Some virtue jurisprudence accounts envisage promoting virtue as legislation's primary goal [Solum 2018: 6-18]. This view must presuppose a virtuous or otherwise non-malevolent and prudent government or legislative authority. However, what if the regime lacks particular virtues, involves itself in a malicious ideology, or pursues vicious legislative ends? The nonliberal governments have often instrumentalised the law through the systematic use of various legislative and interpretative "legal cheating" techniques, such as circumvention, circularity, denial of facts, and denial of jurisdiction [Sajó 2021] – all of which undermine public morality. Polluting the law with malevolent legislative intent, poor legal drafting standards, and abusing general legislation to corrupt or embitter targeted groups of citizens are all imaginable examples of"malicious legislation". Such a concept describes a state of law in which public and private vice is being affirmed and rising. Vicious law-making and legal cheating may induce and promote character vices in public officials, judges, lawyers, and the larger society to the point that civic vices rather than virtues are bred and cultivated. Lawmaking with malicious intent involves acting out of vices (such as greed, intemperance, arrogance, recklessness, and cowardice). Arrogance or greed may serve as examples of vices induced by populist regimes in their proponents, resulting in, for instance, procuring incidental legislation to obtain public offices based on partisan or ideological loyalty. Ordinary citizens may also develop vices by opportunistically using malicious or otherwise extreme laws to their private evil ends, as depicted in Lon L. Fuller's [1969: 245-253] imagined scenario of "The Problem of the Grudge Informer".
Dominating approaches in legal philosophy have discussed the problem of the morality of law from the perspective of duty-based or consequences-based interpretation of moral and legal rules. In contrast, this Special Workshop proposes to adopt the approach based on the morality of aspiration towards the problems of good law. It will do so by employing the reverse side of the aretaic approach; the focus is set on the relationship between poor law and character vices. It will seek to explore whether malevolent legislation tends to "infect" law by acting on and out of character vices and what may be the normative consequences of distinguishing malicious law-inducing civic vices. What are the characteristics of malicious law? Should it be considered valid and binding under any circumstances? Perhaps such a concept is a contradiction and cannot be conceived as law at all? Is it merely an epiphenomenon or a systemic property of legal systems? If there exist civic virtues, is it imaginable that "public vices" could develop in a society due to poor laws? Does the character of lawmakers and political leaders matter for how the law is legislated, interpreted, observed, and acted upon? What is the relationship between public (civic) and private character virtues and vices? Can instances of malicious law be seen as an early sign of the rule of law backsliding? The contributions may also investigate how the idea of vicious and virtuous legislation illuminates the problems of the morality of law, such as dealing with statutory lawlessness from the aretaic (virtue-oriented) perspective, the issue of disobedience towards unjust law or difficulties of reckoning with the past vicious laws of a fallen regime.

Fuller L. L. (1969), Morality of Law. Revised edition. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Sajó, A. (2021). Ruling by Cheating. Governance in Illiberal Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Solum L. B. (2018). Virtue as an end of law: an aretaic theory of legislation. Jurisprudence 9(1), 6-18.