Australia Australia has no strong constitutional prohibition on
ex post facto laws, although narrowly retrospective laws might violate the constitutional
separation of powers principle. Australian courts normally interpret statutes with a strong presumption that they do
not apply retrospectively. Retrospective laws designed to prosecute what was perceived to have been a blatantly unethical means of
tax avoidance were passed in the early 1980s by the
Fraser government (see
Bottom of the harbour tax avoidance). Similarly, legislation
criminalising certain war crimes retrospectively has been held to be constitutional (see
Polyukhovich v Commonwealth). Australia participated in drafting the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and was an original signatory in 1948. The Declaration includes a prohibition on retrospectively holding anyone guilty of a
penal offence that was not an offence at the time it was committed. The
Australian Human Rights Commission states the Declaration is an "expression of the fundamental values which are shared by all members of the international community" but "does not directly create legal obligations for countries." Australia is a party to the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The implementation of retrospective criminal laws is expressly prohibited by the Covenant. Australia is also a party to the
Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Protocol enables individuals subject to the
jurisdiction of a
state party to file
complaints with the
United Nations Human Rights Committee for that state party's non-compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Brazil According to the 5th Article, section XXXVI of the
Brazilian Constitution, laws cannot have
ex post facto effects that affect acquired rights, accomplished juridical acts and
res judicata. The same article in section XL Canadian courts have never ruled on the somewhat retroactive nature of the sex offender registry, since this seems to have never been challenged. Sex offender registration was not mandatory for sex offenders until 2011, and had to be ordered by a judge. Sex offender registration was seemingly mandatory for people convicted before December 15, 2004, who were serving a sentence on that date, but was only optional for sex offenders convicted between December 15, 2004, and January 1, 2011. Because section 11 of the Charter is among the sections that can be overridden under
section 33 (the notwithstanding clause), Parliament could in theory enact
ex post facto laws by invoking section 33. However, the federal Parliament, which has exclusive jurisdiction over criminal law, has never attempted to enact an
ex post facto law (or any other law) using section 33. The Charter prohibition applies only to criminal law. Changes to
civil law in Canada can be, and occasionally are, enacted
ex post facto. In one example, convicted murderer
Colin Thatcher was ordered to forfeit proceeds from a book he had published (after being paroled from prison) under a
Saskatchewan law. Although the law was passed long after Thatcher's murder conviction, the courts have ruled that such laws prescribe only
civil penalties (as opposed to additional criminal penalties) and are thus not subject to Charter restrictions.
Croatia Article 90 of the
Constitution of Croatia states that "only individual provisions of a law may have a retroactive effect for exceptionally justified reasons". According to Croatian legal scholar , this means that "a law cannot be applied retroactively as a whole, and regulations enacted pursuant to statutory authority can never be applied retroactively".
Denmark Following the
liberation of Denmark from
Nazi occupation in 1945, the
Folketing, heavily influenced by the
Frihedsråd, passed a
special law (Lov Nr. 259 af 1. Juni 1945 om Tillæg til Borgerlig Straffelov angaaende Forræderi og anden landsskadelig Virksomhed, colloquially
landsforræderloven (the traitor law) or
strafferetstillægget (the penal code addendum)), temporarily reintroducing the
death penalty (previously abolished in 1930) for acts of treason committed during German occupation. Passed on 1 June 1945, the law applied to actions performed subsequent to 9 April 1940, unless those actions were done under orders from the government prior to 29 August 1943. With this authorization, 103 death sentences were issued, of which 46 were carried out.
