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.
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.
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.)
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...
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.
That's extremely interesting. Turing is dead and can't accept an apology, so an apology is completely useless. But a pardon actually clears his name. Given the reasoning "The conviction was correct", it makes the apology hollow even if he was still alive.
At this point in history, an apology and pardon would slightly clear the name of the Crown from a legacy as a bigoted hateful illegitimate government that tramples on rights and whose amoral so-called "laws" tortured a good man until he gave in to suicide.
By refusing to do so, the Crown can not harm Turing whose legacy is assured by history. They only harm themselves, and quite frankly, it is their choice to do so.
It is Turing whose pardon they must secure. Not vice versa. As he is deceased, that opportunity is past and their crimes remain both unforgiven and unforgivable.
"an apology and pardon would slightly clear the name of the Crown."
I think is is the same reason that they declined to issue the pardon. The ministers didn't feel it was appropriate to try and retroactively whitewash the actions of the crown and that it should continue to bear a stain for those actions.
The question is whether there is any consistent way in which to deal with the "mistakes" of past governments. One thing is for sure, if you pardon Alan Turing, you must pardon everyone who committed that "crime" and other "crimes" that are now human rights. Being a great scientist cannot be what buys you the right to be gay.
What about all the other absurd laws of the past, many of which still shape the present? Large parts of UK land are still owned by the aristocracy. Can her Majesty's government even pretend to right past wrongs when the monarchy itself is a symbol of unspeakable crimes against humanity?
It is interesting to note how the main point behind the resolution not to pardon Turing is exactly the same point that, in other legislations, is used to pardon people sentenced under no-longer-actual laws.
Italian case (also present in many other civil law jurisdictions): you are sentenced in 2012 for sharing a music file. You are fined and jailed because so says the law in 2012. 2020, an act is passed that says that sharing a music file is no longer felony. fifteen days after the day that act has been enacted you can go to a court and say "ehi, I was just ahead of the time, clean my criminal records" and you will instantly get your records cleaned with a "il fatto non è previsto dalla legge come reato" sentence ("because that actions is no longer seen as a criminal offence under the current law"). In some rare cases you can also get money back from the state.
In the recent times this principle has been used to provide blanket pardon for things that once were felonies such as having or providing an abort, divorcing (abroad), opposing to draft, hiding jews from the police... You know, these things that change over time.
To a U.S. observer, the U.K. (or maybe just the monarchy?) has a very peculiar notion of what "pardoning" (even ceremonially) means, or is meant to accomplish.
In the U.S., many (Presidential) pardons are used for crimes that everyone agrees were indeed committed, and even crimes for which we fully intend to continue prosecuting other people in the future!
Doesn't it feel so unfair that people do something at a time because they don't think it's morally wrong, but it is illegal, so they get persecuted or arrested for years and suffer for it, but later society decides that what he and others did wasn't actually illegal?
In a way, they are the heroes or martyrs that that were indeed ahead of time and led to the society's change of heart regarding a certain law. Who knows how many laws we still have that 20-30 years were from now we'll just consider as stupid, irrational laws that shouldn't have existed.
One reason is that there are other people, not just Alan Turing, who were convicted under this law, and are still living. They had a criminal record. However a new Act essentially deletes the criminal conviction for that part, so those people no longer have a criminal record.
A deeper problem with pardoning a man who's been dead for almost 60 years is that it's a wholly empty gesture. It lets various campaigners grandstandingly "champion" a cause that everyone is behind, without getting their fingers dirty in actual politics. There are plenty of issues to get into if you want to champion gay rights - unfortunately, most of them requires you to take a position that will have people on the other side of it. Ick.
It's the same deal with being anti-nazi. Yeah, big deal, >99% of the worlds population has been with you for 70 years.
It makes me wonder who they'll be pardoning in 50 years time from now. Assange, Manning, David Kelly, McKinnon etc.
There's no excuse to get it wrong in the first place and I'm sure for the people concerned, a pardon is probably virtually irrelevant by the time they have issued it. Either the people are dead or their life is wrecked.
While I think that Turing's prosecution was absurd and inhumane, I'm not sure it's an easy step to conclude that he should be retroactively pardoned now that the relevant laws have changed.
