08-12-2002, 08:13 PM | #1 | ||
I am Freddie/UNDERCOVER/ Founder of The Great Continent of Entmoot
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Plainsboro, NJ
Posts: 9,431
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Should UN diplomats pay parking tickets?
This has been a big contention between New York and the United Nations for years. It has gotten so bad that a couple of days ago Mayor Bloomberg had said all diplomatic vehicles that owed fines were going to be towed. They had the tow trucks ready to go.
If you look at the bottom - Egypt is the worst offender and gets an average of 9 tickets a day and owes 1.9 million dollars in parking fines. Quote:
Australian Diplomats Reach Agreement With City to Pay For Outstanding Parking Tickets 6/29/01 New York Senators Urge Scofflaw Diplomats To Pay 8/7/02 State Department Objects To Mayor's Plan To Tow Diplomats 8/8/02 This is another occurence that angered a lot of people out here - Quote:
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08-12-2002, 09:40 PM | #2 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: 2nd star to the left.....
Posts: 566
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I think they should pay their tickets and any other penalty for driving/traffic or other offenses. Diplomatic immunity should not be a license for flouting the law.
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08-13-2002, 03:30 PM | #3 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Durham, England
Posts: 694
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I'm afraid it goes beyond petty things like parking fines and shoplifting, too. Sorry for the length of this, but have posted an article written by a British barrister in 1999 - I'm pretty sure the situation hasn't changed since then.
Fifteen years ago, colleagues of PC Yvonne Fletcher were forced to protect her killer and his accomplices as they left the Libyan "People's Bureau" in St James Square en route to their heroes' welcome in Tripoli: the smoking gun used in the assassination was in their inviolable diplomatic baggage. This sickening spectacle was approved by the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, on the same principle she now claims should protect a mass murderer, Augusto Pinochet. It is the principle of "sovereign immunity", a law which assists so much crime - from torture and drug running to shoplifting and unlawful parking - that its reform has become a moral and practical imperative. Diplomatic immunity - the law which allowed the Libyan killers to escape with a police escort - is an offshoot of the theory that government members and agents are legally untouchable abroad for anything done during their term of office, even if it's a crime of private lust (like rape or child abuse). The Pinochet case is important because the law lords found one small loophole: it does not protect an ex-official of a state from prosecution for crimes against humanity, such as genocide or torture, where sovereign immunity is overridden by an international convention. But this still leaves diplomats free to murder and rape and run up unpaid parking fines, because they are protected by a convention agreed in Vienna in 1961. It was drafted by government lawyers under orders to puff diplomats up with as much power as possible, so they bestowed upon them not just immunity but impunity, covering every crime and misdemeanour committed during foreign service, whether or not in the course of duty. This may have been expedient during the cold war, to protect diplomats from being framed (as well as blackmailed and honey-trapped). But it produced the result that foreign officials - and their spouses and children and chauffeurs - may fearlessly engage in serious crime, using their inviolable embassy premises and baggage for drug and gun-running and money laundering, or assist terrorists with whom their state is in political sympathy. The only thing that can happen is a declaration that they are persona non grata, followed by a police escort to the airport, unless their sending state waives immunity. This law is obviously much wider than is necessary to protect the essential function of a diplomatic mission. The Libyan example (there was actually a firing range in the basement of the "People's Bureau") is a singular outrage, but at street level in London abuse of diplomatic immunity is reflected in the city's unpaid parking tickets and unprosecutable offences of shoplifting. Some years ago, Scotland Yard reckoned that 40% of these unrequited crimes are committed by the vehicles or wives of foreign diplomats. (The US, plagued by more diplomats than any other country, has recently adopted a novel approach to their unpaid parking fines: it tallies the penalties incurred by every embassy and deducts the total from that country's foreign aid. John Prescott and Clare Short, please take note). The rationale for absolute immunity - that diplomatic missions keep open lines of communication between unfriendly states - is anachronistic in this age of email and video-conferencing. The fiction which sustains sovereignty - that state dignity would be lowered if its officials were prosecuted abroad - is absurd when states are headed by Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic. What sort of "respect" can accord impunity to representatives of the SLORC generals who supervise the heroin trail out of Myanmar, or of the president of Equatorial Guinea who last year murdered his uncle? When PC Fletcher was murdered, the Thatcher government lacked the confidence to declare a restriction on diplomatic immunity, namely that foreign officials would be put on trial if there was overwhelming evidence of their involvement in serious crime. Five years later, drug-running by diplomats became so serious that the UK at last threatened to sniff - and possibly to scan - inviolable baggage (although diplomats would not be prosecuted). The time has now come for the UK to state that foreign states will henceforth be expected to waive immunity for any ambassadorial official or family member accused of serious crime. Robin Cook should begin by insisting on surrender by Libya of those diplomats suspected of involvement in the Yvonne Fletcher murder. It is not satisfactory merely for Libya to accept "general responsibility" for that outrage: the judgement at Nuremberg lays down that crimes are committed by individuals, not by states. When they are committed by diplomats with impunity, the notion of "restoring diplomatic relations" is oxymoronic.
