[DRAFT] Ideologies and Criminal Responsibility

[Rafterland]

OOC : Hello WA, here is the draft of a resolution that came in my mind after seeing many proposals losing support due to "obvious" conflicts with ideological law. I believe that this proposal has the potential to address these kinds of issues very gracefully. Be sure to read the spoilered OOC parts as they contain various information about the intent and terminology of current and previous drafts.

Two men clad in mundane business suits sit down in the Rafterian Partenariat's amphitheater at the Department of Legislative Affairs, relatively far from the surrounding groups of lobbyists and politicians.
"Here you go", says Jan Herst as he removes a brown dossier from his director's case. "I heard you were going to introduce a new proposal to the Partenariat's Drafting Board, is this it ?"

"Yes boy." replies André Vandeputte before opening it swiftly. "Can I take a look ?" Jan utters.

"Careful, that's some heavy stuff, lemme explain." the director mumbles joyfully as his young attaché starts reviewing the files inside the dossier.

The intent behind this proposal is to introduce a sort of "bridge" between ideologically protective legislation (such as GAR#35) and laws that intend on outlawing crimes which may have an ideological basis that is irrelevant to the subject (the starting point for this idea being sects and the impact they have on their followers' mental health) by explicitly separating ideological values from any criminal relevance an act may have as well as introducing criminal responsibility, the concepts of which are defined by the proposal.

All of this without duplicating or contradicting any legislation as the intent is clearly to provide guidelines in regards to the specific subject of crimes committed in the context of an environment loaded with ideological elements. Obviously, I might have missed a specific resolution which invalidates the current wording, especially on more recent parts of criminal law, so don't hesitate to point out any conflicts.

I also have no intent to block anything with this proposal. I believe it would be wholly beneficial for the assembly to address this issue and that the correct wording should be found to express this.

"See what I mean ?" the director says. "Well I get the idea, so what are you talking about exactly ?" Jan replies.

"Well it's simple. First,..." André starts as the volume begins to get higher in the hemicycle...

Ideologies and Criminal Responsibility : Public Draft 1

Class : Human Rights

Strength : Mild

The World Assembly,

BELIEVING that its member nations are concerned with the safety and well-being of their population both at the national and international level, as indicated by the existence of long-standing legislation on the matter, but

NOTICING the difficulty of introducing new laws which might further improve the societal effects or accuracy of such legislation, due to obvious ideological concerns, whether they have been addressed or not, including but not limited to religion and national identity, and

ACKNOWLEDGING that the need to separate the ideological values of organizations and individuals from the “criminal relevance” of their actions is a major issue that needs to be addressed, and

RECOGNIZING how tenuous the link between these two concepts may be in practice, moreover in the context of defining international law, but

CONVINCED that clarifications pertaining to the opinion of this assembly on the matter are more than justified,

Hereby,

DEFINES the criminal relevance of an act as the existence of an established prejudice inherently linked to the execution of this act,

RECOGNIZES that there may exist actions to which the concept of criminal relevance does not apply,

URGES member nations to consider the criminal relevance of an act first and foremost where it may sensibly be applied and especially in the case of any legal proceeding whatsoever,

AFFIRMS the right of this assembly to evaluate the criminal relevance of an act in association to the ideological values of it’s perpetrator within the confines of past resolutions on the subject and,

DEFINES the criminal responsibility of an individual or an organization in regards to an act with the following parameters :

1. For the purposes of this resolution, it is assumed without prejudice that an individual is a citizen of a member nation and that organizations are constituted of individuals. Organizations are also assumed to be represented as a whole by one or multiple individual depending on applicable law.
2. “Criminal responsibility” represents the degree at which an individual or organization may be prosecuted for an act under law, as understood by the involved parties, instances inherently showing zero criminal relevance introducing no criminal responsibility.
3. The concept of criminal responsibility is explicitly implied by the concept of criminal relevance.

PROHIBITS member nations from eliminating criminal responsibility on the basis of ideological values, and

DECLARES that the ascertainment of criminal relevance is a matter of fact and not of opinion.

A note at the top of the next page says PREVIOUS DRAFTS

"That sounds pretty clear bos-" Jan begins as he is interrupted by a gruffy man in his 60's.

"Excuse me, Helmut Goldencock, no relation, from the Bigtopian Front for Fascist Democracy, I've heard you guys talking about some interesting stuff... Can you give me the quick rundown ?" he grumbles from behind his bushy mustache.

Jan sighs as he understands what's about to happen. "Can I..." he utters in a monotone voice, as his boss nods with a big grin on his face.

So, the rundown :

We need to make sure new law isn't confusing about how it treats crimes of ideological context while not touching the subject of ideological crimes themselves, as that potentially conflicts with various legislation on the matter such as the Civil Rights Charter.

The best way to do that is to officially separate the ideological status of a crime's perpetrator with the crime itself. This way, there can be no confusion as to how to treat crimes that may have a link to an ideology but in a way that isn't relevant to the intent of existing legislation.

In order to still allow the WA to decide when and how to do such a separation, the proposal is worded in such a way that the criminal pertinence of an action has to be considered primarily.

