such primacy clauses are called quasi-constitutional.
In the 2002 English caseThoburn v Sunderland City Council (the so-called "Metric Martyrs" case),Lord Justice Laws held that someconstitutionally significant statutes hold a higher status in UK law and are not subject to the doctrine of implied repeal. The case specifically dealt with s.2(2) of theEuropean Communities Act, but in his judgment Lord Justice Laws also held the view that theParliament Acts and theHuman Rights Act are "constitutional statutes" and in his opinion may not be subject to the doctrine of implied repeal.
A decade later in 2012, in a case before theUnited Kingdom Supreme Court,BH v The Lord Advocate (Scotland),Lord Hope held that "theScotland Act can only be expressly repealed; it cannot be impliedly repealed; that is because of its 'fundamental constitutional nature'."[1][2]
UnderUnited States law, "implied repeal" is a disfavored doctrine. That is, if a court can reconcile the two statutes with any reasonable interpretation, that interpretation is preferred to one that treats the earlier statute as invalidated by the later one.[3]
TheWisconsin Supreme Court ruled[Note 1] in July 2025 that an 1849 law, that stated the killing of a fetus was manslaughter and thusly interpreted by anti-abortion advocates to outlaw abortion upon the overturning ofRoe v. Wade viaDobbs v. Jackson in 2022, was "impliedly repealed". Among the cases cited by the majority in the 2025 ruling was a 1994 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that found the 1849 law only applied when the fetus died as an indirect result of an assault upon the pregnant person.[4]
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