The Essential-Liberalism Manifesto (Article VII)
VII. RIGHT TO DUE PROCESS
1. Basic principle:
Your fundamental rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit
of happiness can only be deprived by the government with due process
of law, which consists of the mandates below.
2. Be informed of the charge against
you: You have the right to know the specific
violation of law or laws you are being arrested for, charged with,
and sentenced for. A charge against you can only be brought if the
prosecution reasonably believes you committed the crime, and the
charge must be brought within a reasonable time after your arrest.
A statute of limitations for most crimes
specifies the maximum time after the date of the commission of the
crime beyond which charges can no longer be filed.
3. Be handled properly by law
enforcement agents: You have the right to be free
from any physical harm caused by law enforcement agents during your
detention, arrest, interrogation, trial, and imprisonment (unless,
and to the extent, necessitated by your physical resistance to the
agents in performing their lawful duties). You also have the right
not to be coerced into giving a confession.
4. Right to remain silent:
You have the right to remain silent during your arrest,
interrogation, trial, and imprisonment, and to otherwise invoke your
right to remain silent to avoid self-incrimination.
5. Charge must meet certain
requirements: You cannot be charged for something
that was not regarded by law as a crime at the time you committed
it. You also cannot be punished more harshly if the punishment has
increased since the time of the commission.
6. Pre-sentencing release conditions:
You have the right to be free from custody until your trial
commences and throughout its duration if you do not pose a
substantial risk of fleeing justice or risk of being a danger to the
public, as deemed by a judge. If bail is set, it must not be
excessive.
7. Presumption of innocence:
You are presumed innocent of the charges brought against you by the
state until proven and declared guilty in a court of law.
8. Court must have proper
jurisdiction: To hear your case, the court must have
proper jurisdiction over you and over the matter at hand.
9. Can only stand trial if legally
competent: You have the right to avoid being tried
if you are deemed by a court of law to be legally incompetent to
stand trial because you are unable to comprehend the charge leveled
against you or to participate in your own defense.
10. Right to mount a defense:
If you cannot afford to hire legal counsel in a criminal case
against you involving a felony charge, you have the right to free
assistance of legal counsel provided by the state to act as your
zealous advocate, before, during, and after your trial. If you can
afford to do so, you may hire any counsel in good standing agreeing
to represent you. You have to be given adequate time to prepare for
your defense. You further have the right to be present during your
trial, to mount a defense by presenting evidence and witnesses in
your favor, and to confront and question witnesses and challenge
evidence presented by the state or co-defendants.
11. Hearing must be fair and public:
The trial (and all related proceedings—before, during, and after the
trial) must be fair both to you and to the state, the latter
representing not only the interests of society but, as the case may
be, also seeking justice on behalf of the victim and the victim’s
family. The commencement and duration of the trial cannot be delayed
unduly to either your or the state’s disadvantage. The trial must be
open to the public with as few limitations as would be prudent and
fair to the interested parties.
The judge must be competent, rule according
to the relevant and admissible facts presented by the defense and
prosecution and according to the applicable law and precedent, and
be impartial and free from undue influence (including influence from
members of the legislative and the executive branches of government,
from the media, or from any other uninvolved group or individual).
If a jury determines your culpability, the
jury must be generally representative of the community in which the
crime was committed, and be required to determine guilt or innocence
and punishment based exclusively on the relevant and admissible
facts and law, as instructed by the presiding judge.
12. Standard of proof for guilt to be
high: To be deemed guilty, you must be found guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt (in civil cases, a finding for one party
typically requires a lesser standard—“by preponderance of the
evidence”; in capital punishment cases, the preferred standard is to
be “beyond any doubt”).
13. Can avoid culpability under
certain conditions: If you are deemed to have been
legally insane or acting not of your own volition while committing
the offense, or if you are deemed to have committed the crime
because another person forced you to commit it under threat of
inflicting on you grave bodily harm or death (except if the crime
you ended up committing is murder or infliction of grave bodily harm
on another innocent), you are not legally culpable for the crime
charged, and you cannot be punished for the act.
14. Punishment not to be excessive:
The punishment imposed on you cannot be excessive in relation to the
nature of the offense you committed and your role in committing it,
as well as in relation to the reasonable likelihood of your continued criminal
conduct based on your criminal history. Mitigating factors and
aggravating factors are to be considered before sentencing. Corporal
punishment and punishment amounting to torture is strictly
prohibited. Your detention or incarceration is to be in facilities
that are fit for human habitation and in which you are given some
opportunities for your rehabilitation.
15. Right to appeal:
In criminal cases (especially those with significant legal
consequences, such as imprisonment), both you and the state have the
right to at least one appeal to a higher tribunal. In the most
consequential cases (as determined by law or the judges of the
highest tribunal), both you and the state have the right to an
appeal before the highest tribunal of the land.
Commutation of the sentence or pardoning is
to be made possible under specified limited circumstances (typically
by a judicial committee or by the head of the executive branch of
government).
16. No double jeopardy:
You cannot be tried or punished again for an offense for which you
have already been convicted or acquitted in a final judgment (though
if the law allows for it, you can be tried separately both
criminally and civilly for actions arising from the same conduct).
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Page last updated: October 15, 2008