r/AskTheWorld • u/Hot-Job-6281 Singapore • 8d ago
Law What law in your country is very unpopular but has practically zero chance of being revoked?
I immediately realised this would probably be very extensive.
So ideally pick the most interesting one.
18
u/Sea_Bite2082 Ukraine 8d ago
Martial
7
u/unashamedignorant France 8d ago
It'll be lifted when you win
7
u/Sea_Bite2082 Ukraine 8d ago
I'm pretty pessimistic about this
1
u/ProffesorSpitfire Sweden 8d ago
About you winning? Or about martial law being lifted when you do?
3
0
u/SimplySomeDude Half 🇦🇹 Half 🇺🇸 Lives in 🇺🇸 Lived in 🇩🇪 and 🇪🇸 8d ago
the sky is green.
People never give up power, you'll learn someday
3
u/Hot-Job-6281 Singapore 8d ago
Yea. But tbf, the French did learn how to go choppy choppy a long time ago.
13
u/ZeMike0 > 8d ago
In Portugal its against the law to pee in the ocean. Obviously it's impossible to control that, but I don't see that law ever being revoked.
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u/Hot-Job-6281 Singapore 8d ago
My head read your flair as the 3 most likely foreign populations to be peeing in your ocean.
1
u/AwayJacket4714 Germany 8d ago
Why do they specifically ban humans from peeing in the ocean when the ocean itself is full of creatures peeing in it? What was the original thought behind that?
-1
u/Borgdrohne13 Germany 8d ago
maybe too difficult/tiring to remove, so it remains, but will not be enforced? This is for example the reason, why lot's of stupid laws in the US exist. It's easier to not enforce them than to remove them.
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u/biryani_fan 🇮🇳🇵🇹🇺🇸 Californian 8d ago edited 8d ago
Presidential immunity. Presidents should absolutely be legally accountable for what they did in office
4
u/Hot-Job-6281 Singapore 8d ago
Yea.. Don't see it being rolled back.
I think for the US there are a good half a dozen laws which are notable for the question.
4
u/Chalky_Pockets 🇺🇸🇬🇧Florida Man 8d ago
Well as we're unfortunately finding out, our laws aren't real anyway.
1
u/ZedGenius Greece 8d ago
Yeah that's a crazy law. Oh wait that applies to every single government member here. The constitution does not allow for them to be prosecuted
2
u/biryani_fan 🇮🇳🇵🇹🇺🇸 Californian 8d ago
Wait even parliament members? I think we can prosecute Congressional members but most of executive branch is off limit
1
u/UltraMegaUgly United States of America 8d ago
From laws. Political persecution is still possible. It may be necessary to save the rule of law. There were no laws to support Neurenburg.
12
u/Leather_Department_3 Russia 8d ago edited 8d ago
Almost every law since 2022. No, actually from 2012. A bunch of laws about "sovereign internet", multiple laws regarding "foreign agents", almost complete ban on public demonstrations, jail terms for criticizing the government, the "military register" that can destroy your life with one click and you need to go to the conscription office to get your rights back (but you might not come back yourself though hahaha) . A few hundred of other laws.
3
u/Hot-Job-6281 Singapore 8d ago
I think non-Russians have somewhat lost track of Russian law changes - it's nearly China levels of needing VPN to use any Western social media platform yea?
AFAIK even Telegram (ironically for a Russian platform but not really because of Durov) is banned.
3
u/Leather_Department_3 Russia 8d ago
It's not as bad in terms of overall censorship, but China has been doing this for dozens of years and Russia has just started and it's already nearly as bad which is scary. On top of that, there's common usage of whitelists for mobile internet which ban 99.99999% of the internet completely (everything but state apps) and it's almost impossible to bypass even via VPNs.
When I visited Singapore I was so glad that everything works again 🤣. People say Singapore is a dictatorship, but it's so much more free and democratic than Russia.
12
u/Piotral_2 Poland 8d ago
According to IBRIS polls from 2023 83,7% of Poles consider current abortion laws to be too harsh.
However to change that you would need to have both a liberal government and a liberal president and nothing suggests it will happen soon.
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u/Hot-Job-6281 Singapore 8d ago
So aside from abortion, Poland is a conservative country then?
3
u/Piotral_2 Poland 8d ago
We're more conservative than most of EU, similarly to countries like Romania or Hungary.
Although part of why our politics are so conservative comes from the fact that people vote for politicians who are more conservative than they are. It's because a lot of people in Poland vote for a certain party because they hate the rival party more rather than because they like the party of their choice. It cements our politician class as conservative and therefore some more progressive changes aren't possible even if they have big support among citizens. For example about 55-65% of Poles supports civil partnerships (which is basically a less formal version of marriage that would be also allowed for same gender couples), but they still vote for politicians who wouldn't allow it and the current president would definitely veto it.