Finland Generally, the Finnish legal system does not permit
ex post facto laws, especially those that would expand criminal responsibility. They are not expressly forbidden; instead, the ban is derived from more general legal principles and basic rights. In civil matters, such as taxation,
ex post facto laws may be made in some circumstances. Historically there have been three exceptional instances when
ex post facto criminal laws have been used in Finland. • Following the
Finnish Civil War of 1918, the
Parliament of Finland passed a law setting up tribunals to try suspected rebels. These tribunals issued death sentences in many cases, although very few of those accused could have committed a crime that carried the
death penalty under Finnish law in force during the war. Several hundred people were executed under what was arguably an
ex post facto legal arrangement. During the war, and before the tribunals were set up, thousands of people had been executed without trial by both sides. However, once this phase of the civil war ended, amnesty laws were passed. Thus, the legality of the actions of the government or the participants of either side of the war cannot be legally contested anymore. • After
World War II, Finland was under pressure to convict political leaders whom the Allied powers considered responsible for Finnish involvement in the war. An
ex post facto law was passed in the autumn of 1945 to permit
prosecution for war responsibility, and eventually eight politicians were convicted. In another post-war case, the
weapons cache case, an
ex post facto law was passed in 1947 so that military personnel could be prosecuted for unofficially preparing for guerrilla resistance in case of Soviet occupation. • During World War II, desertion, draft dodging and conscientious objection were punishable by death or jail. Amnesty laws were passed after World War II to free deserters and draft dodgers from imprisonment and further prosecution and allow them to return home without further legal consequences.
France In
France, so-called "
lois rétroactives" (retroactive laws) are technically prohibited by Article 2 of the
Code Civil, which states that: "Legislation provides only for the future; it has no retrospective operation". In practice, however, since the Code Civil does not have the status of constitutional legislation and can therefore be overruled by subsequent laws, the has determined that retroactive laws can be passed within certain limits – such as in the case of financial or tax legislation –, particularly where it is considered to be in the "general interest"; this has been demonstrated by a series of decisions handed down by the Conseil Constitutionnel concerning retroactive tax laws. However, in criminal law,
ex post facto sanctions are effectively forbidden as per Article 112-1 of the
French Penal Code, except in cases wherein the retroactive application benefits the accused person (called retroactivity
in mitius). They are also considered unconstitutional, since the principle of non-retroactivity is laid down in Article 8 of the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which has constitutional status under French law. The
épuration légale trials held after the 1944
liberation of France introduced the status of
indignité nationale for
Nazi collaborators as a way to avoid
ex post facto law.
Germany Article 103 of the
German basic law requires that an act may be punished only if it has already been punishable by law at the time it was committed (specifically: by
written law,
Germany following civil law).
Robert A. Taft, at the time a U.S. Senator from Ohio, asserted that the
Nuremberg Trials following
World War II were based on
ex post facto law because the Allies did not negotiate the
Nuremberg Charter, which defined crimes against humanity and created the International Military Tribunal, until well after the acts charged. Others, including the International Military Tribunal, argued that the London Charter merely restated and provided jurisdiction to prosecute offenses that were already made unlawful by the
Kellogg–Briand Pact, the
Covenant of the League of Nations, and the various
Hague Conventions.
William O. Douglas complained that the Allies were guilty of "substituting power for principle" at Nuremberg Trials because the actions of the defendants were lawful in the 1930s Germany. He contended that the Nuremberg Trials were implementing laws after the fact (that is, ex post facto) "to suit the clamor of the time." American Chief Justice
Harlan Stone, likewise, called the Nuremberg Trials a "fraud" because of the ex post facto laws. The problem of
ex post facto law was also relevant in the 1990s after
German reunification as there was a discussion about the trials against
East German border troops who killed fugitives on the
Inner-German border (
Mauerschützen-Prozesse – ''Wall-shooters'/ -guards' trials''). German courts in these cases recurred to the
Radbruch formula.
Hungary In 2010, the
Hungarian National Assembly established a 98% punitive tax on any income over two million forints received either as a retirement package or as severance pay in the previous five years in the government sector.
India In India, without using the expression "
ex post facto law", the underlying principle has been adopted in the article 20(1) of the
Indian Constitution in the following words: Further, what article 20(1) prohibits is conviction and sentence under an
ex post facto law for acts done prior thereto, but not the enactment or validity of such a law. There is, thus, a difference between the Indian and the American positions on this point; whereas in the United States, an
ex post facto law is in itself invalid, it is not so in India. The courts may also interpret a law in such a manner that any objection against it of retrospective operation may be removed. An example for retrospective law in India is the
Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prohibition of Transfer of Certain Lands) Act, 1978 in the state of
Karnataka.
Indonesia The
Indonesian Constitution prohibits trying citizens under retroactive laws in any circumstance. This was tested in 2004 when the conviction of
Masykur Abdul Kadir, one of the
Bali bombers, under retroactive
anti-terrorist legislation was quashed.
