[GA - DEFEATED] Right To Self-Defence

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Lord Dominator

Lord Dominator

Election Commissioner
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Right To Self-Defence
Category: Civil Rights| Strength: Significant
Proposed by: Tinhampton, Co-authored by: Tepertopia | Onsite Topic​

Believing that it would be highly inappropriate to criminalise those who seek to protect their life and liberty in the face of violence, the General Assembly hereby:
  • defines, for the purpose of this resolution:
    • a "LEO" as an on-duty law enforcement officer,
    • "harm" as imminent and unlawful death, life-threatening injury, or violation of bodily sovereignty suffered by a person, and
    • "self-defence" as physical violence a person inflicts against a third party in order to protect themselves or another person from harm which that third party threatens to cause at the time that violence was inflicted,
  • requires that member states (subject to prior and standing international law, future international law restricting the use of force by LEOs, and Articles c and d):
    • recognise actions constituting self-defence as fully legal,
    • allow any person suspected of a crime involving physical violence against a third party to affirm that that violence constitutes self-defence, and
    • only convict a person pleading as such if their affirmation has been disproven in accordance with the respective member's ordinary evidentiary standards,
  • recommends that members do not recognise physical violence against a LEO seeking to lawfully carry out an arrest as self-defence,
  • demands that members do not recognise as self-defence:
    • any physical violence a person exercises despite knowing about and being able to successfully use non-violent means of deterrence or aversion (as legislated by individual members) that promise similar immediate relief of the threat of harm,
    • any use of force that is disproportionate to the threat of harm,
    • any action a person takes in response to a threat of harm which they themselves deliberately induced, and
    • any action constituting (or aiding in) torture,
  • clarifies that a person who earnestly believes that they act under the legal protections for self-defence remains entitled to them regardless of Articles c and d(i-iii), and
  • encourages the passage of future legislation on self-defence education.
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Note: Only votes from TNP WA nations and NPA personnel will be counted. If you do not meet these requirements, please add (non-WA) or something of that effect to 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
21111
 
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Overview
This proposal purports to prevent criminalising those who seek to protect their life and liberty in the face of violence, and proceeds to purport to provide a legal defence against anyone that inflicts harm on another party. It also recommends that WA member states do not recognise physical violence against a LEO seeking to lawfully carry out an arrest as self-defence, to demand that those engaged in self-defence to use lesser means of self-defence if possible, and encourages the passage of future legislation on self-defence education.

Recommendation
We are genuinely horrified by the terms of the resolution, which creates very substantial loopholes in arguments in criminal trials. Firstly, the definition in clause (a)(ii) of "unlawful death" cedes too much discretion to WA states in prosecution and defense on what kinds of death are "unlawful". Secondly, the definition of "self-defence" in (a)(iii) as any violence "against a third party" opens the resolution to govern not just law-enforcement officers (as defined therein) but also to any disputes between any third party. Thirdly, the requirement to bar conviction in case a defendant pleads affirmation under "ordinary evidentiary standards" significantly raises the bar for a conviction, in requiring a prosecution to positively prove beyond reasonable doubt (assuming common law standards for a conviction), an extremely high bar especially in case the harmed party did not survive the "violence" as defined in the resolution and in the absence of third party evidence.

For the above reasons, the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs recommends a vote Against the General Assembly Resolution at vote, "Right To Self-Defence".

This IFV Recommendation was written in collaboration with our World Assembly Legislative League partners.
 
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Against.

Reasoning: I can't enforce a law that defines something based on whether death is "unlawful"! It is not like any sane country would define death by killing as a form of "unlawful death", it is the action that is unlawful, not the death,
 
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WALL IFV:
Firstly, the definition in clause (a)(ii) of "unlawful death" cedes too much discretion to WA states in prosecution and defense on what kinds of death are "unlawful".
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Unlawful death means unlawful actions that result in the death of a person.

I also note that, despite WALL's concerns about a(ii) giving "too much discretion to WA states... on what kinds of death are "unlawful,"" the World Assembly has never defined or (explicitly) forbidden murder, manslaughter, or anything of the sort.

WALL IFV:
Secondly, the definition of "self-defence" in (a)(iii) as any violence "against a third party" opens the resolution to govern not just law-enforcement officers (as defined therein) but also to any disputes between any third party.
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A third party is someone who threatens to harm you. This resolution does not describe the relationship between a victim and "any third party," because not every third party threatened to harm that victim.