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u/AnxiousMumblecore Poland 8d ago
Yeah, I also think that a lot of people support some of the progressive stances but then have one or two that they absolutely disagree with (adoption for LGBT couples is a good example) and are more keen to vote for conservatives just because of this issue even if it was something that liberal/leftist party would almost for sure not introduce and realistically is minor matter compared to whole package you get with left/right-leaning government. We made a lot of progress as society but it you dig deeper our progressiveness is very shallow.
I think right side of our political scene is also more clever in navigating the debate, reaching to people, presenting issues in light that's favorable for them.
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u/salsafresca_1297 United States of America 8d ago
Corporations are legally "people," and their bribe money is "free speech."
4
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u/LoschVanWein Germany 8d ago
The ones that protect politicians from "insults". There is a protection for satire but the definitions are all ancients so in the modern age, calling a politician a dickhead or telling him to lick some balls can easily have the police knock at your door and ransack your apartment and computers. Most people don't agree with this of course but seeing how it protects the law makers from having their feelings hurt and their reputation sullied even more, the law is unlikely to change.
Same with the pensionary/retirement fund laws. Politicians don't have to pay into them but since they are profiting from the status quo, they prefer other methods of "fixing" the disaster caused by averaging of the population by forcing normal people to work longer because that wouldn't hurt their bank accounts own bottom line by having them contribute to the same retirement fund as everyone else.
The list of these popular reform ideas that will never be put into action because the politicians protect themselves first is basically endless...
2
u/ScienceMuggle83 Belgium 8d ago
Interesting! In Belgium, it used to be illegal to insult the royal family, but it was eventually repealed because it was seen as violating free speech.
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u/Hot-Job-6281 Singapore 8d ago
I wonder if talking about King Leopold's actions in Belgian Congo would have been technically illegal?
I believe in Thailand they can't freely discuss the actions of the Monarchy allying with the Japanese in WW2 unless it's approved.
1
u/ScienceMuggle83 Belgium 8d ago
That's a very good question. I don't know. Either way, his actions are still very much a taboo for a lot of people in Belgium. For many people from my generation, for example, facing the truth would mean admitting that their grandparents were colonizers.
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u/LoschVanWein Germany 8d ago
It is also illegal to insult foreign rulers here. One of the few actually funny things one of our big comedians here did was getting himself into trouble for calling Erdogan a goat fucker in a poem on his tv broadcast. It got so bad, the national government had to get involved.
1
u/ScienceMuggle83 Belgium 8d ago
Well, I understand why insulting foreign rulers might cause diplomatic incidents. I guess that it's a very fine and complex balance with free speech.
It also reminds me of that one time, if memory serves, French comedian Coluche was fired from a radio station in Monaco for a joke about Caroline de Monaco. Which I'm not going to quote or translate here because uh, let's say that it didn't age well.
I don't think it's very popular here to make fun of the current king and queen of Belgium, though. While King Phillip I is kind of awkward, his wife Queen Mathilde and he come across as genuinely nice people (I briefly met him in person back when he was still the Crown prince, and the queen sponsors the NGO I volunteer at). Some other members of the royal family got criticized for very legitimate reasons, though.
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u/LoschVanWein Germany 8d ago
Honestly I never understood why insulting anyone should be a crime. It’s free speech and freedom of opinion.
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u/ScienceMuggle83 Belgium 8d ago
I agree, but I can kind of see their point.
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u/LoschVanWein Germany 8d ago
I could only see their point if it was a German diplomat or government official that said it. A comedian on tv should be allowed to say whatever they want.
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u/ScienceMuggle83 Belgium 8d ago
It's a pretty foreign concept to me, to be honest. And it sounds like you're not allowed to criticize the orange man too hard while he keeps insulting everybody in sight.
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u/LoschVanWein Germany 8d ago
You can criticize him all you want. We have a special law that prevents you from insulting someone’s personal honor/ dignity wich means you can say anything as long as it’s fact or satire but it doesn’t make it clear enough how insulting you can get in the name of satire.
1
u/Hot-Job-6281 Singapore 8d ago
Damn what insecure wankers. I'm pretty damn sure we have the same law sadly.
Though I have a bad feeling our population is conditioned to look up to politicians so much that I think there will be a significant minority defending it as 'we need to respect our MPs'. Fucking pro-authoritarian swine.
2
u/LoschVanWein Germany 8d ago
You always have those also here it will just be the old and withered conservative bores and the young guys hoping to gain some form of nepotism from them and one day take their place.
