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Crime and prevention thereof. Loopholes, grey areas and the letter of the law.
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User avatar
By Ter
#14981238
It has come to my attention that court cases at the ICC often last ten years and then the accused is acquitted.

Just now the previous President of Ivory Coast got acquitted by the court after nine years in jail;
The man is 73 years old at present.
The prosecution requested that he remain in custody pending further appeals.
How long will that man survive in view of his age and why is he still in prison now?

Something is wrong with that system, people live only up to a certain age and the length of the trial is a punishment in itself.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... ute-appeal
User avatar
By Hindsite
#14981263
Yes, it appears to be flawed. However, I don't know of any man-made system that isn't somewhat flawed, because they are created and executed by flawed humans.
User avatar
By Suntzu
#14981267
Ter wrote:It has come to my attention that court cases at the ICC often last ten years and then the accused is acquitted.

Just now the previous President of Ivory Coast got acquitted by the court after nine years in jail;
The man is 73 years old at present.
The prosecution requested that he remain in custody pending further appeals.
How long will that man survive in view of his age and why is he still in prison now?

Something is wrong with that system, people live only up to a certain age and the length of the trial is a punishment in itself.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... ute-appeal


His trial was delayed by his defense team. He is only responsible for a few thousand deaths for refusing to accept the outcome of an election, no big deal.
User avatar
By Ter
#14981268
Suntzu wrote:
His trial was delayed by his defense team. He is only responsible for a few thousand deaths for refusing to accept the outcome of an election, no big deal.
I am aware of that but the court found the case for the prosecution weak and acquitted the former President.
Something is not right with the system.
#14981322
Ter wrote:I am aware of that but the court found the case for the prosecution weak and acquitted the former President.
Something is not right with the system.


ICC cases are very problematic to prosecute at its core. Unless you have clear orders on paper/witnesses that can link the head of state to the killings or you are doing the holocaust scale level killing then you are usually in the safe zone of sorts where nobody will be able to prove anything.

So if we take Putin as an example. Did he do horrible things? Well, yes. Did people die because of his orders? Again, yes. But will the ICC ever prosecute him in the any meaningful way? Probably no because you will never be able to prove that Putin directly ordered to shoot down the plane, it was just a consequence of his other decisions of providing military support for the pro-Russian rebels.

Same is the thing with Crimea. He did occupy it against international law but there is also a counter argument that 1991 treaties were unfair and that occupation in general was supported by the people of Crimea etc.
By ccdan
#15015831
Ter wrote:Something is wrong with that system, people live only up to a certain age and the length of the trial is a punishment in itself.

Quite a bit more than "something" is wrong with most(if not all) legislative, judicial systems all over the world. In the US for example, nearly everything is wrong.

In this particular case, the problem is with pre-trial/during trial "detention" which is a very widespread problem all over the world.
Such detention should be:
1. reserved for individuals against which there is objectively verifiable information that they represent a physical threat to the public(former acts of physical violence, association with criminal or paramilitary organisations that carried out acts of physical violence against their "associates" etc.)
2. clearly limited without possibility of extension(eg. 30 days)

Complex cases should not even go to trial(not to speak of arrests) until solid, objectively verifiable evidence is in the hands of authorities.

Also, fear that suspects will flee or seek to alter evidence/influence witnesses should absolutely never be an argument for detention! (anyone tempted to contradict me is completely clueless about the notion of justice and what it entails)

But extreme human stupidity prevails for now and such abuses will continue for the foreseeable future... unless some benevolent dictator gets a lot of power takes hold of the issue worldwide!

Hindsite wrote:Yes, it appears to be flawed. However, I don't know of any man-made system that isn't somewhat flawed, because they are created and executed by flawed humans.

It doesn't just "appear" to be flawed, it's certainly extremely flawed.

Human imperfection is not an excuse for grossly abusive legislation!

Suntzu wrote:His trial was delayed by his defense team. He is only responsible for a few thousand deaths for refusing to accept the outcome of an election, no big deal.

Completely irrelevant who delayed his trial.

Would you care to present the evidence which shows to us that he ordered the killing of innocent people?

JohnRawls wrote:So if we take Putin as an example. Did he do horrible things? Well, yes. Did people die because of his orders? Again, yes. But will the ICC ever prosecute him in the any meaningful way? Probably no because you will never be able to prove that Putin directly ordered to shoot down the plane, it was just a consequence of his other decisions of providing military support for the pro-Russian rebels.

Same is the thing with Crimea. He did occupy it against international law but there is also a counter argument that 1991 treaties were unfair and that occupation in general was supported by the people of Crimea etc.

Putin? Those "Well, yes" and "Agains, yes" are based on exactly what? What do we know about Putin? At the very least we know that he acted on his turf or his former turf. Evidence of criminal decisions that resulted directly in significant loss of life: ZERO!

On the other hand, what do we know about the US and its cronies in Europe and elsewhere? Miilitary invasions of independent countries at thousands of km/miles from their borders without UN mandates and without any concrete, verifiable evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the invaded countries, lot's of other military interventions and support for various "insurgents" in other countries, simply because they dislike some leaders or some other situation in the area.

Guess who's afraid of the ICC? Putin&Russia? NO! It's the US and its "higher echelons" threatening the ICC:

US Threatens International Criminal Court
Visa Bans on ICC Staff
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/03/15/us- ... inal-court

Now, the misfortune of that president pales in comparison with some abuses that happen in the US!

We live in world where the average individual is far too stupid to understand what's going on and what's wrong with this world!

This past July, when a Philadelphia lawyer named H. Beatty Chadwick walked out of a Pennsylvania jail after serving 14 years for civil contempt — the longest such sentence in American legal history

Of course, the question arises why the court didn't figure this out after, say, two years. Or five. Or 10. In fact, none of the stories after Chadwick got out of jail (The Wall Street Journal did one while he was still incarcerated) asked the most salient questions of all: Why did something like this happen? And how could this happen? How could an American citizen spend 14 years in jail without being charged with a crime or undergoing a jury trial?

https://psmag.com/news/a-most-uncivil-contempt-3464


New York top court clears man held six years at Rikers Island without trial
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-new- ... SKCN1FZ2YZ

People are too stupid and too superficial to understand that such examples are extreme abuses on the part of the state - part of a much larger set of abuses(absurdly high sentences, convictions without evidence, judicial errors, abuses on the part of prosecutors/police/judges that fabricate or supress evidence, criminalization of legitimate or trivial deeds etc.) and that they're not rare at all.
User avatar
By AFAIK
#15015836
ccdan wrote:Also, fear that suspects will flee or seek to alter evidence/influence witnesses should absolutely never be an argument for detention! (anyone tempted to contradict me is completely clueless about the notion of justice and what it entails)

Could you expand on that?

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