A bill set before Scotland’s parliament Tuesday would automatically grant pardons to all individuals convicted of homosexual acts under the U.K. nation’s laws, The Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday.
“A person who has been convicted of a historical sexual offence is pardoned for the offence if the conduct constituting the offence, if occurring in the same circumstances, would not be an offence on the day on which this section comes into force,” reads the relevant provision in the draft legislation.
Consensual homosexual sex was decriminalized in Scotland in 1981, some 14 years after a similar law was repealed in England and Wales, according to The Guardian.
Titled the “Historical Sexual Offences (Pardons and Disregards) (Scotland) Bill,” the legislation put forward by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is all but certain to pass with few, if any, significant changes in the legislative body controlled by her left-of-center Scottish Nationalist Party.
Unlike a similar effort in England and Wales, where the pardons must be requested by the individual to whom it would apply, Ms. Sturgeon’s bill would grant clemency automatically and apply posthumously in the cases of offenders who have since passed away, The Guardian noted.
• Ken Shepherd can be reached at kshepherd@washingtontimes.com.
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