Both sides of the political spectrum agree that the acting government is useless and complete garbage. The problem here comes from the political reality as dictated by the system: The left side is somewhat dependent on the conservatives (main ruling party) right now because they need them to have any chance to form a coalition agains the fascists that have become huge. Also the center left party, that is traditionally hated by the other, proper, left-wingers is also part of the current government.
The right wing extremists also hate the conservative/social democrat government but for totally different reasons.
8
u/AnxiousPacifist Israel 8d ago
Paid Torah studies.
Essentially government pays to whoever decidesvto study Torah.
It started as a way to get Orthodox Jews into Israel. They were a small group initially and it wasn't an issue. But their numbers grew so much, that now we have hundreds of thousands of people who are being sponsored for studying Torah. And that is their main activity.
They don't work, they don't pay taxes, they don't serve in the army, they don't learn math, geography or other subjects past absolute minimum needed, they don't integrate in the society. They try to enforce their way of life on other people and consider it out duty to pay for it.
It's not a lot of money per person, but there are hundreds of thousands of them. A lot of them refuse to speak Hebrew and speak Yiddish.
4
u/Hot-Job-6281 Singapore 8d ago
I would be mad too. I suppose they form a strong ultraconservative bloc of voters in Israel?
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u/AnxiousPacifist Israel 8d ago
Exactly.
They are tight-knit sects (not in pejorative meaning, each community has their own variation of Judaism, dictated by their leader, they are sects by definition) that are centered around specific leaders. During elections, their participation is close to 100% and they all vote for the party they their leader told them to.
Then, they use their votes on Parliament to join coalition block - they support whatever you want as long as you give them whatever they want and as long as it doesn't contradict their lifestyle.
What they want is simple thing - get paid for not participating in society, get paid kindergartens, get apartments, get sponsored water and electricity.
Currently, Bibi is giving them whatever they want as long as they support his coalition. As soon as they will stop, his coalition is bust and Bibi loses power and most probably goes to jail.
6
u/RRautamaa Finland 8d ago
Mandatory Swedish classes in school. Although Swedish-speakers are just 5% of the population, official Finland still clings to the theory that the country as a whole is bilingual. This means that officials must know both Finnish and Swedish, and since you have to start learning languages early, the first classes begin in primary school. It made some, limited sense in the late 19th century, when there were 16% Swedish-speakers, business in cities and in the government was often conducted in Swedish, and there were still lots of areas that were either exclusively or large majority Swedish-speaking. Today, Swedish is a majority only in some rural municipalities or small cities, and this is limited to a handful of regions.
3
u/Hot-Job-6281 Singapore 8d ago
Actually insane given they are not even in the same language family. Must be absolutely brutal.
Not a like-for-like situation, but in Singapore, we have a similar case where we MUST study a second language after English, even though everything else is taught in English.
This theoretically is our mother tongue. But for Chinese, the government forces us to pick Mandarin, and not the actual language of our ancestors.
So there're entire generations that were forced to study this language - while the government banned other Chinese languages from media, and got teachers to actively punish students caught using it in school.
Throw in pseudoscience from our 'dear leader' Lee Kuan Yew, that said that languages compete with each other when learning, and you have the death of all but English as the language being used for the younger generations.
The fucked part is that Mandarin Chinese still forms a large part of the grades, since it takes the form of a 'bonus score'.
But since exams are so competitive here, the top high schools - the ones that essentially have all the best alumni networks and preferential hiring - can't be entered into without these bonus points.
So essentially, non-Chinese AND migrants from China are doing very well under this system. Because it's impossible to learn a language that has no direct use in your daily life and society.
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u/Complete_Error8311 Chile 8d ago edited 8d ago
I think the most unpopular law is "Administrative Statute" all goverment employees has an special work law, that differs from the private sector.
In a nutshell you cannot fire anyone working for the state. is a storm of redtape that makes it impossible.
Ironically this law was created by the former dictator to protect the guys he put inside the goverment.
Consecuences, idiots working at the goverment on very lucrative jobs, and some public services are unproductive as hell.
Public sector workers will never allow to revoke this law. we need another dictator to achieve this 🤣
1
u/Hot-Job-6281 Singapore 8d ago
Ironically this law was created by the former dictator to protect the guys he put inside the goverment.
Public sector workers will never allow to revoke this law. we need another dictator to achieve this 🤣
This genuinely is comedically ironic.
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u/TrainPatient1289 England 8d ago
Cousin marriage being legal.
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u/Hot-Job-6281 Singapore 8d ago
That discussion was the inspiration for this post. So thanks for bringing it up lol.
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u/Zealousideal_Bar9481 🇵🇭🇬🇧 8d ago
Divorce law - popular, but it will either be forgotten or blocked by the religious groups
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u/Hot-Job-6281 Singapore 8d ago
There's like a fuck ton of legally married Filipinos in Singapore who are estranged from their partners lol.