This is achieved through the concepts of criminal relevance and responsibility, as defined in the proposal. Criminal relevance should be obvious enough(?) while criminal responsibility is defined in a way that A, transparently applies to individuals and organisations, B, links responsibility to law and defines when it doesn't apply explicitly and C, links responsibility and relevance in a one way manner that still leaves room to debate it's application due to B.

They are then used as a way to easily PROHIBIT existing ideological legislation from blocking proposals which want to punish criminal acts that otherwise couldn't be punished, while still allowing any past legislation to have an effect by URGING the WA to always take criminal relevance into account and AFFIRMING that it is never illegal to invoke ideological laws, as it may not be obviously permitted afterwards ("within the confines..." being the cherry on the cake). No blocking, no duplicating, no contradictions. And no amendments, for that matter.

We finish by DECLARING that most of their clauses shouldn't even apply to the concept of criminal relevance defined here anyway since "pointing out that something is a crime" is really not a matter of free speech or discrimination, it's even an inherent purpose of this assembly to debate on such facts. This way and due to how the two concepts are linked, criminal responsibility is a foolproof evaluator of the degree at which an act is criminal and should serve as an indicator as to the "amount of crime" an act bears while taking anything surrounding the crime's nature on the side.

This nets us with a nice way to separate irrelevant parts of the context of a crime from it's relevance as a crime in regards to any text of law. Obviously we can still link the two together, but if this context doesn't have anything to do with the crime itself, then it is irrelevant by law. (Which I hope sounds sensible to you.)

The Bigtopian politician turns away grumbling. A dumbfounded, exhausted and visibly annoyed Jan glances at his superior, "Don't worry..." he says, "He's one of my staunchest opponents in the RP..." he says, amused.

Jan shakes his head in disbelief and abruptly says "Well at any case, I'll start writing the poll headlines immediately". He starts scribbling a note on his PDA, knowing how important the advice of the international community may be, as André Vandeputte confidently stands up and starts walking to the stand.

OOC : I would really like your opinion on the wording of this proposal, as it is crucial to it's purpose, and I would also love to hear what you have to say about such an idea As I said, don't be afraid to point out conflicts with any rules or existing legislation. _{(I will also consider any formatting related comments as this is my first proposal, egh)}

Clarifications on this proposal's intent and wording :

1) Existing international law prohibits discrimination based on ideologies, and probably will until GAR#35 is repealed somehow. This includes making law that... discriminates based on ideology (with discrimination here used as intended in such law : separating on the basis of a trait).

2) It is nigh impossible to write most texts of law that might have ideological ramifications (eg : outlawing the use of psychologically destructive methods with the express intent of furthering the goals of a sect -> sensible, but many religious sects, especially ones that are members of this assembly, could challenge the legality of such a text since it could be argued that the religious status of this sect protects it and it's members from ideological discrimination under law described in 1. This particular instance is easy to disarm since GAR35 doesn't protect unlawful practices of an ideology, but it can always be argued that outlawing a practice might outlaw the ideology itself, thus justifying the need for clarification.)

It is clear that the intent of these newer texts of law can be to condemn specific practices without taking their targets' ideological values into account. (ie : When the intent of a proposal is to prevent psychological harm, it is clearly thought in a way that protects health and not in a way that harms ideological liberties). It is possible for the contradiction with ideological protection laws to become indisputable when the wording or the provisions of such a proposal are insufficiently geared to disarm it.

3) However, the only legal way around such a conundrum would be to include exceptions to proposals described in 2 for each kind of ideological trait that might be affected by them. (eg : effectively allowing psychologically destructive methods to be used in the practice of religion, for the particular instance of sect regulation law we described. It could then be argued that all sects based on a different ideological trait (I don't know, political sects let's say) should also be excepted.)

This is counterproductive since these exceptions are often acting explicitly against the purpose of affected proposals, and including every ideological trait in order to not explicitly reference existing law on ideologies is never efficient.

4) In order to avoid this, there could exist a piece of legislation that forbids people from only considering the ideological context of a potentially criminal action. This way, earlier resolutions on ideological discrimination retain their strength, acting as the sole and complete reference on this subject, and new resolutions are forbidden by law to include exceptions on the basis of ideological values (= no more "omg Xish people might get offended add an exception").
The newer draft will reference that previous laws aren't affected, as this should be stated explicitly to avoid the dozens of contradictions which could arise from existing exceptions.

5) This can be done if we define the criminal relevance of an act (should it be considered as a crime ?) and the criminal responsibility that someone bears when committing this act (how much is the perpetrator reprehensible by law ?) so that criminal responsibility can never be entirely removed because the act it refers to might be linked to an ideology.

If you still don't catch my drift, an rough equivalent of this is that you can't just say someone is exempt from the law because his feelings might legally get hurt, as is the whole intent behind most aforementioned exceptions that otherwise exist to clarify indirectly that a resolution doesn't contradict ideological discrimination laws.