To do so would be to accept that there is no definitive law at any present moment, and run the risk that individuals could be convicted in the future for activities which were perfectly legal at the time. This could have dire implications for both justice and personal liberty.
Your conclusion does not hold: making something retroactively legal is vastly different than making something retroactively illegal. The first happens all the time and is the entire point of a full pardon. In the US the latter is unconstitutional and the former explicitly constitutional.
Besides which, your approach assumes the law that allows for chemical castration because he was gay was a legitimate application of state power. I maintain that it was not.
On a loosely similar note, many (some?) countries can prosecute their citizens if they break law outside of the country, despite "it" being legal there. So in theory, you can be put to jail for possessing marijuana when visiting Netherlands. The "in theory" is important as there is no one that could report it back to your home country. I believe this exists to prevent from import of polygamy and such, but it's still interesting.
I personally don't like all these campaigns which must take up an inordinate amount of time, energy, effort and money to try and somehow right the wrongs of past governments.
I really don't get why a country 'apologises' for past actions - I don't feel any tie whatsoever to the government / laws of the time / my fellow countrymen of years gone by and why me apologising would make any difference
Let people be responsible for their own actions and decisions.
Alan Turing is one of my hero's. His conviction was from an earlier, less enlightened time and is a prime example of political expediency over common sense.
The headline is slightly sensationalist because as the article points out, he was given a full, unreserved apology by the British Government in 2009.
While they may have called it 'unreserved', the apology remained reserved in an important part: there was no pardon. 'Disregarding of convictions' is not the same thing as a pardon, it is what it says it is: it is, simply, 'we will no longer take these convictions into account' (and a db admin gets to run a very rare delete command).
A pardon would be recognition that the conviction was in itself wrong, even at the time (the paragraph of law that made sex between men was snuck into a bill of 1885 which dealt with sex crimes relating to young women. It took nearly 75 years to remove).
Even if it is impractical to pardon everyone, pardoning Turing would have made a very public statement alongside the 'Disregarding of convictions'.
I believe the statement would still be worth making and I would go further to include a few others, e.g. Oscar Wilde.
Note also that the bill specifically holds a paragraph to make exactly this kind of pardon possible:
87 Saving for Royal pardons etc.
Nothing in section 86 affects any right of Her Majesty, by
virtue of Her Royal prerogative or otherwise, to grant a
free pardon, to quash any conviction or sentence, or to
commute any sentence.
Since the issue at hand involves Turing's homosexuality, there is a tendency to see it in terms of bigotry. But it is not. The real issue is one of morality. The governments persecution of Turing, and other homosexuals, is immoral, because their acts did not harm anyone, and were consensual in nature. However, the governments acts did cause harm and were non-consentual. (Turing didn't consent to be prosecuted, he didn't have a choice.)
The law is not the definer of morality. The law is subject of morality, much in the same way as US laws are subject to the constitution, which is itself also subject to morality.
Thus the persecution of Alan Turing was itself a criminal act, in the eyes of anyone who accept morality (or at least the moral premise that consensual acts among adults that do not harm anyone are moral.)
The failure to pardon him -- that is, the failure to renounce the crime the government committed in the past-- shows the government to have as little regard for morality today as it did then.
This is confirmed by the manifold laws currently in place in that government that persecute people for "crimes" that are not immoral.
For example, the criminalization of drug use.
The thing that trips people up is that they're taught to believe that government is moral. Government is a collection of people, which engages in acts some of which are moral and some of which are immoral.
Since the law in question was immoral, thus enforcing it is a moral crime, and the governments failure to renounce such enforcement via issuing a pardon (and to be honest, paying some appropriate sum to the estate of the man in compensation, with interest) shows the government to be immoral to this day.
If it were a moral government, it would act morally, and remove the conviction while paying compensation for the crime.
And it would do so for every person prosecuted under this law.
Morality changes with time. The laws have been changed to reflect. The UK government is saying that they can't pardon something that at the time was a crime and was prosecuted properly. I don't see that as immoral even if I find the past law immoral.
