15 Judgment No. CCZ 2/18 Constitutional Application No. CCZ 86/15 unlawful conduct. It attached an important new legal burden in the nature of the financial obligation on employers who terminated employees’ contracts on notice to pay them the minimum retrenchment package based on length of service as compensation for loss of employment. The obligation had not formed part of the existing law. Under the existing law at the time the contracts of employment were terminated on notice, the employers were at liberty not to pay “terminated” employees compensation for loss of employment. They had the right to do as they pleased without committing a legal wrong. The Legislature spoke clearly in retrospectively imposing through the transitional provision the financial obligation on employers who terminated employees’ contracts on notice on or after 17 July 2015. The retrospective effect of the statute was the imposition of a new financial obligation and ipso facto creation of rights which did not exist at the time the employees’ contracts were terminated on notice at the initiative of the employers. The transitional provision is an example of a retrospective civil legislation that confers new legal consequences on acts that occurred before its enactment without depriving persons of vested rights acquired under existing laws. PRESUMPTION AGAINST RETROSPECTIVITY There is a principle of construction of statutes which has been adhered to with great strictness by the courts in deciding whether a statute is or is not retrospective in effect. It is to the effect that laws by which human action is to be regulated look forward not backwards. The Legislature should be presumed to intend its legislation to operate prospectively. It is an aspect of