Thou shalt not question the wisdom of Stephen Fry

[venta]

A while ago, I saw someone on my friends list posting something which basically said "here's what I think about this issue, and I'm a little confused by it, what are your thoughts

Comments

[emarkienna]

I agree that apologising for one's ancestors and so on doesn't make sense. I suppose one could argue that apologising on behalf of the British Government is comparable to other occasions where an organisation has done something (e.g., we still generally consider companies to be responsible for past deeds, even if the people that form the company have changed over the years).

I think it's fair to criticise bad laws and other actions of the past. True, we can't criticise the police back then for just doing their jobs, but the Government was the one that makes the rules.

But yes, I see the point that there's nothing special about Turing here - one could just as much argue that everyone convicted under homosexuality laws should be pardoned, or indeed for any law that's overturned. (Although then again, perhaps raising publicity over Turing's case helps raise awareness for all such cases.)

But this now makes me wonder - whilst posthumous pardons are pretty much just symbolic, what happens if a law is repealed, and someone is still in prison at the time? I suppose there's some argument that they should have obeyed the law whilst the law existed - on the other hand, if it's agreed that a law was wrong, it seems wrong to me to continue to keep those people in prison (also consider an extreme case where one Government manages to pass some draconian law and locks up a load of people for life - should they not be released even when a future Government changes the law?)

But yes, in summary I share confusion over this issue (I signed it anyway, as I agree with the general spirit of raising awareness over the issues, but I won't lose any sleep if Gordon Brown doesn't give the apology).

[venta]

what happens if a law is repealed, and someone is still in prison at the time

Interesting question; I have no idea.

I speculate wildly that it doesn't often happen. A criminal act rarely suddenly ceases to be a criminal act - on the whole there will have been years previously where people were being uneasy about it, and prosecutions carried lighter sentences, then no sentences, then didn't really happen.

I don't know whether this actually happened in the case of legalising homosexuality; must look it up later.