The are many things considered morally wrong by enough people to make them illegal. Assisted Suicide is an example. If it ever becomes legal, should everyone who was arrested and convicted under the current laws be pardoned? many people today would find that immoral.
Edit:
Some in other threads have a raised another good point, what about things that are now considered crimes? Should we retroactively prosecute these people?
Martin Luther founded the movement that led to the modern British church as we know it, so I'm not sure what you think the UK government convicted him of?
In the case that you're confusing Martin Luther, and Martin Luther King, MLK was also not convicted by the British government of anything, and as this is a British government policy, I'm a little curious as to what relevance you feel this has on the discussion at hand...
Governments are just scared to even slightly question their own actions. If some laws from 1952 were inhuman and oppressive, then what chance of some of the current laws being the same?
No way they are going to diminish their power. Never.
[+] [-] protothomas|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RyanMcGreal|14 years ago|reply
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-f...
[+] [-] kleiba|14 years ago|reply
(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.)
[+] [-] toyg|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kamjam|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chairface|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] batista|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] droithomme|14 years ago|reply
At this point in history, an apology and pardon would slightly clear the name of the Crown from a legacy as a bigoted hateful illegitimate government that tramples on rights and whose amoral so-called "laws" tortured a good man until he gave in to suicide.
By refusing to do so, the Crown can not harm Turing whose legacy is assured by history. They only harm themselves, and quite frankly, it is their choice to do so.
It is Turing whose pardon they must secure. Not vice versa. As he is deceased, that opportunity is past and their crimes remain both unforgiven and unforgivable.
[+] [-] TWAndrews|14 years ago|reply
I think is is the same reason that they declined to issue the pardon. The ministers didn't feel it was appropriate to try and retroactively whitewash the actions of the crown and that it should continue to bear a stain for those actions.
[+] [-] fauigerzigerk|14 years ago|reply
What about all the other absurd laws of the past, many of which still shape the present? Large parts of UK land are still owned by the aristocracy. Can her Majesty's government even pretend to right past wrongs when the monarchy itself is a symbol of unspeakable crimes against humanity?
[+] [-] gioele|14 years ago|reply
Italian case (also present in many other civil law jurisdictions): you are sentenced in 2012 for sharing a music file. You are fined and jailed because so says the law in 2012. 2020, an act is passed that says that sharing a music file is no longer felony. fifteen days after the day that act has been enacted you can go to a court and say "ehi, I was just ahead of the time, clean my criminal records" and you will instantly get your records cleaned with a "il fatto non è previsto dalla legge come reato" sentence ("because that actions is no longer seen as a criminal offence under the current law"). In some rare cases you can also get money back from the state.
In the recent times this principle has been used to provide blanket pardon for things that once were felonies such as having or providing an abort, divorcing (abroad), opposing to draft, hiding jews from the police... You know, these things that change over time.
[+] [-] feralchimp|14 years ago|reply
In the U.S., many (Presidential) pardons are used for crimes that everyone agrees were indeed committed, and even crimes for which we fully intend to continue prosecuting other people in the future!
[+] [-] nextparadigms|14 years ago|reply
In a way, they are the heroes or martyrs that that were indeed ahead of time and led to the society's change of heart regarding a certain law. Who knows how many laws we still have that 20-30 years were from now we'll just consider as stupid, irrational laws that shouldn't have existed.
[+] [-] mst|14 years ago|reply
Which so far as I can tell is what the disregard and deletion process that jgc describes in http://blog.jgc.org/2011/11/why-im-not-supporting-campaign-f... will achieve.
A pardon is not the same thing. Nothing to see here, move long :)
[+] [-] rmc|14 years ago|reply
One reason is that there are other people, not just Alan Turing, who were convicted under this law, and are still living. They had a criminal record. However a new Act essentially deletes the criminal conviction for that part, so those people no longer have a criminal record.
[+] [-] DanBC|14 years ago|reply
Do they make it harder for people to travel to, eg, US ("Moral Turpitude" on visa waiver)? Do they count for job applications?
Certainly many people had their lives destroyed, and lived in fear. Ignorance and bigotry isn't dead either.
[+] [-] mseebach|14 years ago|reply
It's the same deal with being anti-nazi. Yeah, big deal, >99% of the worlds population has been with you for 70 years.
