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#Post#: 749--------------------------------------------------
Legal decolonization
By: 90sRetroFan Date: August 11, 2020, 11:55 pm
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OLD CONTENT
Here is a somewhat confusingly laid out map that nonetheless
shows the pandemic impact of Western civilization on law
worldwide:
[img width=1280
height=671]
HTML https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Map_of_the_Legal_systems_of_the_world_%28en%29.png[/img]
I certainly encourage people from all formerly colonized
countries to study the legal systems in those countries prior to
Western influence, and consider how to go about eventually
reviving them.
I myself have in the past proposed, for example, eliminating the
jury system as part of a broader movement to eliminate decisions
made by voting.
---
www.yahoo.com/news/chinas-hong-kong-law-set-104923076.html
[quote]BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing's planned national security
legislation for Hong Kong is set to block its foreign judges
from handling national security trials, people familiar with the
matter said, which would exacerbate concerns about the city's
judicial independence.[/quote]
Note the cognitive dissonance here. How can the city have
"judicial independence" when foreign judges handle national
security trials FFS?
[quote]Its highest court, the Court of Final Appeal, has 23
judges, of whom 15 are foreign, from places like Britain, Canada
and Australia.[/quote]
Oh, I get it. "Independence" means being a British colony!
[quote]While under the new law they would no longer be able to
handle national security cases, they will not be excluded from
civil, financial or other cases, the sources said.[/quote]
Not good enough.
#Post#: 752--------------------------------------------------
Re: Legal decolonization
By: 90sRetroFan Date: August 12, 2020, 12:17 am
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So, I was reading this article:
HTML https://us.yahoo.com/news/agnes-chow-former-hong-kong-090200653.html
[quote]Arrested for alleged national security crimes, Agnes Chow
hails from a generation of Hong Kong democracy activists who cut
their teeth in politics as teenagers and are now being steadily
silenced by China.
The media cameras flashed incessantly as the 23-year-old was led
handcuffed from her apartment on Monday evening by police
officers with Hong Kong's new national security unit.
She is one of the first opposition politicians to be arrested
under Beijing's new security law -- on a charge of "colluding
with foreign forces" -- and could face up to life in jail if
convicted.
Late Tuesday, she was released on bail.[/quote]
And it suddenly hit me that the option of bail would not have
been available if not for colonialism:
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bail#History
[quote]In the early 17th century, King Charles I ordered
noblemen to issue him loans. Those who refused were imprisoned.
Five of the prisoners filed a habeas corpus petition arguing
that they should not be held indefinitely without trial or bail.
In the Petition of Right (1628) Parliament argued that the King
had flouted Magna Carta by imprisoning people without just
cause.
The Habeas Corpus Act 1679 states, "A Magistrate shall discharge
prisoners from their Imprisonment taking their Recognizance,
with one or more Surety or Sureties, in any Sum according to the
Magistrate's discretion, unless it shall appear that the Party
is committed for such Matter or offences for which by law the
Prisoner is not bailable."[/quote]
So we should aim to eliminate bail. On ethical grounds, bail
obviously advantages the wealthy, as the poor are less likely to
be able to afford bail. There is also room for further
discrimination by judges on other counts:
[quote]A common criticism of bail in the United States is that a
suspect's likelihood of being released is significantly affected
by their economic status[61] and systemic racial
bias.[62][/quote]
A flat absence of bail would at least remove these discrepancies
and thus produce fairer treatment overall.
Furthermore, the very notion that a monetary deposit is
sufficient collateral for the possibility of the accused
escaping encourages the view of people as basically a commodity.
A good citizen, in contrast, should consider it a civic duty to
voluntarily remain in detention prior to trial in order to
simplify state administration. So why should the state pander to
the bad citizens (those who lack such dutifulness) by providing
an option of bail (but only to those who can afford it.....) in
the first place? Thus we see Western inferiority in its
understanding of civics once again.
