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> The opinion is significant because it beats a legal path that British judges would follow if Parliament were to agree new legislation allowing the High Court
by nsajko 6y ago
> The opinion is significant because it beats a legal path that British judges would follow if Parliament were to agree new legislation allowing the High Court to decide on matters of genocide.
Why would an honest judge let themselves be guided by a mere counsel's opinion?
Regarding how the allegations of "genocide" (in contrast to the wider crimes against humanity, I guess) are explained, I think the opinion diminishes the massacres of e.g. the Jews and the Armenians; although I'm pretty sure that it's not a novel use of the word in the opinion.
- ashtonkem 6y agoIt’s worth mentioning that the definition of genocide does not require an attempt to kill off every member of the group, like the Holocaust and Armenian genocide. The 1948 UN convention on genocide included “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately imposing living conditions that seek to ‘bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part’, preventing births, or forcibly transferring children out of the group to another group.” Obviously planned mass death of a group is genocide, but that’s not the only defined requirement. The coiner of the term genocide also included this in their description of it: > the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.