Exhumation Licence

Section 25 of the Burial Act 1857 creates the underlying criminal offence: it is an offence for a body or any human remains which have been interred in a place of burial to be removed unless one of the conditions listed in subsection (2) is complied with. For land that is not subject to the jurisdiction of a consistory court (i.e. not consecrated Church of England ground), the relevant condition is that the body or remains is or are removed under a licence from the Secretary of State and in accordance with any conditions attached to the licence — issued in practice by the Ministry of Justice's coroners and burials team.

Breach of section 25 is a summary offence: a person who removes a body or remains in contravention of subsections (1) and (2) is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 1 on the standard scale. The Ministry of Justice also issues a related but separate licence for the excavation of human remains for archaeological purposes, covering both removal and in-situ examination of remains at a dig site.

Because the 1857 Act only recognises a small set of lawful removal routes, an applicant's choice of licence depends on where the remains lie: consecrated Church of England ground requires an ecclesiastical faculty from the consistory court, while unconsecrated ground (municipal cemeteries, non-conformist burial grounds, private land) requires the Secretary of State's licence.