Recognising the possibility for bodily injury or fatality to befall the suspects or indeed perpetrators of serious crimes,
Believing that we should take whatever action we can to prevent unnecessary suffering of any persons,
Lauding the attempts of the GA to preserve the rights of persons accused of a crime such as:
The right to a fair trial,
The right to be considered innocent until proven guilty,
The right to appeal,
Noting that false accusations of offences of a sexual or otherwise serious nature have the potential to ruin a person’s life, employment, education or relationships,
Further Noting that this defamation often takes place before a person has been found guilty in a court of law,
Hereby,
1. Defines a false accusation as an accusation which the accuser knew at the time of reporting, was untrue,
2. Further Defines a serious crime as a crime which implicates the accused in one or more of the following events:
a. The death of a person (whether intentional or accidental),
b. The theft of an item of significant value,
c. The injury of more than two people (the injury being significant enough to constitute assault in both cases),
d. The crippling or otherwise permanent disabling of the body or mind of a person,
e. Non-consensual sexual contact with the intention to violate a person's sexual autonomy;
3. Requires member nations to provide optional anonymity to those people:
- a. Charged with serious offences,
b. On trial for serious offences,
c. Legally representing those above;
4. Clarifies that this anonymity should apply only to the press and general public;
5. Obligates member nations to criminalise the act of revealing the identity of a person who had opted for anonymity;
6. Recommends that member nations criminalise the further publication of a revealed identity;
7. Mandates that, in the case of false accusations, the accuser should serve a minimum sentence of the following:
a. One half of the sentence (if defined temporally) the offender may have faced;
b. One quarter of the difference between the subject's age and the life expectancy of the nation in question if the sentence was to life imprisonment or death;
9. Further recommends that nations continue to conceal the identity of released offenders in order to allow their reintegration into society;
10. Further mandates that additional protection is to be provided to serious offenders as they serve their sentence;
11. Obligates that member nations require law enforcement officials to inform complainants of serious offences of this resolution and the implications thereof;
12. Further Recommends that member nations implement a 'cooling off' period of 1 day (whatever length of time that may constitute) wherein a complainant(s) is at liberty to rescind their allegation without fear of prosecution.
13. Suggests that member nations engage in rehabilitative measures such as:
- a. Therapy;
b. Victim-Offender Dialogue;
c. Family Group Conferencing;
d. Circles of Support and Accountability.
OOC: I hope this hasn't been covered before, but please inform me if it has.
Critiques and suggestions are welcome.