⇒ The principle of legality is the legal ideal that requires all law to be clear.

⇒ It requires decision makers to resolve disputes by applying legal rules that have been declared beforehand, and not to alter the legal situation retrospectively by discretionary departures from established law

⇒ In criminal law it means the court should not punish people for acts or omissions that were not criminal at the time those acts or omissions took place. The principle is also thought to be violated when the punishment for a particular crime is increased with retrospective effect.

⇒ It requires the law be capable of being obeyed. If laws were kept secret that would clearly infringe the legality principle.

⇒ It requires the law be readily available to the public. If a law was made prohibiting your heart to beat in public that would clearly infringe the legality principle.

⇒ The principle of responsibility is the principle that one should only be found guilty of crimes they are responsible for. For example, if you were to have a seizure and committed a crime as a result of that seizure, the principle may be infringed if you were punished for it.

⇒ The principle of minimal criminalization articulates that only serious offences which are adverse to society should be criminalised, but not trivial ones.

⇒ If every tiny offence was criminalised we would left with heavily over-crowded prisons.

⇒ The proportionality principle means punishment for a given crime should be roughly proportional to that crime’s seriousness. It would be an outrage if, for instance, the punishment for rape was the same as the punishment for speeding.

⇒ The fair labelling principle requires that the description of the offence should match the wrong done (Chalmers and Leverick). For example, if the defendant kills someone through negligence, ‘murder’ would not be a fair label to attach to what the defendant did.