This implies establishing that you cannot be guilty of discriminating based on ideology if you entirely or partially ignore the ideological context of an action, which is obviously the case. Tried to write that in for good measure by considering criminal relevance as a matter of fact, inherently linked to the considered act itself and assessed legally, and not a matter of opinion that could be regulated by discrimination laws.

6) With these two concepts defined, wording a concise way to achieve the goal of this proposal becomes easy. As described above, forbidding people to ignore one's criminal responsibility in the face of ideological values suffices.

The rest of the proposal is essentially there to empower already existing laws on ideological discrimination because... well they are by nature very important.

See why I have put the intent in spoilers ? This stuff gets big and it will probably become way bigger before we can even agree on the wording or the pertinence of this resolution, which I recon is in question :v

tl;dr :
Do you think existing ideological protection laws are sufficient to prevent ideological discrimination ? Everyone has to, until someone decides to repeal them. Nobody wants to repeal law such as GAR 35 because it is appropriate and respected, so the topic is pertinent.
Do you think that adding exceptions to reaffirm the ideological neutrality of future resolutions is useless ? Implied by these sufficiently strong laws, categorically useless if these laws cease to exist.
Do you think that legislators should be able to write criminal law without redefining what it means to commit a crime every time ? Not really a stretch, right ? If it is impossible to reuse these concepts, it might be necessary to make their use in this resolution as "transparent" as possible without hurting the pertinence of the basic idea.
Do you think that a all criminal acts committed in the context of a specific ideology are always at least partially separable from that ideology ? Whether or not this is a matter of opinion is the whole point of this resolution : it will pass or fail depending on the general consensus, but this is a story for another time.
Do you think that a resolution should exist to clarify all of this officially ? Help me develop the concept of criminal responsibility

---

That said, I will address your arguments for the sake of completeness :

Could you, Ambassador, give us an example of what your proposal would prohibit?

"The intended effect on this assembly is to prevent unwarranted exceptions that only serve to protect an ideology from a proposal's clause, mainly. The goal being to let existing law do that.

Overall, however, this proposal would prohibit exonerating one from their criminal responsibility because of the ideological context surrounding them (ie : ideological values can not be used to exempt you from law, unless it is found that what you've done is inherently linked to your ideology. (ie : sheep slaughter in islam cannot be viewed as animal abuse for obvious reasons, but islamic terrorism is widely considered as corrupted ideology that shouldn't be protected.)

A even more concise way to put it would be that it is prohibited from positively discriminating on the basis of an ideology but this is nothing that ideological protection law doesn't already cover."

---

BELIEVING that its member nations are concerned with the safety and well-being of their population both at the national and international level, as indicated by the existence of long-standing legislation on the matter, but

"Most Member-States, in any case," said Markhov, still here for some reason.

"Well, I guess that's fair." André replies before continuing.

RECOGNIZING how tenuous the link between these two concepts may be in practice, moreover in the context of defining international law, but

"Certainly, Ambassador, this 'link' between whatever two concepts you are attempting to reference here is entirely arcane; or perhaps the draft is merely incomprehensible. In either case, such would best be made clear."

"I see. To put it more simply, the law is not currently not clear as to whether or not the ideological context of an act may be separated from what may constitute it as a crime. The link between these two concepts, not between criminal relevance and responsibility, obviously, undoubtedly exists and it is legislated here by the concept of criminal responsibility.

This clause serves to recognize this fact and the difficulty there may be to introduce this separation at the international level, warranting clarifications in a single resolution."

DEFINES the criminal relevance of an act as the existence of an established prejudice inherently linked to the execution of this act,

"Ambassador, are you referring to the personal beliefs of a criminal which may be applicable in court proceedings regarding criminal activity? This could be more easily stated."

"No, I am referring to the fact that an act considered as criminal has to inherently break a law, also including proposed law, when it is performed. This is what I mean by the existence of an established prejudice inherently linked to the execution of this act.

A more simple way to put it, if you prefer, is that this proposal only applies to the general concept of crimes." André says as he jots down a line on his notebook.

RECOGNIZES that there may exist actions to which the concept of criminal relevance does not apply,

"This is a preamble clause following an operative clause; I do not believe anything prohibits such a practice, but such is... unorthodox."

"Haha, this is a preamble clause only if you want it, mister Markhov ! I believe that this line is useful as it officially explicates the fact that not all actions are to be considered as crimes. This is a beautiful way of foolproofing the previous clause, in a sense. Also, as criminal responsibility is later logically implied by
criminal relevance, this line also implies that you cannot realistically prosecute somebody for something that isn't a crime, which is sensible.

Keep in mind that all this has to be worded in a way that doesn't prevent nations fr-"

André stops to allow the ambassador to talk.

"The Imperium is already required to maintain the particular absurdity of a 'presumption of innocence' within criminal courts; we have no intention of subordinating the crime to the beliefs of the Criminal. Such, unlike the standing inconvenience, would actively harm the enforcement of Imperial law, and certainly the enforcement of the laws of most Member-States, given that there exist standing legislation affirming and individual's right to hold and express a belief, no matter how absurd."

