War Crimes Prosecution Act of 2020
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War Crimes Prosecution Act of 2020
Preamble: An act to provide procedures, definitions, and powers to the EU Council and the Court of Justice in dealing with serious crimes that may affect of the European Union.
Section 1: Definition
- War Crime: Acts that violate the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility which range from intentionally killing civilians/prisoners, taking hostages, raping, using child soldiers, and intentionally destroying civilian property
- Crimes Against Humanity: certain acts that are purposely committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian or an identifiable part of a civilian population
- Genocide: The Act or acts of trying to eliminate a group of people with regards to culture, gender, sexual orientation, religion, race, and/or political beliefs.
- Suspect/Accused: The individual or individuals that have been accused of committing or supporting a crime
- Prosecutor: Person or persons, especially a public official, appointed by the EU Council who institutes legal proceedings against someone that is accused of a crime through the court of law.
- Plea Deal: A agreement between the Prosecutor and the Accused or an individual of the Accused to plea guilty to a particular charge in return for some legal concession in the trial from the Prosecutor.
Section 2: Evidence needed for a War Crime
- Testimony, video recording, pictures, and other means of documenting incidents or events of where people are being ruthless massacred, murdered, hunted, or killed in a way that destroys a people hated by another group of individuals.
- The European Court of Justice has the right to request the need of any other evidence to be presented.
Section 3: Charging a Person with War Crimes and other High Crimes
- The European Court of Justice may issue a warrant of arrest after reviewing the initial evidence and determining that there is a strong probability that this individual or individuals is guilty of the crime listed in section 4, clause 4.
- All nations within the European Union must comply with the warrants for the arrest of the individual and work with the European Court of Justice to deliver the suspect to the Europolis Jail to have their trial.
Section 4: The Power of the European Court of Justice in this Act
- The Judges of the European Court of Justice shall act as the grand jury of the case and listen to both sides of the case or cases.
- The European Court of Justice shall ensure that both the Defendant or Defendants and Prosecutor shall have an equal chance to present their evidence to the case
- The European Court of Justice shall allow the Defendant to have their own evidence and witness to be presented to the court.
- The list of crimes that the European Court of Justice may charge an individual or individuals include: War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, and Genocide.
Section 5: The Prosecutors of the Court
- The EU Council may appoint an individual to represent as the prosecutor against the Accused through a simple majority.
- The Prosecutor shall use evidence, witnesses, and testimony to prove the crime, but must do so through legal ethics that the Court of Justice or other acts of legislation through the EU Council establish.
- The Prosecutor make a Plea Deal to the Accused for a plea of Guilty to the Crime, where the Plea Deal gains the individual or individuals of the Plea Deal a lower sentence or less minimum sentence. In addition, the Prosecutor may use the power of Plea Deal to have one Accused testify against another Accused.
Section 6: Punishment, if Convicted Guilty
- If a person is convicted guilty of general War Crimes the maximum punishment shall be issued 5 to 25 years in prison for each count.
- If a person is convicted of Crimes Against Humanity, the maximum punishment shall be 10 to Life in prison for each count.
- If a person is convicted of Genocide, the maximum punishment shall be 25 to Life for each count in prison without parole.
Section 7: Rights of the Accused
- The rights of the accused shall be same as given as anyone within the Court of Justice.
- A Lawyer may be provided, especially if the Accused cannot afford one, to the Accused to defend themselves
- The lawyer provided shall legally help the Accused to prove their innocence, with no actions of corruption, graft, tampering of evidence, or any other manner of attempting to obstruct justice.
- If there are multiple accused in the same trial, then each member of the accused may be allowed to have their own lawyer.
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Debate on this starts NOW and will last until 06:00 GMT on August 5th, 2020.
I actually really like the premise of this act, and would love to see something on this subject passed. However, there are definitely a great deal of amendments that would have to be made to make this workable.
For starters, many of the crimes defined in Section 1 aren't actually crimes recognized by the European Union. We would definitely need to add an entire section dedicated to outlawing these acts. In my opinion, this is actually what most of this Act ought to be.
Secondly, the EU doesn't have a Europolis Jail. I'm sure the Free City of Europolis has their own jail, but it isn't under our jurisdiction. Besides, I think that it would be better if member states were responsible for locking up their own criminals. I know the worry would be that member states might release indicted criminals, but if we trust member states enough to arrest these criminals in the first place, and deliver them to Europolis, then we we could reasonably trust them to lock them up as well.
Thirdly, many of the clauses under Section 5 and 6, and all of Section 7 are basically unnecessary, as we have already have a section on the Rights of the Accused put forth by Section IV of the European Court of Justice Case Procedures Act. The European Court of Justice Case Procedures Act already does an excellent job guaranteeing these rights, and I'd rather not create conflicting sets of rules when it comes to these specific rights. The UDoHR also guarantees the Right to Legal Counsel.
Then there are some simple stuff that I'm unsure about. I don't think having the Council appoint prosecutors is necessary or within our jurisdiction. I feel like the appellant of the court case should be charged with choosing a prosecutor to represent them, not the Council.
I'm going to continue mulling over this act, but these are just my initial observations and thoughts. My personal recommendation would be that this Act should be amended to focus more on detailing and then outlawing the specific crimes we want to criminalized, rather than focusing on how these cases ought to be tried and presented, because we already have a lot of legislation and rules established on the latter.