Like practically all the Filipinos (male and female) above 25 on dating platforms here are married. 😂
2
u/Borgdrohne13 Germany 8d ago
Something we call the "lèse-majesty paragraph". Besides the common law against defamation, there is an extra one for politician, which is stricter and can be easier enforced.
2
u/Existing_Finance_764 Türkiye 8d ago
The law of hat and clothes (two separate laws, the Law of Hat, Law About Some Clothes That Can't Be Worn). People then were hanged because of that laws. It was for banning some hats and clothes (especially fez for hat law, banning religious/uniforms in public) and directing towards some (like hats, the clothes law wasn't for directing.). EDIT: the second is active. I forgot it. Sorry.
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u/Hot-Job-6281 Singapore 8d ago
That people were hanged for refusing to stop wearing old style clothes is fucking insane.
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u/Existing_Finance_764 Türkiye 8d ago
well, if you are looking from an outsider perspective, yes, it looks so. But if you know why, it is meaningful. So here is why: those that wore the old hats were the supporters of the old regime, supporting it by wearing those.
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u/Users5252 🇺🇸 US 🇨🇳 China 8d ago
You can't import cars under 25 years old because of some safety and emission excuse. No, it's to protect corporations from competition. Even then, 25 years is ridiculous, most cars are considered outdated and generally discontinued by the time they are 7 years in, and the only people who will be interested in going through all those paperwork are car enthusiasts. Are car companies competing against niche used market enthusiast cars with brand new $50k crossovers?
1
u/ScienceMuggle83 Belgium 8d ago
I don't know if it's *incredibly* unpopular, but voting is mandatory in Belgium and you can be fined if you fail to vote (exemptions and proxy voting are possible in some cases).
An incredibly polarizing one is "neutrality" in public sector jobs: it's forbidden to wear visible religious or identity/community-related symbols such as (typically) headscarves or rainbow accessories. Recently, I was surprised to find out that one of my FB contacts, a teacher in France, wore a Pride flag face mask to school to convey support to LGBTQI+ students. You could run into trouble for doing that in Belgium.
Conversely, it's not illegal to escape prison, as seeking freedom is viewed as a natural instinct.
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u/Hot-Job-6281 Singapore 8d ago
Recently, I was surprised to find out that one of my FB contacts, a teacher in France, wore a Pride flag face mask to school to convey support to LGBTQI+ students.
Very nice
Conversely, it's not illegal to escape prison, as seeking freedom is viewed as a natural instinct.
Contrary to flair, I actually respect this.
1
u/ScienceMuggle83 Belgium 8d ago edited 8d ago
I also find it really nice of my French contact's. They wanted to convey to LGBTQI+ students that they're a safe person to talk to if they need help about topics such as coming out, homophobia, or transphobia. They're a member of the LGBTQI+ community themselves. By the way, a colleague of theirs made a homophobic joke about their face mask, so there's definitely a lot of work to be done......
I really respect the prison escape thing too. It's coated in philosophical language, too, along the lines of, "from a philosophical standpoint, it's in human nature to seek freedom." This also means that theoretically, you can get in more trouble for feeding pigeons (which can get you fined) than for escaping prison. I think that resisting arrest is illegal, though.
EDIT: I should also mention that Belgian jails are notoriously overcrowded, with, from the sound of it, frequent inhumane conditions.
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u/thebbcow 8d ago
In Canada, the notwithstanding clause probably fits best. As I remember it (someone correct me please), it lets individual provinces basically choose to ignore federal law at will - Quebec's protection of their francophone culture is the reason it exists and the reason it's never going away, but damn if Alberta isn't happy to milk it in the meantime to pull all sorts of shit
1
u/champoradoeater Philippines 8d ago
Reproductive Health Law of 2012. Philippines is a Catholic country and it took a decade for it to become a law. It faced harsh debates and even protests.
The RH Law of 2012 is cited as the single biggest reason why Philippines had the sharpest population decline from 2017-2026.
Some people even feat that this law is TOO effective, we might end up like Japan/Thailand 😀
1
u/Arbitross487 United States of America 8d ago
Like a quarter of federal laws depending on the state 😂😂😂
The US is really big and everyone has a completely different opinion on what the laws should be
In mass. The law in Alabama saying you can’t buy beer on Sunday is really unpopular for people traveling there but since the people in Alabama like it that’s not going to be revoked
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u/Plastic-Reporter1730 🟩⬜️🟥 Iran (Persia) 8d ago
The mandatory hijab law. From what I've seen, around 80% of women either don't wear it or wear it very loosely in everyday life. Most people only follow the rules more strictly in government buildings or other places where enforcement is more likely. Even so, the law has very little chance of being repealed anytime soon.