"I wholly agree, ambassador, this next line was intended to address that kind of interference. You will find that it allows legislators and prosecutors to consider the ideological context of the relevant crime to be taken into account, the aim of this proposal being to prohibit using this as the sole reason to exonerate perpetrators, including in any text of law."

AFFIRMS the right of this assembly to evaluate the criminal relevance of an act in association to the ideological values of it’s perpetrator within the confines of past resolutions on the subject and,

"This assembly, Ambassador, cannot prosecute criminals."

"Well in that case, would mentioning member nations instead be sufficient ? The intent is not to prosecute criminals, but to assess the criminality of an action, which could then be used to justify prosecution by a competent court, by the way.

Anyway, onto the topic of criminal responsibility :"

DEFINES the criminal responsibility of an individual or an organization in regards to an act with the following parameters:
For the purposes of this resolution, it is assumed without prejudice that an individual is a citizen of a member nation and that organizations are constituted of individuals. Organizations are also assumed to be represented as a whole by one or multiple individual depending on applicable law.

“Criminal responsibility” represents the degree at which an individual or organization may be prosecuted for an act under law, as understood by the involved parties, instances inherently showing zero criminal relevance introducing no criminal responsibility.

The concept of criminal responsibility is explicitly implied by the concept of criminal relevance.

"This definition is poorly constructed."

"This... is not a definition, Ambassador. In any case, the 'degree at which one may be prosecuted' is a matter of law and evidence, Ambassador. Simply that a criminal does not believe that they have committed a crime, does not absolve them of the crime in question."

"This is not a definition either; Ambassador, I am beginning to question your understanding of the word. Do tell me, what exactly, is your level of education? Regardless, the clause is simple nonsense, criminal 'responsibility' is determined by whether or not the criminal committed the crime in the first place, not by personal beliefs."

"First and foremost, I believe that most of these comments harbor from your misunderstanding of the previous clauses. In any case, I will still refute your allegations as they still raise valid points.

The main problem here is that we might not agree on what a definition is. I believe that stating the full denomination of the concept I am defining, then stating the parameters with which this definition applies is more than sufficient to qualify as a definition. If you do not agree with this, then the issue is one of wording, as I think we understood, and I will take note of this for the next draft. If anything, I think that including a concise, regular definition before including the following parameters would be appropriated.

That said, I agree with you that assessing the degree at which one may be prosecuted for a crime is a matter of law and evidence, which is one of the main drives behind this proposal. So, perhaps we might actually be in agreement about the concept of criminal responsibility ?

Also keep in mind that nothing says in these parameters that perpetrators need to have been prosecuted for their criminal responsibility to be assessed. View this as a provision concerning whoever might commit the crime, instead of specific instances.

PROHIBITS member nations from eliminating criminal responsibility on the basis of ideological values, and

"What, exactly, is this intended to mean? Is it that Member-States are prohibited from decriminalizing acts due to ideological differences between prior and standing leadership? Is it that Member-States cannot consider 'criminal relevance' in criminal courts; if such is the case, not only is this clause in contradiction of prior clauses, it, assuming the prior clauses remain in effect, would prohibit criminal courts from prosecuting anyone at all."

"If need be to elaborate on that any further, this clause introduces the main intent of this proposal. In the mentioned wording, this clause explicitly forbids legislators and prosecutors from considering an act as non-criminal because it is linked to ideological values. The intent being that, as you mentioned, nobody should be exempt from the law because of their beliefs. Of course, this all stems from your misunderstanding of the provided definition of criminal relevance, so I assume you understood that criminal relevance is key for the very existence of criminal responsibility."

The previous clauses obligate member nations to consider the criminal responsibility one may bear from the criminal relevance of their actions, introducing the concepts officially, and these ones protect them from being voided by ideological concerns."

DECLARES that the ascertainment of criminal relevance is a matter of fact and not of opinion.

"Yes; except that you have now prohibited Member-States from considering such.

In any case, this legislation is entirely incoherent and what of it can be understood is solely damaging to Member-States. The Imperium will not support this legislation nor any further variations upon it."

"Considering that you may have now understood this proposal and that it clearly does not harm the interests of the Imperium, I invite you to reconsider your statement. In any case, I hope that this subject is now clear to everyone !" finishes director Vandeputte, worried that his conciseness may have not worked in this proposal's favour.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Could you, Ambassador, give us an example of what your proposal would prohibit?

[Tinfect]

BELIEVING that its member nations are concerned with the safety and well-being of their population both at the national and international level, as indicated by the existence of long-standing legislation on the matter, but

"Most Member-States, in any case," said Markhov, still here for some reason.

RECOGNIZING how tenuous the link between these two concepts may be in practice, moreover in the context of defining international law, but

"Certainly, Ambassador, this 'link' between whatever two concepts you are attempting to reference here is entirely arcane; or perhaps the draft is merely incomprehensible. In either case, such would best be made clear."

DEFINES the criminal relevance of an act as the existence of an established prejudice inherently linked to the execution of this act,

"Ambassador, are you referring to the personal beliefs of a criminal which may be applicable in court proceedings regarding criminal activity? This could be more easily stated."