#Post#: 3577--------------------------------------------------
Re: Monetary Wealth
By: 90sRetroFan Date: January 23, 2021, 11:53 pm
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Bankruptcy:
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy
[quote]Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or
other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek
relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions,
bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the
debtor.[/quote]
is another Western institution spread around the world during
the colonial era that has been thoughtlessly continued, but
which we need to get rid of. It is an institution that favours
people who take risks with money, since if it goes well they
keep the profits, but if it goes badly they are insulated from
the consequences:
HTML https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EjMDhBAXgAIjq35.jpg
It is strategically sensible for capitalism to support
bankruptcy as capitalism wants more people to take risks with
money (so that some succeed). By eliminating bankruptcy, we
would also weaken capitalism as a whole, as people would become
more cautious with money.
So where does bankruptcy come from?
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_bankruptcy_law
[quote]In Judaism and the Torah, or Old Testament, every seventh
year is decreed by Mosaic Law as a Sabbatical year wherein the
release of all debts that are owed by members of the Jewish
community is mandated, but not of "gentiles".[1] The seventh
Sabbatical year, or forty-ninth year, is then followed by
another Sabbatical year known as the Year of Jubilee wherein the
release of all debts is mandated, for fellow community members
and foreigners alike, and the release of all debt-slaves is also
mandated.[2] The Year of Jubilee is announced in advance on the
Day of Atonement, or the tenth day of the seventh Biblical
month, in the forty-ninth year by the blowing of trumpets
throughout the land of Israel.[/quote]
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_Act_1705
[quote]Under the Act, the Lord Chancellor was given power to
discharge bankrupts, once disclosure of all assets and various
procedures had been fulfilled.
Discharge from debt was introduced for those who cooperated with
creditors.[/quote]
#Post#: 4477--------------------------------------------------
Re: Legal decolonization
By: rp Date: February 26, 2021, 10:03 am
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Racist origins of u.s. "law":
HTML https://youtu.be/FFebp7GZeHY
#Post#: 6879--------------------------------------------------
Re: Legal decolonization
By: 90sRetroFan Date: June 3, 2021, 10:41 pm
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Here comes our chance!
HTML https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/u-needs-constitution-address-fundamental-110000829.html
[quote]The U.S. Needs a New Constitution to Address the
Fundamental Wrong of Slavery
Persecution based on race is one of the grounds on which people
from other countries can seek asylum in the United States. To be
successful under the Immigration and Nationality Act, asylum
seekers must show they have been persecuted or have a
well-founded fear of persecution because of grounds like their
political views, religion, or nationality, and that the
perpetrator is the government (which includes the police) or a
group the government can’t or won’t control. Black Americans
experience persecution based on race and reasonably fear such
persecution by the American government, and if they lived in
another country, it stands to reason America would grant them
asylum. The extent of America’s oppression of Black people means
that to dismantle systemic racism, America must begin by
replacing the U.S. Constitution with one based on equality and
human rights like South Africa did after the end of apartheid —
a system of racial discrimination and segregation that has been
compared to America’s Jim Crow laws.[/quote]
I agree that a new constitution would be a good step, but
disagree that it should be based on "equality and human rights".
If there is to be a new constitution, it should be based on duty
to never initiate violence and duty to engage in retaliatory
violence against all initiated violence (what we usually call
Ahimsa, though for an American document we should use an
American name for it). A complete legal system can be derived
from this principle alone.
[quote]While this may seem like a radical proposal, the U.S.
Constitution is actually the world’s oldest written charter of
government still in use today. The vast majority of countries
have rewritten their constitutions to account for changing
historical circumstances. And other suggested remedies to
address systemic racism, like the House’s recently passed bill
to create a commission to study providing reparations to Black
Americans, may be necessary steps, but are not enough on their
own. The many crimes America has committed against its Black
citizens are not just economic. For decades, the U.S. government
has systematically and intentionally persecuted Black Americans
because of their race.