Iran Ex post facto laws, in all contexts, are prohibited by Article 169 (Chapter 11) of the
Iranian Constitution.
Ireland In 1922, during the
Irish Civil War,
Anti-Treaty IRA members
Rory O'Connor,
Liam Mellows,
Richard "Dick" Barrett and
Joseph McKelvey were executed ex post facto and without trial, just two days into the existence of the
Irish Free State. Despite being imprisoned for over four months, following their deaths the
Third Dáil retrospectively approved their executions for a crime that had only been legislated against. Largely, the executions were considered retribution for the assassination of the legislator, Deputy
Seán Hales TD the previous day. During a post–Civil War period of increased activity by
physical force Irish republicans, an appendix of the
Constitution (Amendment No. 17) Act 1931 which was passed
without referendum allowed that its new military tribunals could try offences from before that act was brought into force, as long as an Executive Minister believed the supposed offence was "impairing or impeding the machinery of government or the administration of justice." This was criticised in a dissent by Chief Justice
Hugh Kennedy in
State (Ryan) v Lennon which has since been highly celebrated. Kennedy referenced
Alexander Hamilton's statement in
The Federalist Papers that retroactive criminal sanctions "have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny." However, this was a
natural law argument and the
Court's majority rejected it for being
judicial overreach. The imposition of retroactive criminal sanctions is prohibited by Article 15.5.1° of the subsequent
Irish Constitution introduced by
Éamon de Valera in 1937. Retroactive changes of the civil law have also been found to violate the constitution when they would have resulted in the loss in a right to damages before the courts, the
Irish Supreme Court having found that such a right is a constitutionally protected property right. Ireland does not currently recognise the principle of
lex mitior.
Israel Israel enacted the 1950
Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law for the purpose of punishing acts that occurred during the
Second World War and the
Holocaust, when Israel did not exist as a state. The law was used to punish
Adolf Eichmann and others.
Italy Article 25, paragraph 2, of the
Italian Constitution, establishing that "nobody can be punished but according to a law come into force before the deed was committed", prohibits indictment pursuant a retroactive law. Article 11 of preliminary provisions to the
Italian Civil Code and Article 3, paragraph 1, of the Statute of taxpayer's rights, prohibit retroactive laws on principle: such provisions can be derogated, however, by acts having force of the ordinary law; on the contrary, non-retroactivity in criminal law is thought absolute.
Japan Article 39 of the
constitution of Japan prohibits the retroactive application of laws. Article 6 of
Criminal Code of Japan further states that if a new law comes into force after the deed was committed, the lighter punishment must be given.
Lithuania Lithuania has no constitutional prohibition on
ex post facto laws. However, as a signatory of the
European Convention on Human Rights and as a member of the European Union whose
Charter of Fundamental Rights has the effect of law, any retroactive law could still be struck down. Retroactive criminal sanctions are prohibited by Article 2, Part 1 (Chapter 1) of the
Criminal Code of the
Republic of Lithuania. Retroactive administrative sanctions are prohibited by Article 8 of the Administrative Code of the Republic of Lithuania. Lithuanian lawyer Dainius Žalimas contends that there has been retroactive application of the law on Genocide (and subsequently adopted articles of the Criminal Code) against participants in Soviet repressions against Lithuanian guerilla fighters and their supporters, and gives examples of such decisions. The Article 99 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania was introduced only on September 26, 2000, and therefore cannot be used in events of 1944–1953.
Mexico According to the first and second paragraphs of the 14th Article of the
Mexican Constitution, retroactive application of the law is prohibited if it is detrimental to a person's rights, but a new law can be applied if it benefits the person.
Netherlands Article 4 of the Law on General Provisions (in effect since 1838) states that "The law has no retroactive effect". Article 1 of
Criminal Law states that no act is punishable without a pre-existing law, and that in the case an act was punishable but the law was changed after the criminal act the "most favorable" (to the suspect) of the two laws will apply. In
Civil Law there is no such provision.