RECOGNIZES that there may exist actions to which the concept of criminal relevance does not apply,

"This is a preamble clause following an operative clause; I do not believe anything prohibits such a practice, but such is... unorthodox."

URGES member nations to consider the criminal relevance of an act first and foremost where it may sensibly be applied and especially in the case of any legal proceeding whatsoever,

"The Imperium is already required to maintain the particular absurdity of a 'presumption of innocence' within criminal courts; we have no intention of subordinating the crime to the beliefs of the Criminal. Such, unlike the standing inconvenience, would actively harm the enforcement of Imperial law, and certainly the enforcement of the laws of most Member-States, given that there exist standing legislation affirming and individual's right to hold and express a belief, no matter how absurd."

AFFIRMS the right of this assembly to evaluate the criminal relevance of an act in association to the ideological values of it’s perpetrator within the confines of past resolutions on the subject and,

"This assembly, Ambassador, cannot prosecute criminals."

DEFINES the criminal responsibility of an individual or an organization in regards to an act with the following parameters:
For the purposes of this resolution, it is assumed without prejudice that an individual is a citizen of a member nation and that organizations are constituted of individuals. Organizations are also assumed to be represented as a whole by one or multiple individual depending on applicable law.

"This definition is poorly constructed."

“Criminal responsibility” represents the degree at which an individual or organization may be prosecuted for an act under law, as understood by the involved parties, instances inherently showing zero criminal relevance introducing no criminal responsibility.

"This... is not a definition, Ambassador. In any case, the 'degree at which one may be prosecuted' is a matter of law and evidence, Ambassador. Simply that a criminal does not believe that they have committed a crime, does not absolve them of the crime in question."

The concept of criminal responsibility is explicitly implied by the concept of criminal relevance.

"This is not a definition either; Ambassador, I am beginning to question your understanding of the word. Do tell me, what exactly, is your level of education? Regardless, the clause is simple nonsense, criminal 'responsibility' is determined by whether or not the criminal committed the crime in the first place, not by personal beliefs."

PROHIBITS member nations from eliminating criminal responsibility on the basis of ideological values, and

"What, exactly, is this intended to mean? Is it that Member-States are prohibited from decriminalizing acts due to ideological differences between prior and standing leadership? Is it that Member-States cannot consider 'criminal relevance' in criminal courts; if such is the case, not only is this clause in contradiction of prior clauses, it, assuming the prior clauses remain in effect, would prohibit criminal courts from prosecuting anyone at all."

DECLARES that the ascertainment of criminal relevance is a matter of fact and not of opinion.

"Yes; except that you have now prohibited Member-States from considering such.

In any case, this legislation is entirely incoherent and what of it can be understood is solely damaging to Member-States. The Imperium will not support this legislation nor any further variations upon it."

[Desmosthenes and Burke]

IC: Is this written in English?

OOC: With respect, I cannot understand your intent, or the wording of the proposal. Perhaps you could write in clearer, simpler terms? If you have managed to confuse Tinfect, myself, and IA as to what your proposal does, then it is overly complicated.

[Yodle]

Is this related to hate crimes? I am having a tough time understanding

[Kenmoria]

"The DEFINES clause has an erroneous space before the colon."

[Rafterland]

(everything until the first horiz. ruler is OOC)

I understand that the intentions behind this proposal and the details of it's implementation might very well be too arcane at the moment. It seems the (extremely intelligently...) spoilered OOC parts did not help at all. I shall complement them with a single spoiler containing all the issues I cover in this thread.

In any case, I was afraid that people might have difficulties with the concept so I'll write a clearer, less concise draft. In the meantime, here's a super explicit version of what I am trying to achieve :

1) Existing international law prohibits discrimination based on ideologies, and probably will until GAR#35 is repealed somehow. This includes making law that... discriminates based on ideology (with discrimination here used as intended in such law : separating on the basis of a trait).

2) It is nigh impossible to write most texts of law that might have ideological ramifications (eg : outlawing the use of psychologically destructive methods with the express intent of furthering the goals of a sect -> sensible, but many religious sects, especially ones that are members of this assembly, could challenge the legality of such a text since it could be argued that the religious status of this sect protects it and it's members from ideological discrimination under law described in 1. This particular instance is easy to disarm since GAR35 doesn't protect unlawful practices of an ideology, but it can always be argued that outlawing a practice might outlaw the ideology itself.)

It is clear that the intent of these texts of law can be to condemn specific practices without taking their targets' ideological values into account. (ie : When the intent of a proposal is to prevent psychological harm, it is clearly thought in a way that protects health and not in a way that harms ideological liberties). It is possible for the contradiction with ideological protection laws to become indisputable when the wording or the provisions of such a proposal are insufficiently geared to disarm it.

3) However, the only legal way around such a conundrum would be to include exceptions to proposals described in 2 for each kind of ideological trait that might be affected by them. (eg : effectively allowing psychologically destructive methods to be used in the practice of religion, for the particular instance of sect regulation law we described. It could then be argued that all sects based on a different ideological trait (I don't know, political sects let's say) should also be excepted.)

This is counterproductive since these exceptions are often acting explicitly against the purpose of affected proposals, and including every ideological trait in order to not explicitly reference existing law on ideologies is never efficient.

