Alan Turing Granted Royal Pardon

About time too!

Notice that it's a Royal pardon rather than one from our government, who constantly rejected the idea on the grounds that what he did was illegal back then.

Next up. A memorial to Tommy Flowers please? He's barely remembered and is the guy that Turing went to for help and designed the Colossus. The first programmable computer.
 
Flibster said:
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Notice that it's a Royal pardon rather than one from our government, who constantly rejected the idea on the grounds that what he did was illegal back then.
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it is from the govt - from the article itself, see the bold bit....

The pardon was granted under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy after a request by Justice Minister Chris Grayling.
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also...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon#United_Kingdom
The power to grant pardons and reprieves in the United Kingdom is known as the Royal prerogative of mercy. It was traditionally in the absolute power of the monarch to pardon an individual for a crime, whether or not he had been convicted, and thereby commute any penalty; the power was then delegated both to the judiciary and the Sovereign's ministers. Since the creation of legal rights of appeal, the Royal prerogative of mercy is no longer exercised by the person of the sovereign, or by the judiciary, but only by the government.
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While i agree with a pardon on the face of it and deserved according to current law and society, his crime was not of this age. People today have no right to pardon any such thing. Yes, he has now been pardoned but what about thousands of others from his time (think army deserters?) Who might be eligible for a pardon in 100 years time who did something wrong today? What was done to him was right in his time, just as muslim terrorism or eating too much pie is wrong in this time. Pardons do not make any sense post death unless you want to make a political point. He doesn't know he was pardoned and saying you are right to do it today is only as good as saying you will be wrong when the society views change again tomorrow. Pardoning him and ignoring everyone else who was in a similar situation just ignores their struggles and deaths.

Either everybody counts or nobody counts.
Don't be selective based on modern day celebrity (no matter how earned).
 
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Gothic Draconia said:
While i agree with a pardon on the face of it and deserved according to current law and society, his crime was not of this age. People today have no right to pardon any such thing. Yes, he has now been pardoned but what about thousands of others from his time (think army deserters?) Who might be eligible for a pardon in 100 years time who did something wrong today? What was done to him was right in his time, just as muslim terrorism or eating too much pie is wrong in this time. Pardons do not make any sense post death unless you want to make a political point. He doesn't know he was pardoned and saying you are right to do it today is only as good as saying you will be wrong when the society views change again tomorrow.
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I do see what you're saying, although I'm not sure many will agree that what was done to him was even "right in his time". Some official apologies are mere posturing and are given so late as to be worthless. And I agree that many wronged people never get them at all. Perhaps the particular focus with someone like Turing is that people now acknowledge that he was a genius who achieved much and probably would have given more, but rather than being honoured he was treated appallingly by the very state he had helped and ended up in an untimely grave.
 
pardon for being born with certain chromosomes, what?! maybe he was straight but just wanted to break the law? pardon wtfff?

VC. GC and a KBE and an Apology for and all.
 
About bloody time.

I want to thank the bigots that killed him and probably held back computing for 20-30 years. Cheers.
 
Long overdue but very welcome. It's a national disgrace the way he was treated and that he was chemically castrated for the ' crime ' of homosexuality.

His contribution to code breaking saved countless lives and people should be grateful he was here when he was.
 
It's like a guy just said on the news, it's funny that it's not a general pardon. He sceptically added that is maybe because there are people still alive that were wronged this way. So if the pardon was general then there would be a lot of people able to claim compensation ;)

Controversially, like John Major said, I'm sympathetic towards gay rights, but alas those were the laws at the time and he broke them, so I am unsympathetic of the pardon in a way? What else could be pardoned in the future? Where do you draw a line?

Said that, this pardon is understandable given who the subject is. Well deserved.
 
Personally I don't see a problem with the idea issuing a general pardon for all historic victims of unjust laws. It's symbolic of cultural maturity & progress, an apology to the people for atrocities committed against them & hopefully a stern reminder for the future to never repeat it again.

I'm glad it's been done, but I can find any practical reason why the concept shouldn't be extended to others (it's not like they have to really do anything). It's a token way of the government as an institution to admit fallibility & for society to promote deeper thought on moral issues to ensue we keep our justice system on track.
 
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