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Whilst my gut reaction would be that this is the wrong decision, this - "However, the law at the time required a prosecution and, as such, long-standing policy

Whilst my gut reaction would be that this is the wrong decision, this - "However, the law at the time required a prosecution and, as such, long-standing policy has been to accept that such convictions took place and, rather than trying to alter the historical context and to put right what cannot be put right, ensure instead that we never again return to those times." - is actually a rational and convincing response.

kleiba 15y ago
During the Nazi regime in Germany, lots of people were sentenced to death under a jurisdiction that today is considered inhumane and criminal (and was by other nations at the time, too). I'm not convinced by the whole "...but it was the law at that time!" rationale. (That said, and before anyone unfairly cites Godwin's law, I'm of course not saying that the current British government compares in any way to the Nazi dictatorship.)
- protothomas 15y ago
  I think the point that the government is making here is not "...but it was the law at that time!" but rather "we will let our mistakes of the past stand, and rather than hide from them we will learn from them". There is perhaps the danger that by 'fixing' the past you can then forget about it.
  - bad_user 15y ago
    I think they just refuse to admit a mistake by placing the blame on the historical context.
    - protothomas 15y ago
      They have already issued a full apology (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/gordon-brown/6170112/Gordon-Brown-Im-proud-to-say-sorry-to-a-real-war-hero.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/gordon-brown/617011...) which contains the following - "While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time, and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair, and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted, as he was convicted, under homophobic laws, were treated terribly."
      - burgerbrain 15y ago
        I must say that the leading "While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time" qualification leaves a particularly unpleasant taste in my mouth. I am forced to agree with bad_user in this case.
        tikhonj 15y ago
        I think that qualification is actually important: it was the law that was unjust, not just society. A government apology should acknowledge that it was the government that caused the problem there, not some random vigilantes. The full problem was not just that he was treated horribly, but that his treatment was not only legal but also actively enforced by the law.
        burgerbrain 15y ago
        While I concede it is possible that was the intent of that line, I think there could have certainly been a better way of conveying that rather point. Particularly, they could have plainly stated "the law itself was unjust", and dropped that weird "While...".
  - electromagnetic 15y ago
    Agreed. There's been many atrocious things done in the past by almost every country, and it would be very simple to whitewash everything out of existence with pardons, however it doesn't change what happened or what resulted from it. It's better to stand by your mistakes than to pretend they never happened.
    - GiraffeNecktie 15y ago
      It would not be, in any sense, a "whitewash", actually the reverse. A whitewash covers up mistakes. This would be an acknowledgement that the laws of the time were injust.
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
      - robertskmiles 15y ago
        We have had an unequivocal apology, made on national television by the Prime Minister himself, saying that the conviction was "horrifying" and "utterly unfair". I think that counts as "an acknowledgement that the laws of the time were injust". A pardon is a separate and distinct legal action, which is unwarranted.
        GiraffeNecktie 15y ago
        Sure. But warranted or unwarranted, it's anything but a whitewash.
        electromagnetic 15y ago
        It is a whitewash. The treatment of the homosexual community at that time was horrendous. Pardoning his act because it's non-objectional today is stupid. Why not pardon all the Jews of the pogroms for having the wrong ethnicity. It's whitewashing because the act of doing it is more offensive than simply leaving it as is. Pardoning Turing would be pardoning him for being gay and makes no correction for the horrendous treatment he received, which was the point of the apology. An apology is what Turing deserved. A pardon is an insult to his memory.
- gcb 15y ago
  that's the advantage of winning the war. anyway, the whole concept of law today is based on that idea. law exists at a place, at a time. There are lots of cases that end up like that. "it was NOT a crime then, so even if it is a crime today, we can't do anything". and on the other way around, by Ex post facto it would be pretty possible to aggravate some other charge based on old laws that applied at the time that today are considered crazy for some reason. It cannot be brought to prosecute gays today just because most countries limit ex post facto for 'rights' acquired later. but for anything else, it's fair game. crazy.
- Evgeny 15y ago
  During the Nazi regime in Germany, lots of people were sentenced to death under a jurisdiction that today is considered inhumane and criminal (and was by other nations at the time, too). Same applies to many of those who have been prosecuted under Stalin's rule. Still, there was a process called "political rehabilitation", for lack of better term, which essentially means that their sentences were declared void and their rights were restored. For hundreds of thousands, of course, posthumously. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_(Soviet)#In_the_Soviet_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_(Soviet)#In_the_...