4) In order to avoid this, there could exist a piece of legislation that forbids people from only considering the ideological context of a potentially criminal action. This way, earlier resolutions on ideological discrimination retain their strength, acting as the sole and complete reference on this subject, and new resolutions are forbidden by law to include exceptions on the basis of ideological values (= no more "omg Xish people might get offended add an exception").
The newer draft will reference that previous laws aren't affected, as this should be stated explicitly to avoid the dozens of contradictions which could arise from existing exceptions.

5) This can be done if we define the criminal relevance of an act (should it be considered as a crime ?) and the criminal responsibility that someone bears when committing this act (how much is the perpetrator reprehensible by law ?) so that criminal responsibility can never be entirely removed because the act it refers to might be linked to an ideology.

If you still don't catch my drift, an rough equivalent of this is that you can't just say someone is exempt from the law because his feelings might legally get hurt, as is the whole intent behind most aforementioned exceptions that otherwise exist to clarify that a resolution doesn't contradict ideological discrimination laws.

This implies establishing that you cannot be guilty of discriminating someone based on ideology if you entirely or partially ignore the ideological context of his actions, which is obviously the case. Tried to write that in for good measure by considering criminal relevance as a matter of fact, inherently linked to the considered act itself, and not a matter of opinion that could be regulated by discrimination laws.

6) With these two concepts defined, wording a concise way to achieve the goal of this proposal becomes easy. As described above, forbidding people to ignore one's criminal responsibility in the face of ideological values suffices.

The rest of the proposal is essentially there to protect already existing legislation on ideological discrimination because they are very important.

See why I put the intent in spoilers ? This stuff gets big and it will probably become way bigger before we can even agree on wording or the pertinence of this resolution, which I recon is in question :v

tl;dr :
Do you think existing ideological protection laws are sufficient to prevent ideological discrimination ? Everyone has to, until someone decides to repeal them. Nobody wants to repeal law such as GAR 35 because it is appropriate and respected, so the topic is pertinent.
Do you think that adding exceptions to reaffirm the ideological neutrality of future resolutions is useless ? Implied by these sufficiently strong laws.
Do you think that legislators should be able to write criminal law without redefining what it means to commit a crime every time ? Not really a stretch, right ? If it is impossible to reuse these concepts, it might be necessary to make their use as "transparent" as possible, but this doesn't hurt the pertinence of such an idea.
Do you think that a majority of criminal acts committed in the context of a specific ideology are always at least partially separable from that ideology ?
Do you think that a resolution should exist to clarify all of this officially ? Help me develop the concept of criminal responsibility

---

That said, I will address your arguments for the sake of completeness :

Could you, Ambassador, give us an example of what your proposal would prohibit?

"The intended effect is to prevent unwarranted exceptions that only serve to protect an ideology from a proposal's clause, mainly. The goal being to let existing law do that.

Overall, this proposal would prohibit exonerating one from their criminal responsibility because of the ideological context surrounding them (ie : ideological values can not be used to exempt you from law, unless it is found that what you've done is inherently linked to your ideology. (ie : sheep slaughter in islam cannot be viewed as animal abuse for obvious reasons, but islamic terrorism is widely considered as corrupted ideology that shouldn't be protected.)

A even more concise way to put it would be that it is prohibited from positively discriminating on the basis of an ideology but this is nothing that ideological protection law doesn't already cover."

---

BELIEVING that its member nations are concerned with the safety and well-being of their population both at the national and international level, as indicated by the existence of long-standing legislation on the matter, but

"Most Member-States, in any case," said Markhov, still here for some reason.

"Well, I guess that's fair." André replies before continuing.

RECOGNIZING how tenuous the link between these two concepts may be in practice, moreover in the context of defining international law, but

"Certainly, Ambassador, this 'link' between whatever two concepts you are attempting to reference here is entirely arcane; or perhaps the draft is merely incomprehensible. In either case, such would best be made clear."

"I see. To put it more simply, the law is not currently not clear as to whether or not the ideological context of an act may be separated from what may constitute it as a crime. The link between these two concepts, not between criminal relevance and responsibility, obviously, undoubtedly exists and it is legislated here by the concept of criminal responsibility."

DEFINES the criminal relevance of an act as the existence of an established prejudice inherently linked to the execution of this act,

"Ambassador, are you referring to the personal beliefs of a criminal which may be applicable in court proceedings regarding criminal activity? This could be more easily stated."

"No, I am referring to the fact that an act considered as criminal has to inherently break a law, also including proposed law, when it is performed. This is what I mean by the existence of an established prejudice inherently linked to the execution of this act.

A more simple way to put it, if you prefer, is that this proposal only applies to the general concept of crimes." André says as he jots down a line on his notebook.

RECOGNIZES that there may exist actions to which the concept of criminal relevance does not apply,

"This is a preamble clause following an operative clause; I do not believe anything prohibits such a practice, but such is... unorthodox."