Edward FIroux
Council Speaker and Councillor for Inquista -
I feel as if though this debate hasn't yet gotten the attention it deserves. I shall be extending the debate period for 2 more days. Debate shall be extended until 06:30 GMT on August 7th, 2020.
Edward Firoux
Council Speaker and Councillor for Inquista -
I support the idea of this act but I agree to Mr. Speaker that there should be amendments. I agree that the rules for detention has to be changed to something better such as in my opinion maybe detention in other regions or maybe indefinite exile. All in all, I'd like to see the opinions of our other colleagues.
Friedrich van Allen
Councilor, Kingdom of Reitzmag -
"War crimes? Prosecution? Ew, no, no, ew ew. I don't -- no, I don't mind how. We can't have this on our plates right now, Augustus." Sir Augustus Barrington hung up the phone and returned to the Council chamber.
"Colleagues, thank you, and thank you, too, to Cllr Plessis for this honourable proposal. As the Act stands, the Empire of Inimicus sees too many problems with its implementation and, er.. it's coverage. Speaker Firoux has aptly summarised some of the main criticism the Imperial Government has, and unless these are completely and properly addressed, I feel I must announce to colleagues the Empire cannot support the Act.
"I also have severe problems with Section 2, which is worded in a, let's say, very emotional way. What constitutes a "ruthless" massacring, and where do we draw the line between a non-ruthless and a ruthless murder? I would also submit to you that the standard of evidece required for so sever a crime as a War Crime is should be just a notch more rubost and higher than what is described in Section 2. The Empire of Inimicus would have severe issues with the implementation of this section.
"The point Cllr Firoux raised about the apparently conflicting nature of section 5, 6, and 7, all of which must in my opinion be scrapped to avoid confusion of such a catastrophic order that 25 years of people's lives depend on it. Considering that these articles must be scrapped, we are left with sections 1-4, which have problematic subsections within them and are unclear in the way the implementation works.
"So all in all, although the Imperial Government naturally has the fullest sympathy for the intentions of Cllr Plessis - Inimicus has always acted with admirable efficacy in their committing -- err, sorry, condemning, of war crimes - we cannot support this Act unless it undergoes such revisions that, really, an entirely new Act is created."
Sir Augustus Barrington
Empire of Inimicus -
I see great purposes on this act but I think, as many of our colleagues said, it needs some amendment. I personally must re-mark the constant aim to make a better European Union by Cllr. Plesis, which is the only European Councillor from the ELDR that I would actually safe from any situation. But, this needs some amendment, now or after it get passed, if it does. I will study what amendments can be done to it and submit some if possible.
Donald D. Tusk
Councillor for Spain -
No.
Pravoslaviya is opposed in principle to any form of international criminal jurisdiction. We strongly believe that war crimes, such as the carpet-bombing of East Moreland by the mass murderer Harriet Copala, should be prosecuted in the country where the offence was committed, or the home country of the accused. We want to see genocidal criminals like Copala locked up, yes, but they should be locked up by the proper national authorities; not by a European kangaroo court operating on the nonsense idea of 'universal jurisdiction'.
Not that Copala could be prosecuted under this bill anyway, because Section XI of the UDoHR would guarantee her freedom from retroactive prosecution. Although this bill would do well to reiterate that only crimes committed after its passage can be prosecuted under it. But I digress.
I agree with Cllr Barrington regarding Section II of the bill, which is poorly worded and, I would say, unnecessary - do we need a definition of 'evidence'? I also find the case procedures outlined in this bill extremely troubling to the point where they would indeed create a kangaroo court.
The role of the ECoJ in this bill is a strange mishmash of the inquisitorial system - there is no jury, and the judges both preside over the court and deliver the verdict - and the adversarial system, where the judges are expected to act as an impartial referee between two sides. This could do with cleaning up at the very least, but what I find most objectionable is the fact that the ECoJ is also tasked with bringing forward charges - that is, it is tasked in part with the role of prosecutor. Nobody would trust a verdict of guilty delivered by a court which would embarrass itself, and raise questions about its conduct in bringing the case to trial, by delivering a verdict of not guilty.
This is, quite simply, a recipe for an unfair trial, made all the worse by the fact that there is literally no appellate jurisdiction. There is, I suppose, the ability to argue that the ECoJ's conduct in the trial was a contravention of the Constitution, probably under Section X of the UDoHR, but that would involve bringing the ECoJ before the ECoJ.
As Cllr Firoux has noted, the decision to get the European Council to appoint the prosecuting lawyer is strange and open to abuse, although I suppose we should be thankful that it isn't the ECoJ. Section VII, Clause II, however, seems to allow the ECoJ to appoint the defendant's lawyer, and doesn't provide any firm limits on when it can and cannot use that power.
These are a number of the very deep flaws in this bill, flaws which I hope will convince councillors who are sympathetic to the aims of the bill to vote against it. But I shan't focus any more on them, since, as I said, it is the principle of this legislation that Pravoslaviya stands against.
Cllr Tupac Shakur
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Mr Speaker, I would like to withdraw my proposal so that i can make some improvements that were suggested by my fellow councilors.
Francis Plessis
EU Councilor for Leagio -
As per the request of the author, this proposal has been withdrawn.
Edward Firoux
Council Speaker and Councillor for Inquista
The Kingdom of Spain