- batista 15y ago
  I'm of course not saying that the current British government compares in any way to the Nazi dictatorship. Well, Godwin's law be damned, it compares in at least several ways. The Nazi dictatorship was just one of many unjust regimes in the past. No reason why we cannot compare it to others, past or present. They did kill millions of jews, communists, gypsies and gays in concentration camps, but lots of other regimes have killed millions of people too. Now, as to how the British government compares to the Nazi dictatorship. Well, they have even worse mass surveillance program (CCTV) that the Nazi's had. And the British had invaded and enslaved more countries during their colonial era than Germany ever did. And they are responsible for lots of subsequent wars in their old colonies, since they used "divide and conquer" tactics (establishing artificial buffer states, playing parts of the population against the other, et al) to ensure continued dependance and instability after de-colonizing them (from India-Pakistan, to Israel-Palestine, to Ethiopia-Eritrea, to Cyprus-Turkey, the list goes on).
- nirvana 15y ago
  People misunderstand godwin's law. Godwin was right that the nazis would eventually come up- as they did. But the people who say that "anyone who brings up the nazis is wrong" are people pushing a revisionist view of history that denies the holocaust-- because they assert that nazi germany was an aberration, that somehow, magically, has nothing to do with the rest of the world or history, and thus any reference to it is tantamount to simply calling someone a nazi. As you showed in your post, it is quite possible to make a comparison to Nazi Germany without engaging in name calling, or being irrational. Thus, Godwins actual law does apply -- you made the reference, and thus Godwin is satisfied (since the likelihood approaches one.) But the fake "Godwin's law" that people cite is also disproven-- your reference is accurate and astute.
toyg 15y ago
The gist of the issue is that a pardon would have opened the legal gates to compensation claims from other victims. Turing was used as a wedge here.
- arethuza 15y ago
  Although I'm not generally a fan of our "compensation culture" I think this may be a case where people deserve some compensation - if there are people out there who, before 1967, had their lives ruined by the imposition of a fundamentally stupid and oppressive law then maybe we do owe them all an apology and some hard cash. Might be a deterrent to imposing new oppressive laws, although I seriously doubt it.
  - copper 15y ago
    > maybe we do owe them all an apology and some hard cash. I would think this is a terrible idea. For example, my government might actually take it into its head to ask (yet again) that we get the Kohinoor diamond back :)
    - batista 15y ago
      And why should not a stolen diamond be returned by the colonial thieves that took it? (btw, I'm not an Indian)
      - copper 15y ago
        Um, no argument either way - I just believe a lump of crystalline carbon can collect dust equally well in one museum as another. More seriously, given that pretty much all of history is rife with examples of transfer of wealth from one place to another. it's better to (try to) not make the same mistake again, rather than fixing the past.
RyanMcGreal 15y ago
What justice requires is that unjust, unfair and inhumane laws and punishments be struck down and that the people who suffered them unjustly be exonerated and pardoned - even if it comes long after the fact. To announce today that Turing was unjustly convicted under a ridiculous law and that he will be posthumously pardoned is not to alter the historical context but to assert that the law is a living thing and that our conception of justice evolves over time. Edit - it sounds like the Protection of Freedoms bill does just this. http://blog.jgc.org/2011/11/why-im-not-supporting-campaign-for.html http://blog.jgc.org/2011/11/why-im-not-supporting-campaign-f...
- bad_user 15y ago
  That would be like admitting a clear mistake, whereas this reaction is pretty far from such admission, having as excuse the "historical context".
  - teamonkey 15y ago
    Not so: Gordon Brown's letter admits and apologises for the mistake that was made.
- mattmanser 15y ago
  There is an important philosophy of law, the name of which annoyingly escapes me, that basically says if you enact a law it should not be allowed to apply to actions before it was passed. The reason why you avoid it is because you criminalize actions that when were taking place the person had no reasonable expectation that it was illegal, you are essentially changing the rules of the game after it has been played. As much as we want to change the past, we never can. So it's dangerous to consider changing an illegal act in the past into a legal one as you open the doors to the idea that you can change a legal act in the past into an illegal one. Today's 'justice' being used to convict yesterdays normality.
  - Symmetry 15y ago
    I think the phrase you're looking for is ex post facto.
kamjam 15y ago
Then why did the British government apologise for their part in the slave trade? It was not illegal or immoral (from the Brits point of view anyway) at that time...
batista 15y ago
Actually it's a political response. Nothing to do with justice. Justice is supposed to be ABOVE the law, and especially above an abolished law. The main problem that they wanted to prevent is a backslash of complaints, arguments, lawsuits and demands for similar apologies from people that the government had done wrong in the past according to other, similar or not, abolished laws. Remember, this is the UK, an ex colonial power that has royally (pun intended) f*d whole countries and peoples up in the past century.
chairface 15y ago
I dispute that the law "requires" prosecution.