"Haha, this is a preamble clause only if you want it, mister Markhov ! I believe that this line is useful as it officially explicates the fact that not all actions are to be considered as crimes. This is a beautiful way of foolproofing the previous clause, in a sense. Also, as criminal responsibility is later implied by
criminal relevance, this line also implies that you cannot realistically prosecute somebody for something that isn't a crime, which is sensible.

Keep in mind that all this has to be worded in a way that doesn't prevent nations fr-"

André stops to allow the ambassador to talk.

"The Imperium is already required to maintain the particular absurdity of a 'presumption of innocence' within criminal courts; we have no intention of subordinating the crime to the beliefs of the Criminal. Such, unlike the standing inconvenience, would actively harm the enforcement of Imperial law, and certainly the enforcement of the laws of most Member-States, given that there exist standing legislation affirming and individual's right to hold and express a belief, no matter how absurd."

"I wholly agree, ambassador, this next line was intended to address that kind of interference. You will find that it allows legislators and prosecutors to consider the ideological context of the relevant crime to be taken into account, the aim of this proposal being to prohibit using this as the sole reason to exonerate perpetrators."

AFFIRMS the right of this assembly to evaluate the criminal relevance of an act in association to the ideological values of it’s perpetrator within the confines of past resolutions on the subject and,

"This assembly, Ambassador, cannot prosecute criminals."

"Well in that case, would mentioning member nations instead be sufficient ? The intent is not to prosecute criminals, but to assess the criminality of an action, which could then be used to justify prosecution by a competent court, by the way. Anyway, onto the topic of criminal responsibility :"

DEFINES the criminal responsibility of an individual or an organization in regards to an act with the following parameters:
For the purposes of this resolution, it is assumed without prejudice that an individual is a citizen of a member nation and that organizations are constituted of individuals. Organizations are also assumed to be represented as a whole by one or multiple individual depending on applicable law.

“Criminal responsibility” represents the degree at which an individual or organization may be prosecuted for an act under law, as understood by the involved parties, instances inherently showing zero criminal relevance introducing no criminal responsibility.

The concept of criminal responsibility is explicitly implied by the concept of criminal relevance.

"This definition is poorly constructed."

"This... is not a definition, Ambassador. In any case, the 'degree at which one may be prosecuted' is a matter of law and evidence, Ambassador. Simply that a criminal does not believe that they have committed a crime, does not absolve them of the crime in question."

"This is not a definition either; Ambassador, I am beginning to question your understanding of the word. Do tell me, what exactly, is your level of education? Regardless, the clause is simple nonsense, criminal 'responsibility' is determined by whether or not the criminal committed the crime in the first place, not by personal beliefs."

"First and foremost, I believe that most of these comments harbor from your misunderstanding of the previous clauses. In any case, I will still refute your allegations as they still raise valid points.

The main problem here is that we might not agree on what a definition is. I believe that stating the full denomination of the concept I am defining, then stating the parameters with which this definition applies is more than sufficient to qualify as a definition. If you do not agree with this, then the issue is one of wording, as I think we understood, and I will take note of this for the next draft. If anything, I think that including a concise, regular definition before including the following parameters would be appropriated.

That said, I agree with you that assessing the degree at which one may be prosecuted for a crime is a matter of law and evidence, which is one of the main drives behind this proposal. So, I suppose that means we might actually be in agreement about this subject ?

Also keep in mind that nothing says in these parameters that perpetrators need to have been prosecuted for their criminal responsibility to be assessed. It has to be viewed in the general sense.

PROHIBITS member nations from eliminating criminal responsibility on the basis of ideological values, and

"What, exactly, is this intended to mean? Is it that Member-States are prohibited from decriminalizing acts due to ideological differences between prior and standing leadership? Is it that Member-States cannot consider 'criminal relevance' in criminal courts; if such is the case, not only is this clause in contradiction of prior clauses, it, assuming the prior clauses remain in effect, would prohibit criminal courts from prosecuting anyone at all."

"If need be to elaborate on that any further, this clause introduces the main intent of this proposal. In the mentioned wording, this clause explicitly forbids legislators and prosecutors from considering an act as non-criminal because it is linked to ideological values. The intent being that, as you mentioned, nobody should be exempt from the law because of their beliefs.

The previous clauses obligate member nations to consider the criminal responsibility one may bear and these ones protect it from being voided by ideological concerns."

DECLARES that the ascertainment of criminal relevance is a matter of fact and not of opinion.

"Yes; except that you have now prohibited Member-States from considering such.

In any case, this legislation is entirely incoherent and what of it can be understood is solely damaging to Member-States. The Imperium will not support this legislation nor any further variations upon it."

"Considering that you may have now understood this proposal and that it clearly does not harm the interests of the Imperium, I invite you to reconsider your statement. In any case, I hope that this subject is now clear to everyone !" finishes director Vandeputte, worried that his conciseness may have not worked in his favour.

[Sierra Lyricalia]

"If I'm understanding this right, ambassador, it looks like a solution in search of a problem. Do you have an example of a time when a law was castrated, or when a criminal might be exonerated by a WA member state, solely because of the perpetrator's beliefs or ideology?"

