In criminal law, however, ex post sanctions are effectively prohibited by Article 112-1 of the French Penal Code, except in cases where retroactive application benefits the accused (called retroactivity in Mitius). [21] They are also considered unconstitutional, as the principle of non-retroactivity is enshrined in Article 8 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which has constitutional force under French law. [22] The legal purge trials, which took place after the liberation of the France in 1944, introduced the status of national indignity for Nazi collaborators in order to circumvent the retroactive law. Article 25 of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man provides, in part, that “no one shall be deprived of liberty except in the cases and in accordance with the procedures established by law already in force.” The right to be tried under “pre-existing law” is reaffirmed in article 26. The same article in Section XL subsequently prohibits criminal laws. As in France, there is an exception where retroactive criminal laws benefit the accused. According to Article 103 of the Basic Law, an act can only be punished if it was already punishable at the time it was committed (in particular: according to statutory law, Germany in civil law). In general, the Finnish legal system does not allow for retroactive laws, especially those that would extend criminal liability. They are not expressly prohibited; Instead, the prohibition stems from more general legal principles and fundamental rights. In civil matters, such as taxation, retroactive laws can be passed in certain circumstances. In Lithuania, there is no constitutional prohibition of laws a posteriori. Retroactive criminal sanctions are prohibited by Article 2, Part 1 (Chapter 1) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania.
Retroactive administrative penalties are prohibited by Article 8 of the Administrative Code of the Republic of Lithuania. Another example is the ban on perpetrators of domestic violence, where firearms bans have been imposed on persons convicted of offences or domestic violence and persons subject to injunctions (which do not require a criminal conviction). These individuals can now be sentenced to up to ten years in federal prison for possession of a firearm, regardless of whether the weapon was legally possessed at the time the law was passed. [45] The law was legally upheld because it is considered regulatory rather than punitive; It is a status offence. [46] A law that declares illegal an act that was lawful at the time of the commission increases the penalties for an offence after it has been committed or modifies the rules of evidence to facilitate conviction. The Constitution prohibits the subsequent enactment of laws. (See ex post facto (see also ex post facto).) Some of the Nazis convicted at the Nuremberg trials argued (unsuccessfully) that the international laws they broke were ex post-facto laws. Article 39 of the Japanese Constitution prohibits the retroactive application of laws. Article 6 of the Japanese Penal Code further stipulates that if a new law comes into force after the act has been committed, the lightest penalty shall be imposed.
No one may be convicted of a criminal offence if he does not contravene a law in force at the time when the offence charged as a criminal offence was committed and may not be liable to a penalty greater than that imposed under the law in force at the time the offence was committed. Australia participated in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and was one of the first signatories in 1948. [4] [5] The declaration prohibits retroactively convicting a person of an offence that was not a criminal offence at the time it was committed. [6] The Australian Human Rights Commission states that the declaration is an “expression of fundamental values shared by all members of the international community” but does not create “direct legal obligations for countries.” [7] Nevertheless, the Commission also acknowledges that some argue that the Declaration has become a binding part of customary international law. [8] The idea of being punished for doing something that was done illegally after doing it sounds pretty stupid (and scary). The founders of the United States apparently thought the same thing when they drafted the Constitution, which explicitly prohibits the retroactive enactment of criminal laws by the federal government (Article 1, section 9) or by the state government (Article 1, section 10). The sense that retrospective laws violate natural law is so strong in the United States that few, if any, state constitutions have not prohibited them. The Federal Constitution prohibits them only in criminal matters; But they are just as unfair in civil cases as they are in criminal cases, and omitting a warning that would have been right does not justify doing the wrong thing. Nor can it be presumed that Parliament intended to use an expression in an unjustifiable sense if it can ever be constrained to what is right by rules of interpretation. In accordance with Article 5, Section XXXVI of the Brazilian Constitution, laws may not have retroactive effects affecting acquired rights, completed legal acts and legal force. Prediction: The Supreme Court will conclude that a wealth tax is essentially a retroactive income tax and therefore a retrospectively impermissible law. At least one Liberal judge will support this decision.
Article 1 of the Criminal Code stipulates that no act is punishable without a pre-existing law and that in the event that an act was punishable but the law was amended after the offence, the “more favourable” law (for the suspect) of both laws applies. [30] The legality of ex post facto laws varies from country to country, but they are generally considered undesirable because of their apparent injustice. In the United States, ex post facto laws are explicitly prohibited by the Constitution, and several other countries also prohibit them.