Again, let’s take the example of an asylum seeker from another
country. An applicant who is pursuing asylum on the basis of
racial discrimination must show a direct connection between
their race and the persecution they have experienced or have a
reasonable fear of experiencing. For example, a Black man would
have to demonstrate he was repeatedly arrested and beaten by the
police because he is Black, or that he received a harsher
punishment for the same crime a white man committed because he
is Black. In its Asylum Manual, Immigration Equality, an LGBTQ
immigrants’ rights organization, explains that “courts have held
that a ‘threat to life or freedom on account of race…is always
persecution.’” Courts have held that serious physical harm,
coercive medical or psychological treatment, invidious
prosecution or disproportionate punishment for a criminal
offense, severe discrimination, economic persecution, and severe
criminal extortion or robbery are forms of abuse that may be
considered persecution. Various types of harm that may not
amount to persecution on their own may become persecution when
evaluated as a whole, such as “enforced social or civil
inactivity; economic harm; or constant surveillance,” according
to the National Immigrant Justice Center.
In America, police are far more likely to kill Black people.
Black men are approximately 2.5 times more likely to be killed
by police than white men, and Black women are 1.4 times more
likely to be killed by police than white women, with Black men
and boys facing the highest risk of being killed by the police
when compared with other groups of people. Recent examples
include the police killings of Ma’Khia Bryant, Daunte Wright,
George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Elijah McClain. Moreover, the
police rarely face repercussions for killing people on the job.
From 2013 to 2020, 98.3% of police killings have not resulted in
officers being charged with a crime, according to the Mapping
Police Violence project. These higher and disproportionate rates
of death at the hands of the police are an example of serious
physical harm by a government actor. The lack of consequences
for police who kill Black people is further evidence of the
state’s failure to protect Black citizens.
Police violence, harassment and over-policing is not limited to
one or even a handful of states, which means a Black person
can’t simply relocate to another part of the country to escape
it. Almost everywhere in the U.S., police departments kill Black
people at a disproportionately higher rate, including states as
varied as Missouri, Utah, Nevada, Florida, Arizona, Wisconsin,
Nebraska, Oklahoma, and California. In her research, Daanika
Gordon, an assistant professor of sociology at Tufts University,
has found that “predominantly Black neighborhoods are
simultaneously over-policed when it comes to surveillance and
social control, and under-policed when it comes to emergency
services.” Black people are also harassed by police on the road.
A 2015 analysis by The New York Times found that in North
Carolina, police “used their discretion to search Black drivers
or their cars more than twice as often as white motorists — even
though they found drugs and weapons significantly more often
when the driver was white. Officers were more likely to stop
Black drivers for no discernible reason. And they were more
likely to use force if the driver was Black, even when they did
not encounter physical resistance.” Sometimes such stops result
in death, such as in the cases of Wright and Philando Castile.
In comparison with other races, the government
disproportionately incarcerates and punishes Black Americans for
criminal offenses because they are Black. Based on statistics
for 2019, Black men are imprisoned at nearly six times the rate
of white men and Black people are imprisoned at more than five
times the rate of white people. Moreover, according to a 2017
report by the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, one in
10 Black children has a parent in prison, compared with about
one in 60 white children. Judges are also more likely to
incarcerate Black people with longer sentences than white people
for the same or similar crimes. A 2017 U.S. Sentencing
Commission report found that judges give Black men prison
sentences that are 19.1% longer for federal crimes that are the
same in all relevant ways as the crimes committed by white men.
One example of the way the criminal justice system, racial bias,
and voter disenfranchisement can come together to impact Black
Americans is the five-year prison sentence Crystal Mason
received for voting when she did not realize a prior felony
conviction for tax fraud had made her ineligible to cast a
ballot. Her vote was never counted. Terri Lynn Rote, a white
woman with no prior convictions, who tried to vote twice in the
2016 presidential election, was sentenced to two years of
probation and fined $750.
Discrimination rises to the level of persecution if it leads to
substantially harmful consequences for the person, such as
serious restrictions on the person’s right to earn a livelihood
or access normally available educational spaces, according to
the United Nations Human Rights Council. It’s not hard to see
how over-policing of Black neighborhoods and frequent traffic
stops and searches could lead to more police killings and the
disproportionate imprisonment of Black people, who are then
subjected to harsher sentences because they are Black.
