jdl22
06-30-2004, 01:06 PM
One of the important principles in a democracy is that ex post facto laws cannot be written. Twice in the US Constitution it specifies that the congress and the states respectively cannot pass ex post facto legislation.
Article I section 9: "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."
Article I section 10: "Section 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility." (italics added)
Indeed this principle is so fundamental that it was put into the first article and not into the Bill of Rights.
According to Cornell's web page ex post facto is defined as follows: </font><blockquote><font class="small">En respuesta a:</font><hr />
Latin for "from a thing done afterward." Ex post facto is most typically used to refer to a law that applies retroactively, thereby criminalizing conduct that was legal when originally performed. Two clauses in the US Constitution prohibit ex post facto laws: Art 1, § 9 and Art. 1 § 10. see, e.g. Collins v. Youngblood 497 US 37 (1990) and California Dep't of Corrections v. Morales 514 US 499 (1995).
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I haven't read the cited cases and am not familiar with any case of this happening in the US or in the American colonies under British rule. The best example I have of this was in Spain during the Franco dictatorship. During the Second (and probably last) Republic, progressive laws were passed giving married couples the right to divorce. Many couples did so. When Franco took power he retroactively nullified these divorces and the subsequent marriages that occurred later. Among other things this created thousands of bastard children in an instant. Surely there are worse and more tragic examples of this, but I don't know of them.
So moving on to the present during the couple of days where Iraq has been sovereign Saddam has been under the custody of the US military. As such it would seem unlikely that he would have broken any Iraqi laws. When he was the dictator he was the law so surely he didn't break any Iraqi laws during that time.
Hence we either must have broken a very undemocratic ex post facto law or (what I think should happen) he should be turned over to an international tribunal having not broken any Iraqi laws.
Clearly Saddam is a war criminal. As such he should be given the same treatment as Milosevic. Politics seems more important than democratic principles.
Article I section 9: "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."
Article I section 10: "Section 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility." (italics added)
Indeed this principle is so fundamental that it was put into the first article and not into the Bill of Rights.
According to Cornell's web page ex post facto is defined as follows: </font><blockquote><font class="small">En respuesta a:</font><hr />
Latin for "from a thing done afterward." Ex post facto is most typically used to refer to a law that applies retroactively, thereby criminalizing conduct that was legal when originally performed. Two clauses in the US Constitution prohibit ex post facto laws: Art 1, § 9 and Art. 1 § 10. see, e.g. Collins v. Youngblood 497 US 37 (1990) and California Dep't of Corrections v. Morales 514 US 499 (1995).
[/ QUOTE ]
I haven't read the cited cases and am not familiar with any case of this happening in the US or in the American colonies under British rule. The best example I have of this was in Spain during the Franco dictatorship. During the Second (and probably last) Republic, progressive laws were passed giving married couples the right to divorce. Many couples did so. When Franco took power he retroactively nullified these divorces and the subsequent marriages that occurred later. Among other things this created thousands of bastard children in an instant. Surely there are worse and more tragic examples of this, but I don't know of them.
So moving on to the present during the couple of days where Iraq has been sovereign Saddam has been under the custody of the US military. As such it would seem unlikely that he would have broken any Iraqi laws. When he was the dictator he was the law so surely he didn't break any Iraqi laws during that time.
Hence we either must have broken a very undemocratic ex post facto law or (what I think should happen) he should be turned over to an international tribunal having not broken any Iraqi laws.
Clearly Saddam is a war criminal. As such he should be given the same treatment as Milosevic. Politics seems more important than democratic principles.