The law may sometimes save an ass

The Law will be back in 2012. Judge Dredd, the policeman-judge-jury-executioner played by an irony-free Sylvester Stallone in the 1995 film version of the British comic series, will return to cinema screens in September in a reboot produced by Danny Boyle’s company. Thugs and criminals of the post-apocalyptic Mega City One will once again cower in fear.

Honest citizens in the real world should watch out too. As new legislation takes effect in 2012 in countries around the world, ignorance of the law will be no excuse.

Animal-lovers will have cause to rejoice in many parts of the world. Californian geese (and indeed humans) will enjoy healthier lives once a ban on the production and sale of foie gras comes into force in July. Bulls in the Spanish region of Catalonia will gladly retire to the pasture in January, when bullfighting becomes illegal. And chickens across Europe will breathe more easily after the implementation of an EU directive banning traditional battery cages for egg-producing hens. Lovers of animals in Sweden will have less reason to celebrate. A bill passing through parliament will almost certainly outlaw bestiality, 68 years after it was decriminalised as part of legislation permitting homosexual activity.

Smokers will find themselves welcome in ever fewer places. A ban on lighting up in all public places will come into effect in Hungary on January 1st. Luxembourg will by then have prohibited smoking in bars and clubs. And Bulgaria, which found it hard to enforce a partial ban, hopes to achieve a complete prohibition on smoking in enclosed spaces by mid-2012. Countries with bans already in place will tighten restrictions. Large retailers in England will have to keep tobacco products out of sight (small shops will follow in 2015), all cigarettes in Australia will be sold in “drab dark brown” packaging, and Russia hopes to ban tobacco advertising. Meanwhile, the Dutch will prohibit tourists from buying marijuana in their famous coffee shops.

The party-poopers will be everywhere. Party-promoters in Belfast will be punished for advertising their events with fly-posters once the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act (Northern Ireland) comes fully into force in April. In San Francisco, McDonald’s will be unable to give children toys with their Happy Meals unless the contents are under 600 calories and contain less than 640mg of sodium. (McDonald’s will roll out the lower-calorie meal across America by March.) The International Basketball Federation will extend its three-point rule from its flagship tournaments to universal use, making it harder to score a three-point goal from October, when the line moves half a metre farther away from the basket.

Of all the restrictions, bans and prohibitions due in 2012, the one limiting what the British government can do to residents of England and Wales is worth looking forward to the most. The Protection of Freedoms Bill will shrivel DNA databases, regulate CCTV, extend freedom-of-information access, halve the amount of time terrorism suspects can be held without charge and scale back the sprawling Criminal Records Bureau background check. Already going through Parliament, the bill should become law in 2012. It is a set of restrictions the rest of the world would do well to emulate. 

Leo Mirani: editorial assistant, The World in 2012