New Zealand Section 7 of the Interpretation Act 1999 stipulates that enactments do not have retrospective effect. The
New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 also affirms New Zealand's commitment to the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with section 26 preventing the application of retroactive penalties. This is further reinforced under section 6(1) of the current Sentencing Act 2002 which provides, "[p]enal enactments not to have retrospective effect to disadvantage of offender" irrespective of any provision to the contrary. Section 26 of the Bill of Rights and the previous sentencing legislation, the Criminal Justice Act 1985, caused significant digression among judges when the
New Zealand Parliament introduced legislation that had the effect of enacting a retrospective penalty for crimes involving an element of home invasion. Ultimately, the discrepancy was restricted with what some labelled artificial logic in the cases of
R v Pora and
R v Poumako.
Norway Article 97 of the
Norwegian Constitution prohibits any law to be given retroactive effect. The prohibition applies to both criminal and civil laws, but in some civil cases, only particularly unreasonable effects of retroactivity will be found unconstitutional.
Pakistan Article 12 of the
Constitution of Pakistan prohibits any law to be given retroactive effect by stating: • 12.1 – No law shall authorize the punishment of a person:- • 12.1.a – for an act or omission that was not punishable by law at the time of the act or omission; or • 12.1.b – for an offence by a penalty greater than, or of a kind different from, the penalty prescribed by law for that offence at the time the offence was committed.
Philippines The 1987
Constitution of the Philippines categorically prohibits the passing of any
ex post facto law. Article III (
Bill of Rights), Section 22 specifically states: "No
ex post facto law or
bill of attainder shall be enacted." However, the
Cybercrime Prevention Act, which went into effect on October 3, 2012, is criticized for being
ex post facto.
Poland Retroactive application of law is prohibited by the Article 3 of the Polish
civil code, and the
legal rule prohibiting such retroactive application is commonly memorised as a
Latin sentence
Lex retro non agit ("A law does not apply retroactively"). The said article, however, allows retroactive application of an Act of Parliament if it is expressly understood from its text or purpose.
Portugal Article 18 of the
Portuguese Constitution forbids the retroactive application of any law the restricts right; article 29 of the Portuguese Constitution forbids retroactive application of criminal law; article 103 forbids the application of retroactive taxes.
Romania Article 15 (2) of the
Romanian Constitution provides that the law shall only act for the future, except for the more favourable criminal or administrative law.
Russia Ex post facto punishment in criminal and administrative law is prohibited by article 54 of the
Russian Constitution;
ex post facto tax laws by article 57 of the constitution. Criminal law which improves the position of the convicted has retroactive force according to article 10 of the
Russian Criminal Code.
Spain Article 9.3 of the
Spanish Constitution guarantees the principle of non-retroactivity of punitive provisions that are not favorable to or restrictive of individual rights. Therefore, "ex post facto" criminal laws or any other retroactive punitive provisions are constitutionally prohibited. As well as
Statute law mentioned above, this now also includes '
court-made law'. The
Parot doctrine, in which terrorists were denied the right (enshrined in a 1973 Statute) to earn a reduction in the length of their sentences by a Spanish court ruling in 2006 was judged by the
European Court of Human Rights to be contrary to relevant articles on
retroactivity &
liberty and security in 2013.
South Africa Section 35(3) of the
South African Bill of Rights prohibits
ex post facto criminal laws, except that acts which violated international law at the time they were committed may be prosecuted even if they were not illegal under national law at the time. It also prohibits retroactive increases of criminal punishments.
Sweden In
Sweden, retroactive penal sanctions and other retroactive legal effects of criminal acts due the State are prohibited by chapter 2, section 10 of the
Instrument of Government (
Regeringsformen). Retroactive taxes or charges are not prohibited, but they can have retroactive effect reaching back only to the time when a new tax bill was proposed by the government. The retroactive effect of a tax or charge thus reaches from that time until the bill is passed by the parliament. As the
Swedish Act of Succession was changed in 1979, and the throne was inherited regardless of sex, the inheritance right was withdrawn from all the descendants of
Charles XIV John (king 1818–44) except the current king
Carl XVI Gustaf. Thereby, the heir-apparent title was transferred from the new-born
Prince Carl Philip to his older sister
Crown Princess Victoria. The
Swedish Riksdag voted in 2004 to abolish
inheritance tax by January 1, 2005. However, in 2005 they retro-actively decided to move the date to December 17, 2004. The main reason was abolishing inheritance tax for the many Swedish victims of the
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, which took place on December 26.
