[Closed] Diplomatic Immunity , is it a good thing ?

Not a good thing as such but a necessity.

See also the Americans racking up millions of pounds worth of parking and congestion charge fines, and Khashoggi of course

I know very little about this but hey! it's the internet!

I guess it cuts both ways? the scenarios you list are rubbish but surely it makes it a lot more difficult to harass another country's diplotmats with trumped up charges?

Don't think this is just a one way thing. Brits abroad use it just as much.

It is needed to avoid foreign diplomats being abused / persecuted / coerced.

It’s necessary for diplomatic staff; she wasn’t diplomatic staff, she was the wife of a staff member, CIA, IIRC. There’s no way she should have been allowed to leave, because this situation was entirely foreseeable - an instance of US military killing British troops through negligence and not appearing in front of a tribunal investigating the circumstances for example.

I think it allows our diplomats and embassy staff around the world to do their jobs in countries with corrupt or dysfunctional criminal justice systems, or where equality laws for example are so out of kilter with ours, staff could easily fall foul because of gender, sexuality etc. which wouldn't be an issue here. I'm sure they need to be culturally aware, but I can see how you could easily get it wrong in somewhere like Saudi (for example).

Its use is wider than avoiding court cases or fines and it has a use in fighting international organised crime. It is used by UK diplomats overseas.
For example a UK diplomat passes intelligence to an overseas police force leading to an arrest, come any court case the diplomat would not have to give any information on the sensitive source of the intelligence in court as they have diplomatic immunity.

Diplomats and embassy staff should also be able to work without vexatious host nation interference and diplomatic immunity facilitates this.

Murtaugh says no.

Just thinking about todays Anne Sacoolas decision regarding killing motorcyclist Harry Dunn while driving on the wrong side of the road and hearing reports of thousands of pounds worth of parking tickets being unenforceable . Then you have PC Yvonne Fletcher shot dead from inside the Libyan Embassy and the killer never arrested .

You've sited two newsworthy instances that happened 36 years apart. You can't blame a system for the actions of a handful of people who abuse it. Its not the purpose of Diplomatic Immunity to get away with murder.

Had a friend/acquaintance years ago from down under who's father was working at ambassy in London. Was ideal if we were carrying something we perhaps shouldn't have been in possession of. Off load substances to says person and we were all good to go.
"nah honest guv, ain't got nuffin....

Oh, what... Them? yeah ask for their ID..."

Shows ID and we're good to go and carry on with our debauched evening.

Was in Davos a few years back for the World Economic Forum. Outside our location there was a blacked out Audi parked out front. Whilst we were outside having a smoke the Swiss nazi park wardens were looking at the motor, us egging them on to fine them but, alas they couldn't because the motor had diplomatic plates. That didn't stop us smearing ketchup on the inside of the door handles.

Diplomatic immunity isn't the problem, its how it's applied (in this case by the Americans) that's the problem.

There is no reason that members of the US embassy in London shouldn't pay their parking tickets or congestion charge - equally, there is no reason that they shouldn't allow the wife of a member of the team to be questioned/tried for killing somebody by dangerous driving.

The system is in place for a good reason - but it's open to abuse if you are going to be a dick about it. The question is - why are they being dicks about it? Answer is: because they ARE dicks. Why bother to do the right thing if there are no consequences? Power corrupts.

she wasn’t diplomatic staff, she was the wife of a staff member, CIA, IIRC.

About that...

Don’t you think it’s weird that the only image of her is a 20+ year old grainy photo ostensibly from her wedding? I know she may try to keep a low profile if her husband is important, but is that really the only picture of her in the public domain?

Maybe she is/was the important asset and keeping her business / image out of a UK courtroom is actually important?

I think it’s fair to say that none of us know the circumstances here. It seems unfair at face value but so much of modern life is insanely unfair so this doesn’t really register.

If you equivocate on it you'll lose massively in terms of world peace and prosperity. It's hard on the family but 'hard cases make bad law' as dem leagulls say

It’s necessary for diplomatic staff; she wasn’t diplomatic staff, she was the wife of a staff member, CIA, IIRC.

I haven't read the judgement but I can see that it's not as black and white as this diplomat should have immunity and their family should not. In some territories that would be a license to use the family and treatment of the family as a tool to manipulate the diplomat. Intuitively I say this is the UK we don't work like that, and so it shouldn't apply - then I remember how this country seems to operate and standards we might have expected in a Banana Republic are not far off modern politics.

The general principle though should be that the "offence" falls to be dealt with by the diplomat's own country; presumably killing someone in the US whilst driving on the wrong side of the road is a crime. So if they were really our special friends there would be some sort of tribunal.

