1. Lack of use; obsolescence through disuse.
2. The doctrine holding that if a statute or treaty is left unenforced long enough, the courts will no longer regard it as having any legal effect even though it has not been repealed. [Cases: Statutes 173. C.J.S. Statutes § 292.]
“[T]he doctrine of desuetude has had in all legal systems a very limited and cautious application. For the anachronistic statute a better remedy may be found through reinterpretation in the light of new conditions; as Gray remarks with some irony. ‘It is not as speedy or as simple a process to interpret a statute out of existence as to repeal it, but with time and patient skill it can often be done.’ ” Lon L. Fuller, Anatomy of the Law 38 (1968) (quoting John Chipman Gray, The Nature and Sources of Law 192 (1921)).
“There is no doctrine of desuetude in English law, so a statute never ceases to be in force merely because it is obsolete. Normally there must be an express repeal, but the whole or part of an enactment may be impliedly repealed by a later statute.” Rupert Cross, Statutory Interpretation 3 (1976).
