Are retrospective laws just? (1 Viewer)

[loquasagacious]

Sorry Moonlight, no article.

My question is this as an idea and legal tool are retrospective laws just, are they even moral? A person could do something aware that it is not a crime, however after their doing so it may be declared a crime and them by extension a criminal. To me this opens a very worrying door, it is one thing for ignorance (of an existing law) to be no excuse and another thing entirely to breach a law of which you can by definition have no knowledge at all.

 

[Xayma]

I don't believe they are.

While in some cases actions shouldn't be taken by individuals I don't believe they should be punished.

To use a, rather extreme example, if oral sex was outlawed it is a bit unjust to go and prosecute all those who practiced in it (same for all social laws).

 

[neo o]

I believe that they aren't. Take the Sexual Privacy Act for example, it retrospectively legalised the crimes of thousands of homosexuals.

 

[katie_tully]

Is this in relation to the new terrorist laws? If you committed an act of terrorism, or were linked to a terrorist organisation before the new laws, you cannot be tried or prosecutued as a terrorist.

Because the law didn't exist, doesn't mean that the person didnt know what they were doing was wrong and could affect others.

 

[loquasagacious]

The only vague link to terror is that the bali bombers were tried under retrospective laws.

The problem I think is that whilst they undoubtedly allow for the effective pardoning of those who have committed something that is not a 'crime' in the accepted sense of the majority they also allow people who innocently did something in the past to be persecuted.

I think they are very much a double-edged sword having the potential to foster both justice and i justice.

 

[azzie]

morals are things dictated to a person, via (sometimes, usually) conscience about what is the right and wrong thing to do
ethics are the practices that a group treats, though their founding morals, as convention in regards to a profession or group (eg pharmacists/doctors/occasioally lawyers etc)
laws are a group of ethics which are held by legal system/society to be the best laws in forseeable circumstances for the good of the whole community. though the "good of a community" is debatable term.