In order to establish a comprehensive penal code for Asgardia, I trust the first step to be identifying acts that are defined crimes by the Asgardian community. I will elucidate some of which hereunder, only in titles. Once fellow Asgardians assist with further titles, we can together put strict and clear definitions for the content of each title.

I believe that the main focus should be 'natural crimes', and hereby I'm implying acts, whether positive or negative, that cause direct harm to the community, rather than legal/statutory crimes such as custom traffic or tax evasion for example.

Let's first agree to classify crimes as:

A- Crimes of violent nature.

B- Crimes of non-violent nature.

Anyone interested in cataloguing relevant crimes in each category?

Eternal Soul Barrister

Crimes could be classified as violent vs non violent, but also in terms of severity. The courts would also have to decide whether or not a death had occurred and, if the person can be proven to have been responsible for that death; in this way, . The level of injury should also be a judgement. Was anyone injured?

The court would judge individuals with important responsibility in the community "with greater scrutiny and investigation than that of a regular citizen". Politicians, professionals, celebrities, bankers, lawyers, doctors, journalists, and other people that maintain the public trust and the reputation of Asgardia as a nation would fall under the "extra scrutiny" category.

I also want to suggest that we use Canada's judicial style, which allows criminals to receive a sentence which is either: "indictable" (when the crime involves jail/labour time unquestionably); "summary" (crime does not involve jail time and might be dismissed); or hybrid (the crime could be prosecuted as either an indictable offense or a summary offense at the discretion of the judge).

Goodness, it's starting to sound like a checklist, almost. Makes it easier.

So based on the discussion so far, the "checklist" would look like this.

1. Is it a violent crime? (If yes, its examined as a hybrid offense right off the bat.)
2. Did anyone die in the course of the crime being committed? Deaths should automatically be tried as indictable.
3. Was anyone injured? Even if the injured party does not want to prosecute, it should be judged as a hybrid.
4. Was anyone's lawfully-owned property destroyed or damaged? If so--yep. Hybrid.

Maybe, Crime against the Nation in another section of the Penal Code.

As per S.Crawford's point 4 I would include community property in a similar category to private property. Intentionally blowing up somebodies residence I would treat as a violent crime the same as blowing up part of a stations superstructure putting everybody at risk.

A project of a Penal/Criminal Code should not be something simple like describing a bunch of crimes and its punishment. A 'Code' is a systematized, coherent and unified body of rules of law about a specific subject. In this case, this code deals with crimes, and not about something else. Criminal procedure should (or could) have its own code (as it is a subset of procedural law branch).

This hypothetic code could be divided in two parts:

1.- A chapter about general criminal law principles and concepts.

2.- A chapter about every single offense typified and liable to prosecution.

The 1st chapter deals with subjects such as

a) what is a crime and what requires to be a crime,

b) if there will be grades of crimes and offenses (such as contravention/infraction/minnor offenses, crimes as such...),

c) which principle about causation will be used to be someone declared liable,

d) when a crime is considered commited upto completion or if it was an attempt that was frustrated,

e) the core principle of 'Non bis in idem' or 'Double jeopardy',

f) jurisdiction of the Asgardia's criminal prosecution,

g) intention,

h) types of punishments, etc. (this should be completed with help of criminal law theory, doctrine and jurisprudence)

The 2nd chapter deals with every act punished. This could be subdivided according to the legally-protected right affected, such as offenses related to the 'life', 'liberty', 'property', 'security', 'peace', 'economy', offenses against the government and its proper operation, etc.

Every offense should have a clear description of the act undesired and a punishment when committed.

What acts should be punished? It depends on what the society of Asgardia wants. I suggest to begin only with the basic: homicide, kidnapping, theft, fraud... and crimes against the nation Asgardia.

Even with that I said above, there is an underlying issue: nowaday when there is no "physical territory" of Asgardia, when a crime is committed by an asgardian or against an asgardian or against Asgardia itself, which jurisdiction will prosecute it? What types of punishments could be applied? how can be monitored the compliance of the punishment?

Meanwhile Asgardia does not have a "physical territory", punishments like 'jail' will not be enforced. Even when a starship be deployed, a ship should not waste too much its the limited space with a jail. As said in other threads of this subforum, the best crime politics is a good education system.