I do wonder what the family really believe this will achieve though. Whilst the facts don't seem to be particularly in dispute, and driving on the wrong side of the road is prima-facie dangerous driving but could be argued as a moment's inattention by a good lawyer. I'm not convinced this would even result in a custodial sentence. In fact a good lawyer might well play the "it could have been any of us" type argument, remind people that when they were on holiday they drove the hire car briefly on the wrong side, and maybe suggest the base or council could have done more to mitigate the risk. If I was going to spend many years fighting something like this - it would be to stop it happening again not bring her into the UK for a show-trial that might well go wrong.

I do wonder what the family really believe this will achieve though

Some sense of justice? Some feeling that somebody hasn't killed their son and faced zero legal consequence? It's not hard to empathize.

The US could have played this a number of ways - doing what they did pretty much guarantees that a grieving parent is not going to let it go..... I certainly ****ing wouldn't if it had been my son.

I agree with what you are saying - custodial sentence unlikely, understandable lapse in concentration, but thats a reason for the US to allow there to be accountability, not for the victims family to forget what happened to their son and give up quietly.

I certainly **** wouldn’t if it had been my

I think I'd be going all falling down looking for some sort if justice.

I've driven my LHD motor in the UK and pulled onto a road and driven the wrong side more than once due to lack of concentration (country lanes are a bugger and coming off one way streets in the city), but each time it was my lack of awareness that was at fault.

I used to work in a garage in Battersea.
We used to have a steady stream of cars with near side damage due to Americans working for RTZ not being able to drive through the width restrictions on Albert Bridge.

Maybe she is/was the important asset and keeping her business / image out of a UK courtroom is actually important?

Mmm.... That "maybe" is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

In cases like the Anne Sacoolas one, between friendly nations such as the UK and the US. The immunity would not be enforced by the US and investigations and prosecutions would proceed as normal. This has been a breach of normal standards by the US and if we didn't have such a snivelling bunch of spineless inbreds in charge there should have been diplomatic expulsions.

Like most things of this ilk it is a necessity and thus a good idea until someone abuses it. Particularly if the relationship between the two countries is unequal or one country is likely to need something from the other in the near future.

Making own-goal changes to long standing legal conventions based on a thread on Parler is probably not what we need right now.

Not a good thing as such but a necessity.

My view too. It protects our diplomats and their families from whilst abroad, but sadly gets abused.

It needs reviewing somehow. The parking offences thing is a farce. Thankfully serious abuse in the UK is rare- the Dunn case, Yvonne Fletcher. I do wonder if the Khashoggi case was merely a higher profile example of what happens more often elsewhere.

My heart goes out to the Dunn's, but I doubt they will succeed. The best they can hope for is a review of how diplomatic immunity is applied.

And, not wanting to sound harsh, but plenty of families fail to get what they feel is justice for deaths in traffic incidents every year. That's a wider and far more important issue than this one unusual case involving diplomatic immunity.

trumped up charges

How did that become a phrase in English long before the Donald was even elected?

Some sense of justice? Some feeling that somebody hasn’t killed their son and faced zero legal consequence? It’s not hard to empathize.

So their "best case" scenario now is she flies into the UK, pleads guilty to Causing Death by Dangerous Driving, lodges a fairly credible plea in mitigation and gets sentenced to 2 years in jail (discounted from 3 because she pled guilty at the earliest opportunity when the case appeared before the court). Even if she was made to serve that sentence in the UK (I suspect a deal would be done to return her to the US), she'd be in a low-security prison for a maximum of 12 months before being out on license. She'd be banned from driving for a year or two in the UK - but free to go drive as soon as she was back on US soil. The roads are no safer, their son isn't coming back, the US will probably firm up how it protects its people from going to jail rather than how it stops them killing cyclists.

But realistically there is a fair chance that at the other extreme, she's dragged out of the US in handcuffs, pleads not guilty (and I suspect could get bail because the court/crown are so overwhelmed it will take 18-24 months to get a trial arranged, and it's not reasonable to hold a person who has not been convicted that long especially for a matter - where the actual time in jail on conviction would likely be less). Then at trial the defence use a moment's inattention argument to get Death by Careless, or even to sway a jury to not-guilty (or perhaps a retrial - so the family have to relive it all over again). And ultimately walks free from court, gets back on a plane to the US. If she's really clever she plays the victim card and is seen as an American hero who made an entirely innocent mistake and got victimised by the UK's draconian systems.

To some extent the situation where it was ambiguous whether she has immunity was better - she basically had a lifetime ban from entering the UK, or risk prosecution (that's a longer ban from UK roads than she'd have got even if she'd appeared in the dock saying smugly if brits drove on the right this wouldn't have happened) and all the other spouses would have been a little more concerned about how their ropey driving could get them in hot water. What they've done by fighting and losing is help the other spouses feel safer, let her come back to the US with impunity if she wishes (and drive on our roads) etc. The media like the story, and I think they are pushing this rather than them being well advised.