Incarceration also leads to disenfranchisement, which means
Black people lose another right of citizenship. In 18 states,
people convicted of a felony lose their voting rights during
incarceration and for a period of time after, and in 11 states,
people lose their voting rights for even longer or indefinitely
for some crimes. These laws mean that one in 16 Black Americans
of voting age is disenfranchised, according to the Sentencing
Project, which is 3.7 times greater than the number of
disenfranchised Americans of other races. Black people who
haven’t been incarcerated are kept from the polls through voter
identification and automatic purge laws, intimidation at the
polls, and frequent changes to polling station locations. Taken
together, killings by the police, lack of police presence when
Black people need help, harassment of Black drivers,
over-policing of Black neighborhoods, disproportionate
incarceration, and disenfranchisement, could be argued to amount
to the kind of persecution asylum seekers are asked to prove.
Additionally, a hypothetical Black asylum applicant could show a
well-founded fear of persecution by demonstrating a historical
pattern or practice of persecution against Black people. There
is no shortage of scholarship and articles documenting such a
pattern or practice in this country, from slavery, Jim Crow
laws, lynching, and redlining to voter suppression. Many of
these policies continue to impact the lives of Black Americans.
To fix its racism problem, the United States should replace its
constitution with one guided by principles of equality and human
rights. Our constitution was written when “we the people” did
not include Black people. Since then, attempts to modernize the
constitution via amendments, like the Fourth Amendment and the
14th Amendment, have not done enough to protect Black citizens —
or any other vulnerable communities for that matter — because
systemic racism cannot be fixed via a patchwork approach. It
requires a holistic overhaul of the systems that perpetuate it
and a clear commitment to anti-racism and equality. As a
starting point, the U.S. can look to South Africa. After the end
of apartheid in the early 1990s, the South African government
did two important things to begin building a non-racist society.
First, it created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to
uncover and review atrocities committed during apartheid.
Second, in 1996, it adopted a new constitution based on the idea
that “human dignity, the achievement of equality, and the
advancement of human rights and freedom” should guide everything
the government does. The constitution was drafted with input
from the public and 26 different political parties. As the BBC
notes, it is considered one of the most progressive
constitutions in the world.
Like South Africa, the U.S. should make the right to equality
explicitly “non-derogable,” meaning it can’t be suspended or
limited under any circumstance due to its importance. South
Africa’s Bill of Rights states that neither the state nor a
person may “unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against
anyone on one or more grounds, including race…ethnic or social
origin, color…and birth.” That’s the kind of moral clarity we
need. Black Americans are Americans and it is time the U.S.
Constitution treated them as such.[/quote]
South Africa's Bill of Rights is not nearly good enough.
Anything based on "human rights" is promoting humanism (ie.
treating non-humans as the outgroup). And anything based on
"equality" is delusional. People are not equal. Racists are
inferior. Humanists are also inferior. America can do better.
Would anyone like to draft a new truly American constitution?
Zea_mays?
#Post#: 7280--------------------------------------------------
Re: Legal decolonization
By: 90sRetroFan Date: June 24, 2021, 2:28 am
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Finally!
HTML https://www.yahoo.com/news/hong-kongs-first-trial-under-023636416.html
[quote]Hong Kong's first trial under its harsh national security
law began on Wednesday in a trial without a jury.
...
Why is there no jury?
The trial without jury is seen as a landmark moment for Hong
Kong's fast-changing legal traditions.
The defendant's legal team has been pushing for the case to be
heard by a jury, arguing it was Mr Tong's right given that he
potentially faces a life sentence if found guilty.
But Hong Kong's justice secretary argued that a jury trial in
this case would put jurors' safety at risk given the city's
tense political situation.[/quote]
Bad argument. The correct reason for why there should be no jury
is because juries were introduced by Western colonialism,
therefore to continue to use juries is to fail to decolonize.
[quote]Tong Ying-kit faces life in jail[/quote]
Screw imprisonment! (Why should tax money be spent on keeping
criminals - especially Westerners such as Tong- alive?) Bring
back the dog head guillotine!
HTML https://resource01-proxy.ulifestyle.com.hk/res/v3/image/content/1975000/1978885/171228_Figure_06_600.jpg
#Post#: 8147--------------------------------------------------
Re: Legal decolonization
By: 90sRetroFan Date: August 18, 2021, 10:36 pm
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HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cvOAeOQu7U
[quote]Senior Taliban commander Waheedullah Hashimi told Reuters
that Afghanistan would not be a democracy and the new government
may take the form of a ruling council, with the group’s supreme
leader Haibatullah Akhundzada in overall charge[/quote]
This is merely what was considered normal all over the world
before Western civilization came along. Hopefully all laws will
be de-Westernized over time.