Turkey Ex post facto punishment is prohibited by Article 38 of the
Constitution of Turkey. It states: • c1. No one shall be punished for any act which does not constitute a criminal offence under the law in force at the time committed; no one shall be given a heavier penalty for an offence other than the penalty applicable at the time when the offence was committed. • c2. The provisions of the above paragraph shall also apply to the statute of limitations on offences and penalties and on the results of conviction. Thus, the article does not prohibit
in mitius laws, i.e. cases wherein the retroactive application benefits the accused person.
Ukraine Article 58 of the
Constitution of Ukraine says: "Laws and other regulatory acts shall have no retroactive force except where they mitigate or nullify the responsibility of a person. No one shall bear responsibility for acts that, at the time they were committed, were not deemed by law to be an offence."
United Kingdom In the
United Kingdom,
ex post facto laws are permitted by virtue of the doctrine of
parliamentary sovereignty. Historically, all
acts of Parliament before 1793 were
ex post facto legislation, inasmuch as their date of effect was the first day of the session in which they were passed. This situation was rectified by the
Acts of Parliament (Commencement) Act 1793. Some laws are still passed retrospectively: e.g., the Pakistan Act 1990 (by which the United Kingdom amended its legislation consequent to the
Commonwealth of Nations having re-admitted Pakistan as a member) was one such law; despite being passed on 29 June 1990, section 2 subsection 3 states that "This Act shall be deemed to have come into force on 1st October 1989", nine months before it was enacted. Retrospective
criminal laws are prohibited by Article 7 of the
European Convention on Human Rights, to which the United Kingdom is a signatory, but some legal authorities have stated their opinion that parliamentary sovereignty takes priority even over this. For example, the
War Crimes Act 1991 created an
ex post facto jurisdiction of British courts over
war crimes committed during the
Second World War. Another important example of a case which shows the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in action is in relation to
Burmah Oil Co Ltd v Lord Advocate, where the decision of the courts was overridden with retrospective effect by the
War Damage Act 1965, which changed the law on compensation resulting from
scorched earth actions in Burma during the war. More recently, the
Police (Detention and Bail) Act 2011 retroactively overrode a controversial court judgment resulting from an error in the drafting of the
Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 that would potentially have invalidated thousands of criminal convictions. A court faced with an
ex post facto act of Parliament could theoretically issue a
declaration of incompatibility with Article 7, but would still be required to enforce it, as UK courts do not have the power of
judicial review with respect to primary legislation. Another example of an
ex post facto criminal law in the UK is the
Criminal Justice Act 2003. This law allows people acquitted of murder and certain other serious offences to be retried if there is "new, compelling, reliable and substantial evidence" that the acquitted person really was guilty. This Act applies retroactively and can be used to re-prosecute people who were acquitted before it came into force in 2005, or even before it was passed in 2003. As a result, two of the defendants who were acquitted in the
murder of Stephen Lawrence were allowed to be retried, even though this murder occurred in 1993 and the defendants had been acquitted in 1996. Many people have criticized the Criminal Justice Act because of its essential abolition of prohibition against both ex post facto and
double jeopardy laws. Taxation law has on multiple occasions been changed to retrospectively disallow
tax avoidance schemes. The most significant example known concerns double-taxation treaty arrangements where the
Finance Act 2008 with
BN66 retrospectively amended 1987 legislation, creating large tax liabilities for 3,000 people where no liability existed before.