kleiba 15y ago

During the Nazi regime in Germany, lots of people were sentenced to death under a jurisdiction that today is considered inhumane and criminal (and was by other nations at the time, too). I'm not convinced by the whole "...but it was the law at that time!" rationale. (That said, and before anyone unfairly cites Godwin's law, I'm of course not saying that the current British government compares in any way to the Nazi dictatorship.)

protothomas 15y ago
I think the point that the government is making here is not "...but it was the law at that time!" but rather "we will let our mistakes of the past stand, and rather than hide from them we will learn from them". There is perhaps the danger that by 'fixing' the past you can then forget about it.
- bad_user 15y ago
  I think they just refuse to admit a mistake by placing the blame on the historical context.
  - protothomas 15y ago
    They have already issued a full apology (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/gordon-brown/6170112/Gordon-Brown-Im-proud-to-say-sorry-to-a-real-war-hero.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/gordon-brown/617011...) which contains the following - "While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time, and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair, and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted, as he was convicted, under homophobic laws, were treated terribly."
    - burgerbrain 15y ago
      I must say that the leading "While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time" qualification leaves a particularly unpleasant taste in my mouth. I am forced to agree with bad_user in this case.
      - tikhonj 15y ago
        I think that qualification is actually important: it was the law that was unjust, not just society. A government apology should acknowledge that it was the government that caused the problem there, not some random vigilantes. The full problem was not just that he was treated horribly, but that his treatment was not only legal but also actively enforced by the law.
        burgerbrain 15y ago
        While I concede it is possible that was the intent of that line, I think there could have certainly been a better way of conveying that rather point. Particularly, they could have plainly stated "the law itself was unjust", and dropped that weird "While...".
- electromagnetic 15y ago
  Agreed. There's been many atrocious things done in the past by almost every country, and it would be very simple to whitewash everything out of existence with pardons, however it doesn't change what happened or what resulted from it. It's better to stand by your mistakes than to pretend they never happened.
  - GiraffeNecktie 15y ago
    It would not be, in any sense, a "whitewash", actually the reverse. A whitewash covers up mistakes. This would be an acknowledgement that the laws of the time were injust.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - robertskmiles 15y ago
      We have had an unequivocal apology, made on national television by the Prime Minister himself, saying that the conviction was "horrifying" and "utterly unfair". I think that counts as "an acknowledgement that the laws of the time were injust". A pardon is a separate and distinct legal action, which is unwarranted.
      - GiraffeNecktie 15y ago
        Sure. But warranted or unwarranted, it's anything but a whitewash.
        electromagnetic 15y ago
        It is a whitewash. The treatment of the homosexual community at that time was horrendous. Pardoning his act because it's non-objectional today is stupid. Why not pardon all the Jews of the pogroms for having the wrong ethnicity. It's whitewashing because the act of doing it is more offensive than simply leaving it as is. Pardoning Turing would be pardoning him for being gay and makes no correction for the horrendous treatment he received, which was the point of the apology. An apology is what Turing deserved. A pardon is an insult to his memory.
gcb 15y ago
that's the advantage of winning the war. anyway, the whole concept of law today is based on that idea. law exists at a place, at a time. There are lots of cases that end up like that. "it was NOT a crime then, so even if it is a crime today, we can't do anything". and on the other way around, by Ex post facto it would be pretty possible to aggravate some other charge based on old laws that applied at the time that today are considered crazy for some reason. It cannot be brought to prosecute gays today just because most countries limit ex post facto for 'rights' acquired later. but for anything else, it's fair game. crazy.
Evgeny 15y ago
During the Nazi regime in Germany, lots of people were sentenced to death under a jurisdiction that today is considered inhumane and criminal (and was by other nations at the time, too). Same applies to many of those who have been prosecuted under Stalin's rule. Still, there was a process called "political rehabilitation", for lack of better term, which essentially means that their sentences were declared void and their rights were restored. For hundreds of thousands, of course, posthumously. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_(Soviet)#In_the_Soviet_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_(Soviet)#In_the_...
batista 15y ago
I'm of course not saying that the current British government compares in any way to the Nazi dictatorship. Well, Godwin's law be damned, it compares in at least several ways. The Nazi dictatorship was just one of many unjust regimes in the past. No reason why we cannot compare it to others, past or present. They did kill millions of jews, communists, gypsies and gays in concentration camps, but lots of other regimes have killed millions of people too. Now, as to how the British government compares to the Nazi dictatorship. Well, they have even worse mass surveillance program (CCTV) that the Nazi's had. And the British had invaded and enslaved more countries during their colonial era than Germany ever did. And they are responsible for lots of subsequent wars in their old colonies, since they used "divide and conquer" tactics (establishing artificial buffer states, playing parts of the population against the other, et al) to ensure continued dependance and instability after de-colonizing them (from India-Pakistan, to Israel-Palestine, to Ethiopia-Eritrea, to Cyprus-Turkey, the list goes on).
nirvana 15y ago
People misunderstand godwin's law. Godwin was right that the nazis would eventually come up- as they did. But the people who say that "anyone who brings up the nazis is wrong" are people pushing a revisionist view of history that denies the holocaust-- because they assert that nazi germany was an aberration, that somehow, magically, has nothing to do with the rest of the world or history, and thus any reference to it is tantamount to simply calling someone a nazi. As you showed in your post, it is quite possible to make a comparison to Nazi Germany without engaging in name calling, or being irrational. Thus, Godwins actual law does apply -- you made the reference, and thus Godwin is satisfied (since the likelihood approaches one.) But the fake "Godwin's law" that people cite is also disproven-- your reference is accurate and astute.

