Our current government seems to be getting quite keen on using retrospective legislation; that is, legislation which makes something which was legal at the time now illegal under the new legislation. Imagine, for a moment,  performing some perfectly legal act only to find yourself prosecuted at a later date due to new legislation. Not really a way to run a country I think.

From 2001, we had this example of the government announcing retrospective legislation at the height of the anthrax scare (btw, look on in horror at the old BBC website scheme of the time).

From the article we have this quote :

John Wadham, director of civil rights group Liberty, said backdating the law breached an important legal principle.

“What we need from government is careful, well-considered measures … not rushed, ill-thought measures that cut across the basic principles of democratic government and the basic rule of law.

“It’s a traditional principle of British law, and of our constitution that you don’t make retrospective law so you can punish people more severely for offences they’ve already committed.”

Or indeed punished for things that were not even offences at the time. Note the legal principle which seems to have been conveniently forgotten about.

More recently we have the UK Revenue and Customs using its shiny new powers from the Finance Act 2008 allowing tax loopholes to be closed retrospectively :

So not only does the UK tax payer have to consider current legislation it also has to consider restrospective legislation – it appears in the future we could also have to face tax penalities as a result of legislation that doesn’t actually exist. A scary thought!

What brought me to write this was an article in this mornings Telegraph which I find wrong on so many levels :

Last week the Supreme Court ruled in favour of five men who had their assets frozen under an order brought in by the government without a vote in Parliament.

…

But today the court refused by a majority to suspend its ruling for six to eight weeks, forcing the government to rush through emergency legislation.

It is understood the Treasury has had to contact banks who have agreed to retain the freeze pending legislation which will be retrospective.

…

The Government plans a new Bill which should be passed by early next week to temporarily extend the current Terrorism Orders.

…

He (George Osborne) said the Conservatives would support the Government in passing the new legislation but added: “As we speak there is no law in place to prevent terror suspects from accessing frozen assets.

So, not only do we have the Treasury contacting banks to ask them to break the law (and them agreeing), we also have the Tories being more concerned about being seen to be tough on terrorism than protecting us from yet more retrospective legislation.

I also like the “temporarily extend” part of the quote regarding terrorism orders. Everything they pass is temporary or will only be used in extreme circumstances until some little gobshite PCSO starts using the legislation to harass photographers for example.