United States Thomas Jefferson, one of the
Founding Fathers of the United States, stated in 1813 that:
Congress is prohibited from passing
ex post facto laws by clause 3 of
Article I,
Section 9 of the
United States Constitution. The states are prohibited from passing
ex post facto laws by clause 1 of
Article I,
Section 10. This is one of the relatively few restrictions that the United States Constitution made to both the power of the federal and state governments before the
Fourteenth Amendment. Over the years, however, when deciding
ex post facto cases, the
United States Supreme Court has referred repeatedly to its ruling in
Calder v. Bull, in which Justice
Samuel Chase held that the prohibition applied only to criminal matters, not civil matters, and established four categories of unconstitutional
ex post facto laws. The case dealt with the Article I, Section 10, prohibition on
ex post facto laws, because it concerned a Connecticut state law. As a result of
Calder v. Bull, several retroactive taxes have been passed by the US Congress, starting with the 1913 Revenue Act, which imposed the first income tax. By 1935, prohibitions on retroactive taxation had been declared "dead." In 1938, the US Supreme Court claimed the standard on retroactive taxation was "retroactive application is so harsh and oppressive as to transgress the constitutional limitation." In practice, this has resulted in virtually all retroactive taxes being upheld, and in one case a 1993 revision of tax law that applied retroactively to 1984 was upheld. Not all laws with retroactive effects have been held to be unconstitutional. One current U.S. law that has a retroactive effect is the
Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. This law imposes new registration requirements on convicted
sex offenders and also applies to offenders whose crimes were committed before the law was enacted. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in
Smith v. Doe (2003) that requiring sex offenders to register their whereabouts at regular intervals, and the posting of personal information about them on the Internet, do not violate the constitutional prohibition against
ex post facto laws, because these laws do not impose any kind of punishment. In
Starkey v. Oklahoma Department of Corrections, the
Supreme Court of the State of Oklahoma found the Oklahoma Sex Offender Registration Act, or SORA, to be punitive in nature, if not in intent. While the law in question had been ruled as not being retroactive in nature, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections had been applying the new legislation retroactively. The court found that "the Department's retroactive application of the level assignment provisions of 57 O.S. Supp. 2007, 582.1 – 582.5, as amended, violates the ex post facto clause." Controversy has also arisen with regard to
sexually violent predator (SVP) laws, which allow the indefinite commitment of a person with a mental abnormality which predisposes them to molest children. This issue arose in the case
Kansas v. Hendricks. In
Hendricks, a man with a long history of sexually molesting children was scheduled to be released from prison shortly after the enactment of
Kansas's SVP act. Rather than being released, he was committed on the grounds that he had a mental abnormality. Hendricks contested the law on
ex post facto and double jeopardy grounds. The
Supreme Court of Kansas invalidated the Act, but the
Supreme Court of the United States reversed the decision and ruled that the law was constitutional on the basis that the law did not impose a criminal punishment. The law has been legally upheld because it is considered regulatory, not punitive; it is a
status offense. Another example is the
Copyright Term Extension Act, which was retroactive since it affected both new works and existing ones, but it was upheld by decision
Eldred v. Ashcroft. Also, the
Uruguay Round Agreement Act, which restored copyright in foreign works, removing them from the
public domain, was upheld by another decision,
Golan v. Holder. The US military also recognizes ex post facto law.
Common law states that Courts-martial will not enforce an ex post facto law, including increasing amount of pay to be forfeited for specific crimes. (See United States v. Gorki 47 M.J. 370). Finally, in
Calder v. Bull, the court expressly stated that a law that "mollifies" a criminal act was merely retrospective, and was not an
ex post facto law. Scholars have argued that, as a historical matter, the phrase
ex post facto referred to civil as well as criminal laws. In
administrative law, federal agencies may apply their rules retroactively if Congress has authorized them to; otherwise, retroactive application is generally prohibited. Retroactive application of regulations is disfavored by the courts for several reasons. The courts uphold retroactive regulation where Congress has expressly granted such retroactive power to the agency, as they did in
Bowen v. Georgetown University Hospital. The rules as they relate to the effects of
ex post facto upon the
U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines can be found in . See also
Bouie v. City of Columbia,
Rogers v. Tennessee,
Stogner v. California,
Republic of Austria v. Altmann,
James Bamford and
Samuels v. McCurdy.
Vietnam Ex post facto laws are defined in Article 152, 2015 Law on Promulgation of Legal Documents: • Only in cases of
extreme necessity to ensure the common good of society, to
exercise the rights and interests of organizations and individuals prescribed in laws and resolutions of the National Assembly, legal documents of central government rules are retroactive. • The retroactive effect is prohibited in the following cases: a) Impose legal liability for acts that at the time of committing such acts the law does not stipulate liability; b) Impose higher legal liability. • Legislative documents of People's Councils, People's Committees at all levels, local governments in special administrative-economic units are not retroactive. There has been no case that new law stated it has a retroactive effect. But the second item of this Article has been widely used in court system (
in mitius laws). ==Treatment by international organizations and treaties==