Piracy Punishment Act 1902

This Act may be cited as the Piracy Punishment Act 1902.

The Act second Victoria number ten, so far as the same adopts the Imperial Act first Victoria chapter eighty-eight is hereby repealed, except as to offences committed and things done or commenced before the passing of this Act, which shall be dealt with and continued, and in respect of which every right and liability shall remain as if this Act had not been passed.

So much of the Imperial Acts mentioned in the Schedule hereto as relates to the punishment of the crime of piracy or of any offence by any of the said Acts declared to be piracy or of accessories thereto, is hereby repealed.

Whosoever with intent to commit, or at the time of, or immediately before, or immediately after, committing the crime of piracy, in respect of any ship or vessel, assaults with intent to murder any person being on board of or belonging to such ship or vessel, or

stabs, cuts, or wounds any such person, or unlawfully does any act by which the life of any such person may be endangered

shall be liable to penal servitude for life.

Whosoever commits any offence which by any of the Imperial Acts mentioned in the Schedule hereto amounts to the crime of piracy and is thereby made punishable with death, shall be liable to penal servitude for life or for any term of years not less than fifteen or to imprisonment for any term not exceeding three years.

In the case of every felony punishable under this Act:

every principal in the second degree, and every accessory before the fact shall be punishable in the same manner as the principal in the first degree is by this Act punishable, and

every accessory after the fact shall be liable to imprisonment for any term not exceeding two years.

Where any person is convicted of an offence punishable under this Act for which imprisonment may be awarded, the Court

may sentence the person to be imprisoned, or imprisoned and kept to hard labour in the common gaol or house of correction, and

may direct that the person be kept in solitary confinement for any portion or portions of such imprisonment or imprisonment with hard labour not exceeding one month at any one time, and not exceeding three months in any one year.

Nothing in this Act shall affect the provisions of any Act relating to the management and control of prisons.