[+] [-] bwarp|14 years ago|reply
There's no excuse to get it wrong in the first place and I'm sure for the people concerned, a pardon is probably virtually irrelevant by the time they have issued it. Either the people are dead or their life is wrecked.
[+] [-] itmag|14 years ago|reply
You're assuming that history is a linear ascent toward ever higher morality. What if it goes the other way?
[+] [-] mooism2|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peteretep|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arctangent|14 years ago|reply
To do so would be to accept that there is no definitive law at any present moment, and run the risk that individuals could be convicted in the future for activities which were perfectly legal at the time. This could have dire implications for both justice and personal liberty.
[+] [-] roguecoder|14 years ago|reply
Besides which, your approach assumes the law that allows for chemical castration because he was gay was a legitimate application of state power. I maintain that it was not.
[+] [-] rplnt|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ck2|14 years ago|reply
Let society carry the black eye, not the victim.
[+] [-] tomjen3|14 years ago|reply
Especially since they did pardon the soldiers who were shot for cowardice during WWI (admitably a little too late to do anything by about 90 years).
[+] [-] smiler|14 years ago|reply
I really don't get why a country 'apologises' for past actions - I don't feel any tie whatsoever to the government / laws of the time / my fellow countrymen of years gone by and why me apologising would make any difference
Let people be responsible for their own actions and decisions.
[+] [-] antonp|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SeanDav|14 years ago|reply
The headline is slightly sensationalist because as the article points out, he was given a full, unreserved apology by the British Government in 2009.
[+] [-] sambeau|14 years ago|reply
A pardon would be recognition that the conviction was in itself wrong, even at the time (the paragraph of law that made sex between men was snuck into a bill of 1885 which dealt with sex crimes relating to young women. It took nearly 75 years to remove).
Even if it is impractical to pardon everyone, pardoning Turing would have made a very public statement alongside the 'Disregarding of convictions'.
I believe the statement would still be worth making and I would go further to include a few others, e.g. Oscar Wilde.
Note also that the bill specifically holds a paragraph to make exactly this kind of pardon possible:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmbills/14...[+] [-] vixen99|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nirvana|14 years ago|reply
The law is not the definer of morality. The law is subject of morality, much in the same way as US laws are subject to the constitution, which is itself also subject to morality.
Thus the persecution of Alan Turing was itself a criminal act, in the eyes of anyone who accept morality (or at least the moral premise that consensual acts among adults that do not harm anyone are moral.)
The failure to pardon him -- that is, the failure to renounce the crime the government committed in the past-- shows the government to have as little regard for morality today as it did then.
This is confirmed by the manifold laws currently in place in that government that persecute people for "crimes" that are not immoral.
For example, the criminalization of drug use.
The thing that trips people up is that they're taught to believe that government is moral. Government is a collection of people, which engages in acts some of which are moral and some of which are immoral.
Since the law in question was immoral, thus enforcing it is a moral crime, and the governments failure to renounce such enforcement via issuing a pardon (and to be honest, paying some appropriate sum to the estate of the man in compensation, with interest) shows the government to be immoral to this day.
If it were a moral government, it would act morally, and remove the conviction while paying compensation for the crime.
And it would do so for every person prosecuted under this law.
[+] [-] nkassis|14 years ago|reply
The are many things considered morally wrong by enough people to make them illegal. Assisted Suicide is an example. If it ever becomes legal, should everyone who was arrested and convicted under the current laws be pardoned? many people today would find that immoral.
Edit: Some in other threads have a raised another good point, what about things that are now considered crimes? Should we retroactively prosecute these people?
[+] [-] shareme|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peteretep|14 years ago|reply
In the case that you're confusing Martin Luther, and Martin Luther King, MLK was also not convicted by the British government of anything, and as this is a British government policy, I'm a little curious as to what relevance you feel this has on the discussion at hand...
[+] [-] sambeau|14 years ago|reply
…but lets not get into that—the last thing HN needs is another religious debate alongside those of iOS v Android and Node.js v everything.
[+] [-] Tooluka|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mooism2|14 years ago|reply