With this issue about the jail, could be considered an alternative that was discarded from most modern criminal law systems decades ago: the exile. But the exile should be executed only when is possible to send back to earth the offender. What if the ship ABC-123 of Asgardia where the crime was comitted is currently located in around Jupiter. Then the exile must be replaced with another punishment.

'Death penalty'? I wish this will not even be considered as a possibility.

A punishment I see viable is 'suspension of citizenship' (what is not 'revocation of citizenship'), which implies temporarily lose some rights such as vote, be elected in goverment, etc.

A less severe punishment could be 'disqualification to exercise a position' wheter in government or to be representative of NGO inside Asgardia, etc. Unless the above, in this case the offender keeps active his or her citizenship, but limited.

Other punishment could be fines when offenses are not against the most important legally protected rights.

What about 'Compulsory community service'? What do you think? Do you have another alternatives?

Realistically, if we can produce mass residential facilities, have habitable outposts at Jupiter etc, then building and maintaining a few dedicated detention facilities shouldn't be any significant hardship. Excess capacity can be rented to Earth. With regards to exile to Earth, this is only feasible within the first few generations and then you can't force the previous country to accept them, it won't take long for there to be most of the population to have never lived on Earth. Exile to space would likely equate a less civilised death sentence.

I think creating crimes is half of what's wrong with most existant legal systems, it corrupts itself as it becomes a tool of revenue generation streadily increasing introductions of restrictions that generate steadly increasing amounts.

The "types" of crime ideally would be numbered as few as possible. The lower number, the better. It makes it incredibly easy to conform to and that alone drops crime rates. The classification IMHO is simple, do so by a hieracheal structure suggesting impact to victim(s).

Theoretically, if we think of human as "good by nature", we should not even have criminal law, but everyone knows what a human can do with something of power (physical, economic, politic, religious, etc.) and no moral. A human being with so much liberty to do literally everything, would s/he be cautious and with good intentions, or would tend to corruption?

Also we can also think the existant criminal legal systems as a tool of oppression of low and working classes, due to have not many "types" on crimes or behaviors committed by high class.

Besides that, of course the criminal system should not be overregulated, but we need to think about what legally protected rights is under so serious risk that deserves penal protection, and just after this we can think about a crime. It's easy to talk from the side of "the People", but also should be taken in account the opinion of experts on the matter.

In order to begin with something actual, I would like to propose some crime types and discuss them, but also discuss the punishments appliable.

EternalSoul said :

I believe that the main focus should be 'natural crimes', and hereby I'm implying acts, whether positive or negative, that cause direct harm to the community, rather than legal/statutory crimes such as custom traffic or tax evasion for example. Let's first agree to classify crimes as:

A- Crimes of violent nature.

B- Crimes of non-violent nature.

I will take the concept of the grade of violence not as a way of classify types, but as a aggravation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggravation_%28law%29) so vile that deserves a higher penalty.

This is my initial and rough draft:

• Offences against life and physical integrity (homicide, wounding [including mayhem])

• Offences against sexual liberty and morality (ape, sexual assault, child abuse)

• Offences against liberty (kidnapping, home invasion, crime against freedom of speech)

• Offences against property (theft, extortion, fraud)

• Offences against the government and justice

Why in the world would you punish someone who commits a crime for positive reasons??? You would be impeding upon the right of folks to defend themselves, their families, and others!

Hey Eyer, The criminal system does not create crimes, people just find new ways of committing them and dropping the number of acts considered criminal will not lower the crime rates. It does nothing to address why people commit crimes in the first place and that has to be done in order to affect crime rates permanently. In fact all you would be doing is allowing people to get away with acts that they would normally be penalized for. Which will actually increase the number of acts of that nature! Please stop dreaming and be realistic now is not the time for dreams. Save them for after Asgardia has become a nation and is stable they will be needed then to keep the nation from turning out the same way the current nations have!

Crimes of a violent nature would include 1) murder 2) rape 3) assault 4) harrassment With sub categories stemming from each initial crime ending with crimes of higher severity. While non violent crimes would be 1) verbal abuse 2) theft 3) breaking and entering 4) destruction of property And the sub categories that would stem from the initial crimes which would also end with crimes of higher severity.

