[GA—UP NEXT—AGAINST] Prohibition On Coerced Testimony

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Prohibition On Coerced Testimony
Category: Civil Rights | Strength: Significant
Proposed by: Lieutenant Columbo | Onsite Topic​
Recognizing the inherently adversarial relationship between police and suspect,

Determining that the immense power imbalance between the state and the individual and the violence of suspect detention as inherently vulnerable to abuse by those tasked with enforcing the law,

The World Assembly hereby,

  1. Defines an "officer" as an individual lawfully empowered to enforce the law or investigate violations thereof,

  2. Forbids member states or their officers or officers of entities subject to member state jurisdiction from:
    • Coercing any form of communication from a detained individual,

    • Punishing or threatening to punish a detained individual for not communicating, or

    • Putting questions to a detained individual without either that individual's legal counsel present or that individual's explicit and uncoerced consent, or in the case of a detained minor that of their legal guardian, to take questions without counsel present,
  3. Forbids member states or their courts or courts of entities subject to member state jurisdiction from:
    • Admitting evidence or considering evidence that includes communications obtained from an individual in contravention of section 2,

    • Admitting evidence or considering evidence consisting of polygraph tests, body language tests, or any other means of attempting to discredit verbal communication by means of assessing simultaneous nonverbal communication, or

    • Requiring a defendant to testify against themselves, or considering refusal to do so as evidence in and of itself.
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Note: Only votes from TNP WA nations, NPA personnel, and those on NPA deployments will be counted. If you do not meet these requirements, please add (non-WA) or something of that effect to your vote. If you are on an NPA deployment without being formally registered as an NPA member, name your deployed nation in your vote.
Voting Instructions:
  • Vote For if you want the Delegate to vote For the resolution.
  • Vote Against if you want the Delegate to vote Against the resolution.
  • Vote Abstain if you want the Delegate to abstain from voting on this resolution.
  • Vote Present if you are personally abstaining from this vote.
Detailed opinions with your vote are appreciated and encouraged!
ForAgainstAbstainPresent
7801
 
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Overview
Prohibition On Coerced Testimony seeks to prevent abuse of power between a law agent and a detained suspect. This resolution prohibits the use of any form of coercion by the law agent, questioning a detained suspect without the presence of their attorney or legal guardian, if minor, and the use in trial of any type of proof obtained with the use of aforementioned prohibited methods.

Recommendation:
We agree that the use of physical coercion should be prohibited, but bearing in mind that the definition of coercion is "the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats", we believe that the prohibition of verbal coercion would disqualify any type of persuasion made by an officer or judge, as the definition presented for "officer" in clause 1 can technically includes judges and any agent of the judiciary system, for that matter. Verbal coercion is a important part of interrogations and trials, as it's in the interest of the public that the detained suspect is persuaded to speak the truth, and simply a warning about perjury coming from a judge would classify as coercion, and thus, invalidate the entire trial while also preventing perjury from being prosecuted.

With this in mind, we think that this resolution presents poor definitions and a badly formatted solution for a complex problem.

For these reasons, we recommend a vote AGAINST Prohibition On Coerced Testimony.

This IFV Recommendation was written by Orbundao in collaboration with the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs.
 
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Present

Not particularly opposed; just notes: clause 2c is quite hard to unambiguously parse; 3c questionable; and "courts of entities subject to member state jurisdiction" seems slightly confused and overreaching (perhaps "courts empowered by member states to [...]" was intended? "courts" is a bit general).
 
I feel like I should justify my no vote, seeing as I'm in quite the minority.

The definition of an officer is problematic. It's obviously supposed to refer to the police, but the text includes anyone who can "enforce the law" or "investigate violations" of it. Enforcement and investigation is an overbroad category that covers any part of law enforcement -- including prosecutors. Since section 2a makes it illegal for officers to coerce "any ... communication" from a detained individual, this makes it illegal to question witnesses, if they happen to be in prison.

Section 2b, frankly, is redundant; punishing someone for failing to do what you want is obviously a form of coercion.

I'm a little concerned about the effect 3b would have on security clearance proceedings, which I think are covered as "entities subject to member state jurisdiction." Maybe the police shouldn't use lie detector tests, but it's certainly beyond the scope of this resolution, and probably a bad idea, to forbid intelligence services from using them.

Finally, I disagree that "considering refusal to [testify against oneself] as evidence in and of itself" should be illegal. In many jurisdictions, such as England and Wales, inferences can be drawn from refusal to give evidence at one's own trial -- essentially, it can be considered, but only in a limited way as a manner of weight. It's pretty clear that this section is based on American law, which is true for most judicial procedure resolutions, but I would say that this isn't a good place to copy the U.S. system.
 
Comfed:
I feel like I should justify my no vote, seeing as I'm in quite the minority.

The definition of an officer is problematic. It's obviously supposed to refer to the police, but the text includes anyone who can "enforce the law" or "investigate violations" of it. Enforcement and investigation is an overbroad category that covers any part of law enforcement -- including prosecutors. Since section 2a makes it illegal for officers to coerce "any ... communication" from a detained individual, this makes it illegal to question witnesses, if they happen to be in prison.

Section 2b, frankly, is redundant; punishing someone for failing to do what you want is obviously a form of coercion.

I'm a little concerned about the effect 3b would have on security clearance proceedings, which I think are covered as "entities subject to member state jurisdiction." Maybe the police shouldn't use lie detector tests, but it's certainly beyond the scope of this resolution, and probably a bad idea, to forbid intelligence services from using them.

Finally, I disagree that "considering refusal to [testify against oneself] as evidence in and of itself" should be illegal. In many jurisdictions, such as England and Wales, inferences can be drawn from refusal to give evidence at one's own trial -- essentially, it can be considered, but only in a limited way as a manner of weight. It's pretty clear that this section is based on American law, which is true for most judicial procedure resolutions, but I would say that this isn't a good place to copy the U.S. system.
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[Non-WA]

Against.

Salient points that I mostly tend to agree with, but I disagree about the last point. The fifth amendment is the best gift the founding fathers gave the average person to defend against police states and having it encoded into WA law is a good thing imo.
 
I took "enforcing the law" to also mean arbitrators, mediators, administrators and the like. Technically I enforce the law too. EPA in the US, your local council administrators etc.

(And yes, against as well for the reasons Comfed spelt out)
 
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