1Relating to, used for, or prescribing the punishment of offenders under the legal system.

1. 1.1 (of an act or offence) punishable by law.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • Discipline in junior soccer is strict, and the fines for breaches are penal.
   • Thus the basic principle ought to be the harm principle: the reduction of harm to others is always a good reason in support of penal legislation.
   • First, from the point of view of the advocate the jurisdiction is penal.
   • Under the Second Claimant's penal code an accused is entitled to free representation (at the cost of the Second Claimant) in such circumstances.
   • Several of the 20 readers who had e-mailed the newspaper expressed shock that oral sex remained an offence under the penal code in the modern city-state.
   • He then considered the question of whether it was necessary to establish an intention to injure where the conspiracy involved action that contravened penal law.
   • Or the subject matter may call for a strict interpretation of the statutory language, as in penal legislation.
   • But now it is a penal offence to talk about this genocide in the context of events that are funded externally or organised by foundations where ‘material interest’ could be at stake.
   • No international penal tribunal of general jurisdiction has been created.
   • It is trite law that, in general, foreign penal acts of a confiscatory nature are not recognised in England.
   • Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
   • The Court drew a distinction between the retroactive effect of penal provisions and retroactive effect outside the criminal sphere.
   • The penal code does not criminalize such conduct, and would be clearly unconstitutional if it did.
   • However, after that meeting the officials began to investigate the appellant's penal liability.
   • The original interpretation of the Thirteenth Amendment was to prevent the state from enforcing labor contracts with penal sanctions.
   • In each case it can be noted that the classification certificate is concerned with the act of supply whereas the penal enforcement extends, in addition, to the act of offering to supply.
   • None shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the same time when it was committed.
   • The power of the court to discharge an order giving permission to proceed, made on an application without notice to the other side, on the ground of non-disclosure, is a disciplinary, indeed penal, jurisdiction.
   • The new legislation could, said commentators, enshrine the most repressive aspects of martial law in the penal code.
   • It is said therefore that the power to punish or to impose consequences which are penal or punitive is an exclusively judicial one.

   Synonyms

   disciplinary, punitive, corrective, correctional, retributive
2. 1.2 (especially of taxation or interest rates) extremely severe.
   avoid borrowing at penal rates of interest

   Example sentencesExamples

   • I repeat that when penal rates were abolished the charges on public holidays did not go down, so presumably people in the industry were actually averaging the costs out across the year.
   • They approached the railways and said that they would like to go on a salary, and no longer wished to be paid penal rates for overtime, shift work, or for working on Christmas Day.
   • Some of those changes also imply no penal rates for public holidays on top of existing penal rates, or no public holiday rates if an employee does not work that day.
   • We are going to take penal rates off the workers in that sector who work on public holidays.
   • They do not mind paying penal rates, but when they have to give employees a day off in lieu, as well, then members can imagine the sorts of costs that will be incurred.
   • It's hard to attract senior nurses to mental health because they miss out on penal rates.
   • Nurses take home an average of 15 per cent extra in penal rates.
   • Current law enables staff to claim penal rates on top of penal rates for working on a public holiday.
   • He said the prescriptions - extreme fiscal austerity, soaring interest rates, penal levels of taxation and pain all round - compounded the social and economic misery already being felt.
   • The shortage of investment product on the market is a concern, together with the penal rate of stamp duty levied by the government.
   • It is this penal rate of interest that often prompts customers to default on their loans.
   • Nor do the arguably penal terms of the late delivery clause justify the penal interest clause.
   • That might nudge up to $43,000 with penal rates.
   • A brain drain blighted the Labour governments of the 1970s, as high earners were driven abroad by penal income-tax rates.
   • Banks have been given the freedom of formulating their own policy for charging penal interest rates with the approval of their boards.
   • Finally, both Council and the plaintiff point to those provisions which would require payment of interest on judgment debts at a penal rate.
   • And today's restaurant workers get few of the benefits enjoyed by their counterparts of 20 years ago: no overtime, no penal rates, no travel, uniform or laundry allowances.
   • Rather than borrowing at penal commercial rates of interest, much cheaper standard mortgages became available and rental income was taken into consideration for assessing the size of any loan.
   • He forced the latter to give a much better deal to borrowers, to pay their own legal fees and to reduce penal interest rates imposed in certain instances.
   • Australia has similar kinds of surcharges, not just for public holidays but for Saturdays and Sundays, given that it used to have much higher penal rates.

   Synonyms

   exorbitant, extortionate, excessive, outrageous, preposterous, immoderate, unreasonable, inordinate, iniquitous, inflated, sky-high, expensive, gross