NationStates Jolt Archive

Category: Human Rights


Strength: Significant


Description: The WA, in consideration of the insecurity that retrospective law creates for every Nation´s citizens hereby declares:

I) That no nation shall, in any way, judge or condemn anybody for an action that was not specifically prohibited by the law when the events occurred. This means that only the actions that are forbidden by written (and published) law may be considered punishable. New laws will not have a retrospective effect, except for those cases when they are beneficial for citizens in trial and/or those who have been already condemned.

II) Each WA member Nation agrees to transcript all their normative into public accessible books, brochures and/or newspapers. The member Nations also agree to create a government newspaper where all new normative shall be published. The publicity of any law will be required for it to come into force.

III) A citizen in trial may not claim ignorance of the law when the law he has broken had already been published in the government´s newspaper before the events occurred.



The Republic of Youteria has submitted this proposal to the World Assembly. We would appreciate an objective discussion of it.

Quintos Tulius Cicero, Vice-Chancellor, University of Youteria

The Confederacy of Greenstripes fully supports this measure

We have supported it, though we restate our doubts about 'the government's newspaper', given this function may not exist for all nations.

-- Samantha Benson

We'd like to see references to "normatives" stripped from Article II, as we're not sure what a "normative" is and are fairly certain others will share this confusion.

~ Altierra

Normative: of, relating to, or based on norms.
Norm:A standard of achievement or behavior that is required, desired, or designated as normal.

I took that from an on line dictionary. With normative I meant the set of government rules that exist in each nation. I believe I made a mistake while translating from Spanish to English, because we use "norm" as a synonym for rule (law).
About the Newspaper, the Proposal actually enforces each Nation to create one, should it not exist: "The member Nations also agree to create a government newspaper where all new normative shall be published".

I think, but I'm not sure, that clause I manages to sink itself with the get-out for anything you can argue is beneficial. I'm certainly not going to be recommending our delegate to approve this, not that he often does approve stuff anyway.

--
Cerys Coch, Permanent Undersecretary

At this time, I am reserving judgment on this proposal. I am particularly curious as to how the language of the first operative clause would affect those nations operating under common law systems (as opposed to civil law systems).

Erskine Chauncey
WA Representative, Cartographic Boxes

Crossing categories. Creating a "government newspaper" is hardly "Human Rights".

Category: Human Rights


Strength: Significant


Description: The WA, in consideration of the insecurity that retrospective law creates for every Nation´s citizens hereby declares:

I) That no nation shall, in any way, judge or condemn anybody for an action that was not specifically prohibited by the law when the events occurred. This means that only the actions that are forbidden by written (and published) law may be considered punishable. New laws will not have a retrospective effect, except for those cases when they are beneficial for citizens in trial and/or those who have been already condemned.

II) Each WA member Nation agrees to transcript all their normative into public accessible books, brochures and/or newspapers. The member Nations also agree to create a government newspaper where all new normative shall be published. The publicity of any law will be required for it to come into force.

III) A citizen in trial may not claim ignorance of the law when the law he has broken had already been published in the government´s newspaper before the events occurred.


I like the idea behind clauses I and II, but I do not agree with clause III. Laws are complex and being ignorant does not translate into being innocent. (Also non citizens can be tried as well, afterall, they can break the laws.)

I like the idea behind clauses I and II, but I do not agree with clause III. Laws are complex and being ignorant does not translate into being innocent. (Also non citizens can be tried as well, afterall, they can break the laws.)

I don´t think you understand what it means. It just means that nobody may claim innocence based on the ignorance of the law. You are right about the citizen part, though. But I believe that the regulation on foreigners and or underage children should be done separately.

The newspaper part is not the objective of the proposal, but a way to give the people the right to know what the laws in their country are. The part of using what is beneficial in advantage is just a way to soften the punitive system, which is the "ultima ratio" (last resource) of the law system. I believe this could also work with Common Law systems. You should just include the precedents as a part of the law, and publish them too in the government´s newspaper. The only difference would be that with a Common Law system, the law (original law+precedent/jurisdictional interpretation) would change faster.

You're right, and I completely missed that addition to the draft; my apologies.

How about simply requiring that all laws be published promulgated, including all statutes being made available on request? It's reasonable to assume knowledge of the law without a specific government publication devoted to it.

-- Samantha Benson