WALL IFV:
Thirdly, the requirement to bar conviction in case a defendant pleads affirmation under "ordinary evidentiary standards" significantly raises the bar for a conviction, in requiring a prosecution to positively prove beyond reasonable doubt (assuming common law standards for a conviction), an extremely high bar especially in case the harmed party did not survive the "violence" as defined in the resolution and in the absence of third party evidence.
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This resolution does not require common law states to prove that self-defence pleas were wrong beyond a reasonable doubt; they may amend their ordinary evidentary standards at any time for a lower burden of proof. The point of Article b(iii) is to give member states the flexibility they need to prosecute those who falsely plead self-defence under their own legal system.
 
Present.
The Comrades' Assembly came to a tie. Thus we shall leave the matter up to the WA to determine.
 
Tinhampton:
Unlawful death means unlawful actions that result in the death of a person.

I also note that, despite WALL's concerns about a(ii) giving "too much discretion to WA states... on what kinds of death are "unlawful,"" the World Assembly has never defined or (explicitly) forbidden murder, manslaughter, or anything of the sort.


A third party is someone who threatens to harm you. This resolution does not describe the relationship between a victim and "any third party," because not every third party threatened to harm that victim.

This resolution does not require common law states to prove that self-defence pleas were wrong beyond a reasonable doubt; they may amend their ordinary evidentary standards at any time for a lower burden of proof. The point of Article b(iii) is to give member states the flexibility they need to prosecute those who falsely plead self-defence under their own legal system.
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I've removed my own counterargument because IA's reply below is far more eloquent than I can ever muster.
 
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Against, but only due to section e. The remaining sections are at least somewhat reasonable, but section e functionally licenses people to commit heinous acts if they "believe" they're acting in lawful self-defense, which is an absurdity.
 
Tinhampton:
Unlawful death means unlawful actions that result in the death of a person.

I also note that, despite WALL's concerns about a(ii) giving "too much discretion to WA states... on what kinds of death are "unlawful,"" the World Assembly has never defined or (explicitly) forbidden murder, manslaughter, or anything of the sort.
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I've put out a resolution on the Forum to explicitly forbid murder, or a lynching to evade WA laws to ban the death penalty, such as the scenario of having the penalty for a lynching someone dropped to $5 or the value of a McDonalds happy meal. That resolution will require a lot of work to fix (I really rushed that one) but at least we have a draft at hand to close that argument.
 
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The problem with "ordinary evidentiary standards" is that the "ordinary" evidentiary standards apply also to everything else.

So you want to make it easy to disprove the assertion of self-defence (SD) for someone who did in fact kill someone else. This would be in the form of requiring prosecutors to disprove the SD assertion with something like "mere scintilla of evidence". Now because these are ordinary standards, now you can convict everyone of anything with a mere scintilla of evidence. That's obviously stupid. Now let's say you want to make it hard to convict innocent people with a "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard; now prosecutors have to disprove an assertion of self-defence beyond a reasonable doubt. Under this, you run into the incentive problem noted above and the difficulty of showing beyond a reasonable doubt that the self-defence assertion is untrue.

But what if what Tinhampton meant above is that a state could apply different standards for self-defence and for criminal conviction? Well those aren't ordinary evidentiary standards (without special or distinctive features); now they are specific to self-defence claims and criminal convictions.
 
Imperium Anglorum:
The problem with "ordinary evidentiary standards" is that the "ordinary" evidentiary standards apply also to everything else.

So you want to make it easy to disprove the assertion of self-defence (SD) for someone who did in fact kill someone else. This would be in the form of requiring prosecutors to disprove the SD assertion with something like "mere scintilla of evidence". Now because these are ordinary standards, now you can convict everyone of anything with a mere scintilla of evidence. That's obviously stupid. Now let's say you want to make it hard to convict innocent people with a "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard; now prosecutors have to disprove an assertion of self-defence beyond a reasonable doubt. Under this, you run into the incentive problem noted above and the difficulty of showing beyond a reasonable doubt that the self-defence assertion is untrue.

But what if what Tinhampton meant above is that a state could apply different standards for self-defence and for criminal conviction? Well those aren't ordinary evidentiary standards (without special or distinctive features); now they are specific to self-defence claims and criminal convictions.
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This is a far more elegant answer to Points 2 and 3 than I can ever write myself. I have removed the answer I originally quoted.
 
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