Retroactive Force of a Law

the application of a law to relations that arose before it was issued. As a rule, laws do not have retroactive force, that is, they apply only to relations, rights, and obligations that arose after a particular law went into force. This lends definiteness and stability to social life and, in the implementation of legal precepts, gives citizens confidence in the immutability of their rights and obligations as provided for by existing laws.

When necessary, a lawmaking body may by special order give some particular law or sometimes individual articles in a law retroactive force, that is, it may apply a newly adopted law to relations that arose earlier.

In the USSR retroactive force is given to criminal laws that remove punishment from certain acts or mitigate punishment.

This attests to the humaneness of Soviet law, which rests on the idea that one should not punish (or punish as strictly) an act that was formerly considered a crime but by the time of the new law had lost its former social danger. In addition to the principle of retroactive force, or retroactivity, there is also the “survival of an old law”—the application of a law no longer in force to relations arising after it was abolished.