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Bill: The Restriction of Physical Coercion Act
Details
Submitted by[?]: Social Libertarian Party
Status[?]: defeated
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: November 2036
Description[?]:
| Although physical coercion of detained individuals is, in general, a barbaric practice, the Social Libertarians believe that there exist circumstances where it must be implemented in order to extract time-sensitive information. Therefore we allow physical coercion based on the following circumstances: 1) There must be an imminent threat to some party--heretofore referred to as the victim--that could be averted with information provided by the individual being physically coerced, and the information must be of a nature that it is necessary to avert the threat and it is unreasonable to find it in any way other than through physical coercion; 2) This imminent threat must be so significant as to permanently cripple or kill the victim if it is not averted; 3) There must be a reasonable certainty that the individual to be physically coerced has the information needed to avert the threat for the victim. 4) Any use of physical coercion must be performed by one who has received specific training as to the methods of physical coercion; 5) All physical coercion must take place within a police station or military complex and its implementation must be known and approved by the local commanding officer; 6) No permanent or semi-permanent harm may befall the individual being physically coerced. Any violation of these six rules will result in the prosecution of the offending parties in the appropriate courts. The minimum sentence for abuse of the use of physical coercion shall be twenty years imprisonment, with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. This act is necessary to ensure that the use of physical coercion, while not being excessive, will allow authorities to better serve the interests of justice. This bill may be amended as other circumstances that may allow for the use of physical coercion are determined. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change The use of torture for obtaining information.
Old value:: Torture is never allowed.
Current: Torture is never allowed.
Proposed: Suspects can only be tortured under grave emergencies where the information is vital.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | not recorded | From | Libertarian Communist Party | To | Debating the The Restriction of Physical Coercion Act |
| Message | No, physical torture should be outlawed at all costs. In addition, confessions gained as a result of torture have a spectacular rate of unreliability - suspects often falsely confess to avoid short-term pain. If we are going to rely on this method in "extreme" circumstances, the results would hardly be guaranteed reliable enough to justify this barbarism, and torture could even be counterproductive and lead investigators astray. |
| Date | not recorded | From | Social Libertarian Party | To | Debating the The Restriction of Physical Coercion Act |
| Message | Nothing was mentioned about obtaining confessions; according to the law as it would be enacted, if a confession were to be extracted, then the person extracting would be sent to prison for a long time. This bill's purpose is to allow for justice to carried out to its fullest possible ability. There are obviously wrong ways to carry out physical coercion, but this is meant to prevent that with an extremely punitive sentence for those who do not use this law as it's meant to be used. Crude methods of physical coercion may result in results contrary to what is desired, but when it is utilized sparingly, it can be effective. Please keep in mind that there is also a certain level of brutality among the police force that exists because of the previous system of crude physical coercion that we both want to change; it is generally unwise to simply stop the use of an interrogative method alltogether, because, quite frankly, there will be a tendency to want to continue using it. Your policy will lead to the imprisonment of more police officers who are inculcated in the culture that torture is all right. This bill could be less extreme--and ought to be--but for the fact that we are trying to court your support. |
| Date | not recorded | From | Social Libertarian Party | To | Debating the The Restriction of Physical Coercion Act |
| Message | Please understand as well that this bill is not meant only to further the interests of justice, but to help protect the citizens of Beluzia from any potential terrorist attack. If the above conditions are met, it is possible that physical coercion will actually save thousands or perhaps even millions of lives. To ignore this fact is irresponsible, and to dismiss the ability of physical coercion to effectively procure information when used properly is too closed-minded. We ask the members of Parliament to please reconsider their attitude that could jeopardize both justice and national security. |
| Date | not recorded | From | People's Populist Party - Zogist Mafia | To | Debating the The Restriction of Physical Coercion Act |
| Message | Prison is a human rights abuse |
| Date | not recorded | From | Front for a Solidarian Country | To | Debating the The Restriction of Physical Coercion Act |
| Message | We do not agree with this bill. As our friends in the LCP said, information given away by victims of torture (including potential terrorists) is not reliable, since oftenly victims will say anything to avoid pain. We think torture is a barbaric practice that serves no purpose, and more oftenly causes suffering to innocent people instead. Giving police officiers the right to torture would be a serious violation of human rights, and a dangerous thing to do, since it will give many illegal tortures a legal frame to hide behind. We are apalled that such barbaric proposal comes from a party that calls itself 'Libertarian'. |
| Date | not recorded | From | Social Libertarian Party | To | Debating the The Restriction of Physical Coercion Act |
| Message | This proposal exists to offset the rash actions taken by the other parties in Parliament. It defines a very clear set of standards for when physical coercion may be used and it requires that precise methods be used to obtain any information with it. By passing legislation like this, we would be able to avoid excessive government expenditure on other means to reduce the risk of terrorism and thereby make the entire country happier. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | |||
| yes | Total Seats: 23 | |||
| no |
Total Seats: 62 | |||
| abstain | Total Seats: 0 |
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