[Rafterland]

"If I'm understanding this right, ambassador, it looks like a solution in search of a problem. Do you have an example of a time when a law was castrated, or when a criminal might be exonerated by a WA member state, solely because of the perpetrator's beliefs or ideology?"

I will reply OOC.

After thinking about what you have said and reviewing more pages of passed proposals and repeals, I have realized that all the examples I had thought of indicate that the confusion I am describing doesn't really exist at the legal level, but more in the general consensus about ideological context. In short, it would clearly only stifle debate without having a real effect on the WA. I will concede that it is the goal of moderation rules to decide how proposals should be written, not WA law...

So yeah, it seems obvious now that the intent of this proposal is pretty much moot at this point, that the concepts of criminal relevance and responsibility could be defined in a better context and that this proposal can be safely put aside. I guess this was a little precipitated story of my life, but hey,
I had a fun time writing this

[Imperium Anglorum]

If this is basically an Interpretation Act-style piece of legislation, why is it necessary? Would not a nation which wants to eliminate abuse of its legal system in such a manner enact reforms (or simply shut down) such defences? It seems to me that you are concerned about laws which:

1. exist in a CoCR environment,
2. are not discriminatory on face,
3. have discriminatory impacts, and
4. where defendants use CoCR to escape the obligations of such a law.

Why would a national court interpret CoCR in such a way to achieve the last element?

---

"The DEFINES clause has an erroneous space before the colon."

Not really, punctuation standards for many European languages state that you should have a space before the colon. For example, French uses both a space before colons, semi-colons, and question marks as a separator (e.g. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_(biologie)). I don't see that as erroneous in as much as it is just different.

[Rafterland]

If this is basically an Interpretation Act-style piece of legislation, why is it necessary? Would not a nation which wants to eliminate abuse of its legal system in such a manner enact reforms (or simply shut down) such defences? It seems to me that you are concerned about laws which:

1. exist in a CoCR environment,
2. are not discriminatory on face,
3. have discriminatory impacts, and
4. where defendants use CoCR to escape the obligations of such a law.

Why would a national court interpret CoCR in such a way to achieve the last element?

---

"The DEFINES clause has an erroneous space before the colon."

Not really, punctuation standards for many European languages state that you should have a space before the colon. For example, French uses both a space before colons, semi-colons, and question marks as a separator (e.g. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_(biologie)). I don't see that as erroneous in as much as it is just different.

As I already told Tinfect : "Also keep in mind that nothing says in these parameters that perpetrators need to have been prosecuted for their criminal responsibility to be assessed. It has to be viewed in the general sense." To which I would add that nothing indicates criminal responsibility is restricted to the prosecution of individuals or organization. In the context of legislation, the involved parties are the legislators. The goal of the definition parameters was to establish that criminal responsibility applies to people targeted by future resolutions in a broad sense.

So to answer your question, the intent was not to prevent people from escaping the law, as you seem to imply, it was to prevent legislation from exonerating people uniquely on an ideological basis. (Preventing clauses such as "PERMITS xxx in the context of [ideological value]" or "[CLAUSE], except in the context of [ideological value]". Clauses like "[CLAUSE]. In the context of [ideological value], xxx shall be excused/justified." are permitted since they still recognize the criminal responsibility of the perpetrator implicitly.)

In any case, I am already convinced that the intents of this proposal/myself lack pertinence and your point further shows that.

---

This is very pertinent since my mother tongue is French. Amusingly, I learned to put spaces before punctuation from some angry scottish guy on a ms-paint military roleplay forum.

[Kenmoria]

"The DEFINES clause has an erroneous space before the colon."

Not really, punctuation standards for many European languages state that you should have a space before the colon. For example, French uses both a space before colons, semi-colons, and question marks as a separator (e.g. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_(biologie)). I don't see that as erroneous in as much as it is just different.

Whilst there is no space before a colon in many European lmagiages, there is one in English, the language in which all the GA proceedings take place. One wouldn't change the word order of a proposal to SOV because that's the most common in the world. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colon_(punctuation)#Spacing.

[Masurbia]

OOC : Hello WA, here is the draft of a resolution that came in my mind after seeing many proposals losing support due to "obvious" conflicts with ideological law.

Could you give some examples of when this happened? It might clear things up a bit.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Not really, punctuation standards for many European languages state that you should have a space before the colon. For example, French uses both a space before colons, semi-colons, and question marks as a separator (e.g. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_(biologie)). I don't see that as erroneous in as much as it is just different.

Whilst there is no space before a colon in many European lmagiages, there is one in English, the language in which all the GA proceedings take place. One wouldn't change the word order of a proposal to SOV because that's the most common in the world. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colon_(punctuation)#Spacing.

I think your advocacy is for no space before the colon? Unless you're advocating now that we should put a space before the colon, which both doesn't engage with my point that it isn't erroneous and contradicts your earlier advocacy, your link doesn't seem to support your point. The Wikipedia article explicitly says that English convention has shifted over time and is still somewhat ambiguous. And saying that 'We are English and we need to do it the English way' is little more than nonsensical quibbling, because English on both sides of the Atlantic has done it both ways.