Compounding treason is an offence under the common law

Common law

Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...

 of England. It is committed by anyone who agrees for consideration to abstain from prosecuting the offender who has committed treason

Treason

In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...

.

It is still an offence in England and Wales, and in Northern Ireland. It has been abolished in the Republic of Ireland.

In 1977 the Law Commission

Law Commission (England and Wales)

In England and Wales the Law Commission is an independent body set up by Parliament by the Law Commissions Act 1965 in 1965 to keep the law of England and Wales under review and to recommend reforms. The organisation is headed by a Chairman and four Law Commissioners...

 recommended that the offence should be abolished for England and Wales and for Northern Ireland.

See also

• Compounding a felony
  Compounding a felony
  Compounding a felony was an offence under the common law of England and was classified as a misdemeanour. It consisted of a prosecutor or victim of an offence accepting anything of value under an agreement not to prosecute, or hamper the prosecution of, a felony...
  
  
• Misprision of treason
  Misprision of treason
  Misprision of treason is an offence found in many common law jurisdictions around the world, having been inherited from English law. It is committed by someone who knows a treason is being or is about to be committed but does not report it to a proper authority...
  
  
• High treason in the United Kingdom
  High treason in the United Kingdom
  Under the law of the United Kingdom, high treason is the crime of disloyalty to the Crown. Offences constituting high treason include plotting the murder of the sovereign; having sexual intercourse with the sovereign's consort, with his eldest unmarried daughter, or with the wife of the heir to the...