Comment by cortic
5 hours ago
Its five years with no limitations, so when you are due to be released; Whats your password? Another five years... Its such a poorly worded law you could literally spend your life in prison for forgetting your password. And Its mostly used against peaceful protesters.
>Its five years with no limitations, so when you are due to be released
Doesn't double jeopardy prevent this? Has this actually happened?
It does and of course it's different happened. My pet peeve has to be the "it's a poorly worded law" argument about things that have obviously been considered by legal experts. The scares like "the psychoactive substances act will technically make coffee illegal" I've seen on HN are particularly egregious.
Laws that are so poorly worded that they could be easily misused are bad laws.
Legislators should force future would-be tyrants to flagrantly violate the law, as this is more likely to generate popular resistance.
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Dismissing the concerns about poorly worded laws on the basis that they have been considered by legal experts is laughable when it's often legal experts, and in the case of the Psychoactive Substances Act, the government's own advisors that are the ones raising concerns with the broad applicability and unenforceable nature of these controversial laws. The Psychoactive Substances Act has an explicit exemption stating food is not covered by the law for crying out loud, and the exemption for healthcare providers to act within the course of their profession was only added as an amendment, it wasn't even considered in the original drafting of the bill.
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