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AT VOTE: No Ex Post Facto

Posted on Jan 15 2007, 07:34 PM

No Ex Post Facto Laws

A resolution to improve worldwide human and civil rights.

Category: Human Rights

Strength: Significant

Proposed by: Yelda

Description: Believing that ex post facto laws are violations of both the rule of law and the right of persons to fair treatment by the criminal justice system;

Asserting that one should not be penalised for doing something that is not prohibited by law;

Further, asserting that there can be no crime committed, and no punishment meted out, without a violation of the law as it existed at the time;

The General Assembly of the United Nations hereby:

Defines, for the purposes of this resolution, an ex post facto law as one that retroactively changes the legal consequences of acts or the legal status of facts and relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law. This includes laws that criminalize acts which were legal when committed and laws which retroactively increase sentences for crimes already committed;

Declares that:

(I) No person may be charged with or convicted of a criminal offense because of any act or omission unless, at the time of the act or omission, it constituted a criminal offense under the law of the jurisdiction in which the charge is brought or under international law.

(II) No nation or governmental subdivision thereof shall enact any law with ex post facto provisions. Any ex post facto provisions in existing laws shall be rendered null and void.

(III) Any persons under sentence as a result of ex post facto laws shall have their sentence for any ex post facto offenses nullified and their criminal record expunged of these ex post facto offenses.