Treason

[mfewell]

There is now talk of prosecuting extremists for treason. BBC 6 o'clock news. Very serious heady stuff, any thoughts ? Treason used to be a capital crime until relatively recently (acw?)

[Oneeyedvic]

Hardly 'news' - Ann Widecombe called for British Muslims joining the Taliban to be charged with Treason in 2001.

http://www.news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/10/31/nmus131.xml

 

Personally, I see absolutely nothing wrong with charging them with treason.

Not sure when in happened (guess when Human Rights Act was introduced) but there are no capital crimes in this country.

[MargeB]

I don't think capital punishment is harsh enough for them. The punishment should fit the crime: set Widdecombe on 'em.

[acw]

Do you want my views on the matter (not gonna happen, sorry! After last week, I am mute on the subjects race, religion and terrorism), or on facts of capital punishment?  I believe the last man was hanged in the 1960s in this country.  So it depends what you mean by "relatively recently".  However, I hated studying crim as I've always felt my calling to be in commercial law, and anyway we tended to up-to-date relevant stuff and I never did a history of crime module. 

I'm sure the end of capital punishment is general knowledge for lots of proper grown ups, but I was born in 1983 and therein lies my excuse! :-)

[acw]

If this crosses with anyone, I'm sorry.

Google tells me that we abolished the death penalty in 1965.  However, it was still an option for a few Military Crimes (which may of course be classed as treason) but Oneeyedvic is right - these last offences went out with the HRA 1998. 

[MargeB]

HRA? What's that got to do with the UK? (sorry, had to get that in :-))

[acw]

Huh, I don't get that MargeB, please explain! :-( *blushes*

[MargeB]

There have been and soon again will be articles in the Human Rights Act which block the attempted actions of the UK government, especially when dealing with terrorists, e.g. trying to extradite them to 'dodgy' countries. The High Court has ruled various moves illegal under the Human Rights Act.

This time round, Blair has said he is aware that the HRA may be used to attempt to block him in his wishes, so he has preemptively stated that he will seek to revise UK Human Rights legislation to work around it.

ps. I can tell u a huge number of secrets about a buddy who is a Linklaters partner, but that would be rude. :-)

[acw]

Well, I'm sure your buddy is lovely, but I'm not a big Linklaters fan anyway!

Yeah, and the problem with HRA is that we can't repeal it because of the ECHR.  Ah well, it was all done in good faith at the time. 

Faith - now there's a can of worms!!

[jno]

Treason seems like a reasonable description of what some preachers are supposedly saying (I haven't heard any so can't vouch for it personally). But it needs to be  tightly defined or it could easily become a catch-all offence including anything the government doesn't like. Could it be treason, for instance, to call for UK troops to be pulled out of Iraq? Such calls could demoralise the troops while giving comfort to armed insurgents there and terrorists here - but does that make them treason? I hope not, but I don't know.

[y2kroja]

I frankly think that the government should deal decisively with terrorists and those who glamourize or encourage terrorism. I will subscribe to the fact that every means available should be explored to prevent such acts from occuring again, even if it means  'infringing' on our so called 'human rights' a bit in terms of telephone bugging and email monitoring. We must not forget that these evil criminals who claim to be religious will hide under the cloak of human rights to perpetuate their evil deeds.

While not advocating capital punishment for them (though that is what they deserve since they are mass murderers), since same has been deleted from the statute books here in the UK, I think life imprisonment in solitary confinement, where there are no 12 virgins, will sound like a good idea.

[El D]

This is a very delicate matter. What we are saying here (forgive me if slightly inaccurate) is that calling for more terrorists or encouraging or praising terrorism could be labelled as treason defined as follows

1. [n] an act of deliberate betrayal
2. [n] a crime that undermines the offender's government
3. [n] disloyalty by virtue of subversive behavior

It's all very general stuff and personally I think the goverment is trying to cash in on the wave of nationalist feelings at the moment. An act of deliberate betrayal - we sign no contract with the government, there is no consitution, the only matter this could refer to is the legal system. Is committing a crime an act of deliberate betrayal? Not unless all crimes become treason.

A crime that undermines the offender's government - the problem here is that the crime is exactly that - undermining the offender's government. There is no criminal act preceding the subversion, the govt is making the undermining itself a crime under whichever terms they decide - again dodgy ground. Would a strike by civil servants or perhaps even calls for a resignation from the cabinet be deemed as such - after all they all undermine the govt to a certain extent.

[El D]

Disloyalty by subversive behaviour - certainly the most obvious candidate. However, disloyalty to who - the monarch, Parliament, the PM? I don't know if I personally feel any loyalty to the monarch, the liars in Parliament or the PM. A subversive is defined as;

1. [n] a radical supporter of political or social revolution
2. [adj] in opposition to a civil authority or government

neither of which are illegal and neither should we want to make them illegal because todays radicalism might well be tomorrows mainstream - can we change if we lock up those seeking to change? Obviously violence cannot be tolerated but they haven't directly caused any violence, or at least cannot be proven to have.


No doubt plenty of holes in there but food for thought anyway - it's a dangerous game legislating over free speech and civil liberties and we have to be very careful that we are not scared, bullied, or dictated to in the terms of our relationship with the government.

[Andy008]

Yes - have them strung up and publicly shot.

I do not for a moment condone the IRA but at the very, very least they had a political objective in attempting to bomb their way to the negotiation table.

Al-Qaeda is about murder and nothing more. They have the nerve to want the Americans and UK out of Iraq when it is American demand for oil which may much of the Arab world extremely rich. Kill them.

[El D]

Yes I can't see that causing any problems with martyrs etc. To many people just simply fail to appreciate the human element behind these crimes.

[reportmonkey]

CRUCIFY THEM!! NAIL EM UP I SAY!!! TOO GOOD FOR EM!!

"Crucifixion? Good, line on the left, one cross each"

"Crucifixion? "

"Er No Freedom, They said I hadn't done anything and I could go and live on an island somewhere"

"Oh, well splendid, off you go th"

"Nah only joking, crucifixion really!"

"Ah I see well you know the way, line on the left, One cross each"