The phrase "act could not apply" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used in legal or formal contexts to indicate that a specific act or law is not relevant or applicable to a particular situation.
Example: "In this case, the provisions of the act could not apply due to the unique circumstances surrounding the incident."
Alternatives: "the act is not applicable" or "the act does not pertain".
Opponents of the ban, however, argued that the Parliament Act could not apply because the terms of the ban had been modified during the debate.
Apr. 30, 2004).According to the District Court, the Lanham Act could not apply because"[n]o genuine issues of material fact" existed with respect to the issue of"commercial use": Bosley Medical Institute, Inc. ("Bosley") had no evidence that Michael Kremer's ("Kremer") use of Bosley's marks in the bosleymedical.com" and "bosleymedicalviolations.com" websites was related to any business purpose.
If a judgment had already been made in a case, the Act could not apply to it, meaning the Act actually had no effect on the Cartledge case itself.
Garzón took up the complaints, saying that under international law Spain's 1977 amnesty law for "political acts" could not apply to crimes against humanity, before an appeals panel ruled 10 to five that Garzón did not properly have jurisdiction.
Opponents of the Affordable Care Act insisted that such a setup could not apply to exchanges set up by the federal government in states which did not create their own healthcare exchange – and that mass uncertainty might follow.
The row might have subsided, but Carnell, incensed that Bullying Online could not apply for a share of ABA's funding because, having refused to sign the code, it was not a member, used the new Freedom of Information act to dig out correspondence from the DfES relating to the dispute (the alliance itself is not covered by the act).
An immigration spokesman stressed the act could not be applied retrospectively.
In 1997, it ruled that the religious freedom act could not be applied constitutionally to the states.
To the government's argument that judges should not devise exceptions, Chief Justice Roberts said that the statute "plainly contemplates that courts would recognize exceptions -- that is how the law works". In a 1998 decision, the court ruled on the grounds of states' rights that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act could not be applied to the states.