Other than the crimes listed there should not be any such thing as crimes against government. The idea suggests that the government is somehow special and deserving of protection against crimes. The people behind the government are but not the government itself. I would also argue the same regarding crimes against the nation excluding crimes that present the possibility of doing the nation economic or political harm. So folks do not try and use the law to protect their personal interests

Brandon7:

Why in the world would you punish someone who commits a crime for positive reasons??? You would be impeding upon the right of folks to defend themselves, their families, and others!

you should know that in that hypothesis the crime committed by "positive reasons" will not punished, if it enters into a cause of justification: i.e. self-defense, state of necessity, consent of the offended, commission due to law enforcement...

The criminal system does not create crimes,

The criminal system does not create crimes. The legal system does, which is integrated by people with their own values and ideologies, which can or cannot coincide with the majority of the people.

people just find new ways of committing them and dropping the number of acts considered criminal will not lower the crime rates. It does nothing to address why people commit crimes in the first place and that has to be done in order to affect crime rates permanently.

The crimes are limitations of the "absolute liberty" we would have in "savage state" (Hobbes, at certain point Rousseau). Some people sometimes wants something with is outside of allowed or something legit but by illicit means because of the inequity of the society, the disparity of economic system, because like the risk of committing a crime, because of insanity, etc...

I agree with you that should be addressed the causes why make people commit crimes.

In fact all you would be doing is allowing people to get away with acts that they would normally be penalized for.

Then in the hypothetical starship N1231 of Asgardia are you and me, and I want that advanced quantum computer you have, that acquired with hard work during months. As I don't want to work so much time to get it, then I stole from you and after that I claim I should be allowed to get away with that act that I would normally be penalized for, in order to mantain a good statistics of crime rate.

Do you think this is logic?

Which will actually increase the number of acts of that nature! Please stop dreaming and be realistic now is not the time for dreams. Save them for after Asgardia has become a nation and is stable they will be needed then to keep the nation from turning out the same way the current nations have!

Doing this now or in 10 years does not harm anything. Instead we anticipate the circumstances.

For Asgardia, I would suggest a codified system. In this case, it would be reasonable to offer a legal system of asgardia by analogy with the Roman-German system of law, that is - is determined by the measure of permissible behavior and the inability to file claims and demands contrary to the law or not provided by the law (unless of course is not allowed analogy of law or law).

Я поддерживаю идею кодифицированного кодекса и также выступаю за содержание в котором сперва идет понятие, в каких сферах он действует в каком бы то время на какой-либо территории, понятий уголовной ответственности, обвиняемого, жертвы, понятий видов преступлений, сроков рассмотрения дела в суде и порядке судопроизводства по делу. 

Вторым и основным разделом нужно совершать виды преступлений, в первую очередь, в том числе и в других главах, чтобы противостоять жизни гражданина Асгардии, во вторых преступления против свободы и здоровья граждан до преступлений против собственности граждан и ее порча так же нужно закрепить в уголовном кодексе ответственности за разжигание межсектонных войн и преступлений против государства и подрыв государственного строя в последних главах нужно решить вопрос, ответить, нез конный оборот оружия в заключении указать переходные положения. 

  Важно так же при составлении кодекса, которое должно быть доступно и доступно. 

Учитывая то, что Асгардия пока что больше виртуальное государство, то нужно делать удар на интеллектуальную собственность и использование за взломы и использование не лицензионных продуктов в цифровой сфере. 

I support the idea of a codified code and also advocate for the content in which first comes the notion in which spheres it operates at any time in any territory, the concepts of criminal responsibility, the accused, the victim, the concepts of types of crimes, the terms of the trial in court and procedure of legal proceedings in the case.

Второй и основной раздел должны быть совершены преступлениями, в первую очередь, в том числе в других главах, с тем чтобы противостоять жизни гражданина Асгардии во вторых преступлениях против свободы и здоровья граждан перед преступлениями против собственности граждан и его ущерб также должен быть установлен в ответственности Уголовного кодекса за разжигание межконфессиональных войн и преступлений против государства и подрыв государственной системы в последних главах, необходимо решить вопрос, ответить, незаконный оборот оружия в заключении для обозначения переходных положений.

  Это также важно при разработке кода, который должен быть доступным и доступным.

Учитывая, что Asgardia по-прежнему является виртуальным государством, необходимо нанести удар по интеллектуальной собственности и наложить штраф за взлом и использование нелицензированных продуктов в цифровой сфере.