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British Video Recordings Act 1984 Invalid
chrb writes "BBC News is reporting that the British Video Recordings Act 1984 is invalid due to a 25 year old legal blunder. The Thatcher government of the day failed to officially "notify" the European Commission about the law, and hence it no longer stands as a legal Act. There will now be a period of around three months before the Act can be passed again, during which time it will be entirely legal to sell any video content without age-rated certifications."
What are we going to do with it?
So when society DOESN'T collapse into anarchy, are they going to realize this law was idiotic and unnecessary and not pass it again?
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
When the British Video Recordings Act 2009 is passed, it will be more restrictive than the original 1984 verson. I mean, why would any good centre-right, middle-class courting, focus-group driven pack of fear-mongers pass up a perfectly good opportunity for a moral panic? Won't somebody PLEASE think of the CHILDREN!?
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Can a British lawyer please tell me at what point notification of the European Commission became a requirement for an Act of Parliament to become legally binding? Surely such a surrender of sovereignty was exactly the sort of thing Thatcher opposed?
You call that surrender of sovereignty? Think again. The government didn't have to ask for permission to pass this law, it was only supposed to inform the European Commission. In other words: make it public, so their European partner countries know what's happening in their neighborhood. That's just common sense.
Say out loud: I'm an Aspie and I'm somewhat proud, I guess. Uh. Can I write an email in all caps instead? Hm...
"Existing convictions will stand"
In other words "existing convictions will collapse as soon as they are challenged in court, but let's lie about this and hope that everyone believes us".
If all of the judges in the land believe it is within their power to continue with the lie and refuse to hear appeals based on this, guess what happens?
Thats not how we do it in the UK mate. Here we make as many laws as possible, criminalizing as many people as we can. This so that when we decide we don't like them anymore there's a quick exit waiting. It also makes it easier for the police to root out the bad guys. When everybody has committed at least one crime, gives them leverage.
This was an embarressing oversight, normal service will be resumed shortly.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
The EU is designed in part to be a very close union between member states, in order to combat the extreme nationalism that predicated two major ruinous conflicts on the European continent in the 20th century. Every EU nation gives up some measure of sovereignty (although really not that much in the grand scheme of things) in order to promote the greater good.
Even having said that, though, I would argue that the simple requirement to inform other nations of standards and laws you pass is not really any more of a surrendering of sovereignty than most other provisions in any other treaty between nations.
What are you talking about? Britain doesn't even have a constitution.
No problemo. They can take ours. We're sure not using it.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Yes, because this is SUCH an emergency. Kids will turn into goat slaughtering satanist child molesters INSTANTLY because of this, mark my words!