ABSTRACT
An offence remains a common law offence even when statute provides defences or penalties, e.g. Homicide Act 1957.
Today the courts have no power to create new offences; and this was acknowledged by the House of Lords in Knuller v DPP (1973). In an earlier case before the House of Lords, Shaw v DPP (1962), Lord Simonds
L.C. seemed to be claiming otherwise when he stated that ‘there remains in the courts of law a residual power to enforce the supreme and fundamental purpose of the law to conserve not only the safety and order but also the moral welfare of the State’.
