Re: Special Relationship
Originally Posted by
shropshiregirl
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I'm not saying the Diplomatic Immunity is not needed when in a foreign country, I'm also sure that it has been used by the UK in incidents outside of this country. But where does one draw the line. Surely, it wasn't brought about as carte blanche to be unaccountable for crimes committed? or does it cover every crime because if it didn't, authorities in other countries could make up a trumped up charge for any crimes it didn't cover?
It does make it difficult to take out certain crimes from their protection, but then again, of little comfort to devastated family as has happened.
Anyone got any idea?
In theory, yes, a diplomat can kill someone, refuse to be arrested and return to their host country. In practice, that does not prevent them from being judged. There are multiple cases where diplomats have caused deaths, e.g. in drunk driving. The usual result is that they actually are released due to diplomatic immunity, but afterwards either the country revokes their immunity and they're given to the host country for normal proceedings, or they are judged for the same event back home.
The intent is rather obvious—it is easy for a government to accuse someone of a crime, and we want diplomats (and opposition politicians—parliamentary immunity in many countries works in a similar way) to be protected from detention because of such accusations. It doesn't mean that diplomats are allowed to commit crime—it means that their home country is given a "veto vote" if they wish to do so.
This does give an opportunity to use officials with diplomatic immunity for intentionally breaking the law—espionage and assassinations. The expected response from the host country is not against the person, but against the country which is responsible for the actions of their diplomats. There likely are old historical precedents of military action caused by personal actions of emissaries, but nowadays it would likely result in expelling all diplomats of that country. As usually diplomatic relations and reputation are far more valuable than the career of some official, one could expect that if a diplomat intentionally kills someone without actual orders from their government, then they'd be given up to be punished.