Britain's silliest law bans person from dying in Parliament!

Melbourne, Aug 3 : A bizarre law in UK that bans a person from dying in the Houses of Parliament, has been voted as Britain's most ridiculous law.

This law which topped the poll, carried out by television channel UKTV Gold, left behind other weird laws like the law making it an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the monarch's head upside down on an envelope.

Standing third in the poll was a bye-law in Liverpool where women were apparently banned from going topless in public unless they worked in a tropical fish store. But this law has been called an urban myth.

"It's something that has been heard of before and does crop up from time to time, but it is absurd," The Daily Telegraph quoted a spokesman for Liverpool City Council, as saying.

However, people are really banned from dying in parliament on the grounds that it is a Royal palace.

"Anyone who dies there is technically entitled to a state funeral. If they see you looking a bit sick they carry you out quickly," said Nigel Cawthorne, author of The Strange Laws of Old England.

At number seven, is the Royal Prerogative of 1324 which decrees that any whale or sturgeon found on the British coast belongs to the monarch.

Also on the list is Oliver Cromwell's decree from around 1644 to combat gluttony by banning people from eating mince pies on Christmas Day and the old London bye-law allowing pregnant woman to relieve themselves in a policeman's helmet.

The poll also asked people to comment on some of the more absurd international laws, and topping the list was a bye-law in Ohio banning residents from getting a fish drunk.

ANI