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Sounds like you need to take this to the European Court and tell them this is a infringement of your human rights. I guarantee you that the Euro Court will find in your favour!
OK, seriously: let's say that you are working and paying your taxes as per legislation at a given date.
Then the IR changes the rules (note: it is not a re-interpretation of existing laws I am talking about, but a change in the law itself) and decides that it will be retroactively applied. If you are caught by the new rules, for a period where it was legal, surely that can be challenged?!
Sounds like you need to take this to the European Court and tell them this is a infringement of your human rights. I guarantee you that the Euro Court will find in your favour!
The only reason I don't dangle my willy in Tescos is that I could not stand the shame of knowing I would probably do it for hours and nobody would notice.
I agree totally (with R's original post) it is totally undemocratic that anyone should be penalised for following a lawful activity. One of the many things that sucks about government and the law. (Come to think of it, all of it sucks except para 18, section 1V of the Importation Of wild Birds Act 1987).
I think generally it is recognised that laws should not be retrospective. I guess more recently humans rights law would also make it difficult. The counter-examples I know of are (surprise surprise) in the area of tax.
In the mid-1980s a tax case was appealed and to the surprise of everyone (Inland Revenue, lawyers and accountants) it was held that the law actually said something different to what they all thought it did. The law was amended with a couple of years retrospection to say what everyone believed it had said in the first place. This didn't really hurt anyone, because they had already all been complying with what the law was amended to say.
Secondly (and I bet this is what is really being talked about here) towards the end of last year the government anounced that tax-avoidance schemes would from then on be shut down retrospectively. If you assume that people know what a scheme is and when they are about to use one, then you could say that they have been warned in advance, so althought the law will technically be retrospective, the retrospection doesn't really cause unfairness. The government also made it compulsory for tax-avoiders and their advisers to inform them immediately when using a scheme, and (I think) provide them with full details of it. The bean-counters main complaint about this is that it is not clear-cut to decide what a scheme is.
Sorry guys, there is one thing I just cannot understand: how can retrospective legislation be valid?
It isn't in criminal law, according to Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights (quoted reluctantly, because I don't believe the UK should have signed up to the wretched thing) and Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England.
The last example I recall of blatant retrospective criminal liability is about ten years ago when some guy raped his wife, at a time when at common law this was not considered rape. I forget the exact details, but after the case came to court (as assault?) the House of Lords ruled that this principle no longer applied and that a retrospective charge of rape was justifed. Morally perhaps slightly so, but a disgusting pervertion of legal principle all the same.
In taxation matters the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968 allows taxes to be raised before legislative authority is given (although I'm not sure where the government would stand if they failed to obtain that authority).
yes but have you dangled your willy at her(your daughter)??? if so then you are Pedophile my dear
Hmmm....wouldn't say that necessarily follows. But what the heck. I don't have a point anyway, just bored
The moral of the story is; don't dangle the old fella in the frozen foods department of Tesco
In a moment of insanity you may think its right, but have your daughter or your wife/sister standing next to you when you are doing it.. then you'll instantly know its not right
Say I firmly believe it's right. In fact, I've raised my daughter to be a nudist, because it's so natural.
Sandy, what if I feel it's perfectly acceptable to dangle my willy in the local Tesco?
In a moment of insanity you may think its right, but have your daughter or your wife/sister standing next to you when you are doing it.. then you'll instantly know its not right
What if they bring a new law that says you are not allowed to use rude words on a bulletin board. Can they then charge any of us for having been rude in the past? Surely not, as it was not illegal when we did it!
OK, as Chico is not responding to this I shall .. so excuse me :-)
<Chico mode>
The law is written in our hearts, if there have never been any law produced by any government telling us it is illegal to kill, we know and we have always knew that killing another human being is wrong. If there was never any law telling us that stealing is wrong, we know in our hearts that stealing is wrong …… most of us were created with this self monitoring tool….. so if someone committed murder before the government passed on the law against murder or stealing don’t you think they should be punished for their crimes even if there was no law at the time saying you shouldn’t kill your brother??
Now substitute the word stealing or the word killing with the word paying tax and you get the picture…
What if they bring a new law that says you are not allowed to use rude words on a bulletin board. Can they then charge any of us for having been rude in the past? Surely not, as it was not illegal when we did it!
Watch what you say. Soon our great verbless leader will make thought crime against NL punishable by death.
I am not disputing the ability of governments to implement new laws - just that retroactivity is not on!
What if they bring a new law that says you are not allowed to use rude words on a bulletin board. Can they then charge any of us for having been rude in the past? Surely not, as it was not illegal when we did it!
Retroactivity surely goes against any right we have!
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