That’s slightly misleading. Rape is defined as the specific crime of penetrating a person with a penis.
There’s a separate, more modern crime of “sexual activity without consent”, with both penetrative and non-penatritive variants that was created that was created to be a gender neutral sex crime.
One of the purposes of this offence, in addition to the wider range of sexual activity, is to create a female equivalent of the offence of rape, which carries the same level of punishment for what amounts to the same type of offending behaviour.
Also, you usually can’t remove laws after they pass. You just add another saying the old one doesn’t count. In this case you might as well leave the old “no raping allowed” law in. It’s not something we want people to do anyway, and keeping it is one less law than removing it!
Most realistically, no one is going to go on the books as the person who voted to repeal the crime of rape.
More pragmatically, repealing a law that someone is in prison for always creates an argument that they shouldn’t be there any more. Often seen with drug legalization, but I’m sure someone would try to argue that because the exact type of sexual assault they were guilty of isn’t a crime anymore, despite an equivalent existing, that they should get some type of break.
I’m not in the UK, so I can’t speak to their legislative process as specifically unfortunately.
Follow-up: I started to look it up, and as far as I can the the UK legislative bookkeeping system is fucking insane. They don’t organize their laws in sections, they just refer to them by the act that passed it. So rather than passing a law that says “we’re amending section 792.5078r to include new definitions”, they just say “here’s a new act with a new crime, and rape includes mouths now”.
Also the UK has three legal systems, they’re bound together in what feels like a very disorderd fashion, and the following sentence from their judiciary scares me deeply, as a proper American:
Our lack of a written constitution is one of the consequences of the way the current political and legal institutions in the United Kingdom have evolved since 1066
Fairly common to leave old superseded laws on the books even here in the states. Spending legislative time going back to undo something for no practical reason is a luxury reserved for Big Deals™️.
Because the old law is still applicable in some situations and now the prosecution potentially has 2 options to choose from …
I don’t know the real answer but I’d guess it’s a mix of “if ain’t broke don’t fix it” and the cost of removing the law (time debating in parliament) that could be better spent.
It’s like charging someone with first, second, and third degree murder. If the first definition doesn’t sit well with the jury the second or others might.
That wouldn’t play. Truth is a complete defense for libel and all your lawyer has to do is point out the ordinary meaning of the word rape encompasses the plaintiff’s crime.
If people could get successfully sued for speaking English instead of Legalese in an ordinary context then we’d all have been sued by now.
all your lawyer has to do is point out the ordinary meaning of the word rape encompasses the plaintiff’s crime.
You can’t use ordinary meanings in the court of law… that’s the entire issue and why it’s a thing. You say ordinary, and than use the word crime. Now you need to use the legal definition instead of ordinary. You shot your own foot in that situation.
That’s not how libel works though. The legal meaning of words doesn’t bind publishers of newspapers to use only that meaning, for example.
If you argue that a woman is a rapist in UK court, that won’t work.
If you argue that your usage of the word rapist to describe a woman convicted of penatrative non consensual sexual contact is accurate, all you need to do is point to the dictionary, because the libel case isn’t about the sexual offense, but the plain words used.
I’m not sure you’d get sued for libel. Legally speaking, any non-penis penatrative sexual assault wouldn’t be rape even if you would call it that in other contexts.
Where I live, rape isn’t actually in the criminal code at all. There is only “criminal sexual misconduct, first degree”, which also includes other terrible things that people can do to each other.
No one gets sued for libel for using the dictionary definition of the word rather than the legal definition outside of a courtroom.
That’s slightly misleading. Rape is defined as the specific crime of penetrating a person with a penis.
There’s a separate, more modern crime of “sexual activity without consent”, with both penetrative and non-penatritive variants that was created that was created to be a gender neutral sex crime.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/rape-and-sexual-offences-chapter-7-key-legislation-and-offences
So why not do away with the old law if the new one supersedes it?
@NoIWontPickaName optics. The last thing any politicians want is being acused of “abolishing rape laws”.
Easier to just leave the legacy law in place as long as you’ve got the whole thing covered.
We have the same thing in New Zealand.
Also, you usually can’t remove laws after they pass. You just add another saying the old one doesn’t count. In this case you might as well leave the old “no raping allowed” law in. It’s not something we want people to do anyway, and keeping it is one less law than removing it!
Most realistically, no one is going to go on the books as the person who voted to repeal the crime of rape.
More pragmatically, repealing a law that someone is in prison for always creates an argument that they shouldn’t be there any more. Often seen with drug legalization, but I’m sure someone would try to argue that because the exact type of sexual assault they were guilty of isn’t a crime anymore, despite an equivalent existing, that they should get some type of break.
I’m not in the UK, so I can’t speak to their legislative process as specifically unfortunately.
Follow-up: I started to look it up, and as far as I can the the UK legislative bookkeeping system is fucking insane. They don’t organize their laws in sections, they just refer to them by the act that passed it. So rather than passing a law that says “we’re amending section 792.5078r to include new definitions”, they just say “here’s a new act with a new crime, and rape includes mouths now”.
Also the UK has three legal systems, they’re bound together in what feels like a very disorderd fashion, and the following sentence from their judiciary scares me deeply, as a proper American:
https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/our-justice-system/jud-acc-ind/justice-sys-and-constitution/
Hahahaha this is the most UK thing ever
Fairly common to leave old superseded laws on the books even here in the states. Spending legislative time going back to undo something for no practical reason is a luxury reserved for Big Deals™️.
Because the old law is still applicable in some situations and now the prosecution potentially has 2 options to choose from …
I don’t know the real answer but I’d guess it’s a mix of “if ain’t broke don’t fix it” and the cost of removing the law (time debating in parliament) that could be better spent.
It’s like charging someone with first, second, and third degree murder. If the first definition doesn’t sit well with the jury the second or others might.
You still can’t just say a women raped a man though, you would get sued for libel.
It still creates a divide that puts one in a worse light, even though there is an “equivalent” crime.
@schmidtster
That wouldn’t play. Truth is a complete defense for libel and all your lawyer has to do is point out the ordinary meaning of the word rape encompasses the plaintiff’s crime.
If people could get successfully sued for speaking English instead of Legalese in an ordinary context then we’d all have been sued by now.
You can’t use ordinary meanings in the court of law… that’s the entire issue and why it’s a thing. You say ordinary, and than use the word crime. Now you need to use the legal definition instead of ordinary. You shot your own foot in that situation.
That’s not how libel works though. The legal meaning of words doesn’t bind publishers of newspapers to use only that meaning, for example.
If you argue that a woman is a rapist in UK court, that won’t work.
If you argue that your usage of the word rapist to describe a woman convicted of penatrative non consensual sexual contact is accurate, all you need to do is point to the dictionary, because the libel case isn’t about the sexual offense, but the plain words used.
@schmidtster I don’t think you’re understanding libel law.
You can’t take someone to court just for using a common dictionary word to mean the thing it is commonly used to mean.
I mean you can but you just won’t win.
I’m not sure you’d get sued for libel. Legally speaking, any non-penis penatrative sexual assault wouldn’t be rape even if you would call it that in other contexts.
Where I live, rape isn’t actually in the criminal code at all. There is only “criminal sexual misconduct, first degree”, which also includes other terrible things that people can do to each other.
No one gets sued for libel for using the dictionary definition of the word rather than the legal definition outside of a courtroom.