By our standards, the Taliban actually has a reputation for
being soft:
HTML https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-adultery-idUSKCN0R13UE20150901
[quote]KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan man and woman found guilty of
adultery received 100 lashes on Monday in front of a crowd who
filmed their punishment, TV footage showed.[/quote]
No executions?? Let's hope the Taliban get their act together in
future.
#Post#: 9007--------------------------------------------------
Re: Legal decolonization
By: 90sRetroFan Date: September 23, 2021, 9:55 pm
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HTML https://www.marketwatch.com/story/taliban-says-strict-punishment-and-executions-will-return-to-afghanistan-01632413451
[quote]KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — One of the founders of the
Taliban and the chief enforcer of its harsh interpretation of
Islamic law when the group last ruled Afghanistan said the
hardline movement will once again carry out executions and
amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public.[/quote]
Why not in public? Not only must justice be done, justice must
be seen to be done. The Taliban are getting soft!
[quote]Even as Kabul residents express fear over their new
Taliban rulers, some acknowledge grudgingly that the capital has
become safer in just the past month. Before the Taliban
takeover, bands of thieves roamed the streets, and relentless
crime had driven most people off the streets after dark.
“It’s not a good thing to see these people being shamed in
public, but it stops the criminals because, when people see it,
they think, ‘I don’t want that to be me,’ ” said Amaan, a
storeowner in the center of Kabul. He asked to be identified by
just one name.
Another shopkeeper said that such punishments represented a
violation of human rights but that he was happy he could now
open his store after dark.[/quote]
"Human rights" are a Western notion. The sooner we discard it
the better:
HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/ancient-world/antropocentricism-the-most-dangerous-ideology-in-the-world/
#Post#: 9456--------------------------------------------------
Re: Legal decolonization
By: 90sRetroFan Date: October 18, 2021, 2:06 am
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Awareness is finally rising:
HTML https://us.yahoo.com/news/dont-blame-sharia-islamic-extremism-212108996.html
[quote]Don't blame Sharia for Islamic extremism -- blame
colonialism
...
In the 1950s and 1960s, when Great Britain, France and other
European powers relinquished their colonies in the Middle East,
Africa and Asia, leaders of newly sovereign Muslim-majority
countries faced a decision of enormous consequence: Should they
build their governments on Islamic religious values or embrace
the European laws inherited from colonial rule?
...
Invariably, my historical research shows, political leaders of
these young countries chose to keep their colonial justice
systems rather than impose religious law.
Newly independent Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Somalia, among
other places, all confined the application of Sharia to marital
and inheritance disputes within Muslim families, just as their
colonial administrators had done. The remainder of their legal
systems would continue to be based on European law.
...
My research uncovers how today’s instability across the Middle
East and North Africa is, in part, a consequence of these
post-colonial decisions to reject Sharia.
In maintaining colonial legal systems, Sudan and other
Muslim-majority countries that followed a similar path appeased
Western world powers, which were pushing their former colonies
toward secularism.
...
In the long run, that disconnect helped fuel unrest among some
citizens of deep faith[/quote]
I agree so far. But then the author exposes himself as just
another False Leftist after all:
[quote]In other words, Muslim-majority countries stunted the
democratic potential of Sharia by rejecting it as a mainstream
legal concept in the 1950s and 1960s, leaving Sharia in the
hands of extremists.
...
For the Muslim world, finding a system of government that
reflects Islamic values while promoting democracy will not be
easy after more than 50 years of failed secular rule.[/quote]
Why should we want democracy, which itself is Western? Do False
Leftists even bother to read their own writing before
publishing?
#Post#: 9762--------------------------------------------------
Re: Legal decolonization
By: 90sRetroFan Date: November 12, 2021, 10:30 pm
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HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTbaHTUslF4
The real question should be: do formerly colonized countries
prefer an incompetent legal system? If not, why have juries at
all?
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