toyg 15y ago

The gist of the issue is that a pardon would have opened the legal gates to compensation claims from other victims. Turing was used as a wedge here.

arethuza 15y ago
Although I'm not generally a fan of our "compensation culture" I think this may be a case where people deserve some compensation - if there are people out there who, before 1967, had their lives ruined by the imposition of a fundamentally stupid and oppressive law then maybe we do owe them all an apology and some hard cash. Might be a deterrent to imposing new oppressive laws, although I seriously doubt it.
- copper 15y ago
  > maybe we do owe them all an apology and some hard cash. I would think this is a terrible idea. For example, my government might actually take it into its head to ask (yet again) that we get the Kohinoor diamond back :)
  - batista 15y ago
    And why should not a stolen diamond be returned by the colonial thieves that took it? (btw, I'm not an Indian)
    - copper 15y ago
      Um, no argument either way - I just believe a lump of crystalline carbon can collect dust equally well in one museum as another. More seriously, given that pretty much all of history is rife with examples of transfer of wealth from one place to another. it's better to (try to) not make the same mistake again, rather than fixing the past.

RyanMcGreal 15y ago

What justice requires is that unjust, unfair and inhumane laws and punishments be struck down and that the people who suffered them unjustly be exonerated and pardoned - even if it comes long after the fact. To announce today that Turing was unjustly convicted under a ridiculous law and that he will be posthumously pardoned is not to alter the historical context but to assert that the law is a living thing and that our conception of justice evolves over time. Edit - it sounds like the Protection of Freedoms bill does just this. http://blog.jgc.org/2011/11/why-im-not-supporting-campaign-for.html http://blog.jgc.org/2011/11/why-im-not-supporting-campaign-f...

bad_user 15y ago
That would be like admitting a clear mistake, whereas this reaction is pretty far from such admission, having as excuse the "historical context".
- teamonkey 15y ago
  Not so: Gordon Brown's letter admits and apologises for the mistake that was made.
mattmanser 15y ago
There is an important philosophy of law, the name of which annoyingly escapes me, that basically says if you enact a law it should not be allowed to apply to actions before it was passed. The reason why you avoid it is because you criminalize actions that when were taking place the person had no reasonable expectation that it was illegal, you are essentially changing the rules of the game after it has been played. As much as we want to change the past, we never can. So it's dangerous to consider changing an illegal act in the past into a legal one as you open the doors to the idea that you can change a legal act in the past into an illegal one. Today's 'justice' being used to convict yesterdays normality.
- Symmetry 15y ago
  I think the phrase you're looking for is ex post facto.

kamjam 15y ago

Then why did the British government apologise for their part in the slave trade? It was not illegal or immoral (from the Brits point of view anyway) at that time...

batista 15y ago

Actually it's a political response. Nothing to do with justice. Justice is supposed to be ABOVE the law, and especially above an abolished law. The main problem that they wanted to prevent is a backslash of complaints, arguments, lawsuits and demands for similar apologies from people that the government had done wrong in the past according to other, similar or not, abolished laws. Remember, this is the UK, an ex colonial power that has royally (pun intended) f*d whole countries and peoples up in the past century.

chairface 15y ago

I dispute that the law "requires" prosecution.