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08-13-2002, 04:21 PM | #4 |
I am Freddie/UNDERCOVER/ Founder of The Great Continent of Entmoot
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Plainsboro, NJ
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I'm glad our country tallies the total for parking fines and stuff and reduces the foreign aid. I didn't know we did this. We need to do something similar for the $21+ million that is owed in parking tickets in NYC. Although - really it all gets buried in accounting anyway. It would be nice if countries got an itemized list of our aid and expenses that goes to their countries. Then they can see that even though they may have been "given" $7 million in aid - it was reduced by $1 million dollars because of parking tickets.
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08-13-2002, 09:33 PM | #5 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: 2nd star to the left.....
Posts: 566
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I didn't know about the US deducting the amount of fines from foreign aid either. It's a good practice. I also agree with the writer of the article that Draken posted. This type of diplomatic immunity is outdated and not needed. Diplomacy should not be an excuse/cover for pillage and crimes.
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08-15-2002, 09:47 AM | #6 |
An enigma in a conundrum
Join Date: Oct 1999
Posts: 6,476
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I support the idea of deducting the fines from foreign aid and then sending it to NYC. Great thought.
I also think we should kick the UN out of the US and let it go to Europe where "they all can get along". Let's see how tolerant they'll be. Hmmmm, nice water front property for sale?
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08-15-2002, 08:56 PM | #7 |
im quite stupid
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Cockermouth
Posts: 2,058
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is there adequae parking cos you know in town i just park on the road cos theres fair any parlking spaces and sumtime sim in a hirry and it pisses you off if theres not where to p[ark maybe they should build a multi story.
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08-15-2002, 09:19 PM | #8 | |
I am Freddie/UNDERCOVER/ Founder of The Great Continent of Entmoot
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Plainsboro, NJ
Posts: 9,431
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Quote:
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Come back! Come back! To Mordor we will take you! "The only thing better than a great plan is implementing a great plan" - JerseyDevil "If everyone agreed with me all the time, everything would be just fine"- JerseyDevil AboutNewJersey.com New Jersey MessageBoard Another Tolkien Forum Memorial to the Twin Towers New Jersey Map Fellowship of the Messageboard Legend of the Jersey Devil Support New Jersey's Liberty Tower Peacefire.org AboutNewJersey.com - New Jersey Travel and Tourism Guide |
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08-15-2002, 09:21 PM | #9 |
im quite stupid
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Cockermouth
Posts: 2,058
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Build anoter poor sods dont want to park with the commonerrs yes i am drunk
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Yeah god hes ok but i would rather be judged by a sheep than that idiot |
08-15-2002, 09:39 PM | #10 | |
I am Freddie/UNDERCOVER/ Founder of The Great Continent of Entmoot
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Plainsboro, NJ
Posts: 9,431
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Quote:
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Come back! Come back! To Mordor we will take you! "The only thing better than a great plan is implementing a great plan" - JerseyDevil "If everyone agreed with me all the time, everything would be just fine"- JerseyDevil AboutNewJersey.com New Jersey MessageBoard Another Tolkien Forum Memorial to the Twin Towers New Jersey Map Fellowship of the Messageboard Legend of the Jersey Devil Support New Jersey's Liberty Tower Peacefire.org AboutNewJersey.com - New Jersey Travel and Tourism Guide |
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08-23-2002, 01:35 PM | #11 | ||
I am Freddie/UNDERCOVER/ Founder of The Great Continent of Entmoot
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Plainsboro, NJ
Posts: 9,431
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Here's the settlement that was announced yesterday on unpaid parking tickets by diplomats in New York
Quote:
Quote:
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Come back! Come back! To Mordor we will take you! "The only thing better than a great plan is implementing a great plan" - JerseyDevil "If everyone agreed with me all the time, everything would be just fine"- JerseyDevil AboutNewJersey.com New Jersey MessageBoard Another Tolkien Forum Memorial to the Twin Towers New Jersey Map Fellowship of the Messageboard Legend of the Jersey Devil Support New Jersey's Liberty Tower Peacefire.org AboutNewJersey.com - New Jersey Travel and Tourism Guide |
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08-23-2002, 05:03 PM | #12 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: 2nd star to the left.....
Posts: 566
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It sounds like a decent compromise, but NYC should have been more forthcoming about all of the invalid tickets. Guess that's why they're so willing to accept a percentage of what they originally said was owed.
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