Monday, September 28, 2009

A Package Deal

Ireland says Nay!In advance of Thursday’s referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland, our Flemish correspondent VH offers the following translation from the German as a public service to Irish voters. The interview with Prof. Schachtschneider makes it clear that the Lisbon Treaty is a package deal that will impose on its member states provisions that the voters do not expect and would not support.

VH says:

This is a translation of an interview with Professor Schachtschneider about the Lisbon Treaty and the European Constitution. The articles referred to are summed up in Lisbon Treaty: Reinstallment of the Death Penalty (Dutch language).

Article II-2, may be read here (in Dutch).

Here are translated excerpts from the interview:

The Lisbon Treaty will install the Death Penalty in Ireland, in case of demonstrations and “upheaval”

Interview with Prof. Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider on the EU constitution.

Prof. Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider represents the objections to the EU constitution of the MEP Dr. Peter Gauweiler. He teaches civil law at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and is among the best authorities on European law, the European Constitution and the Lisbon Treaty. In 1992 he played a leading role in the objections to the Treaty of Maastricht. In 1998 he campaigned, along with the professors Hankel, Nölling, and Starbatty against the introduction of the euro. The following interview with Prof. Schachtschneider was held in Nuremberg by Gabriele Liebig and Alexander Hartmann.

Up until now the European Court of Justice has not one single time come to the conclusion that any act of law by the European Union violates fundamental rights. The judges of the European Court of Justice always approve of what is decided in the European Commission or the Council of the European Union. Moreover, the judges have been carefully selected by the governments for their inclusion. They are awarded a basic [monthly] fee of €17,000 euros which is at least three times of what a German professor receives. On top of that many additional expenses are covered. It is well-known that such high salaries serve to “buy” someone. That kind of assignment one wishes to occupy and keep. The judges may be re-elected again for a term of six years! This is not an independent judiciary! In the past fifty years, no single act has been nullified by the Court of Justice for violating the Constitution or the fundamental rights. Therefore we do not have to expect protection of our fundamental rights to come from the European Court of Justice.

Reintroduction of the Death Penalty?
- - - - - - - - -
Apropos fundamental rights: You mentioned at the beginning of the conversation that the right to life is in no way conclusively guaranteed by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU Constitution, and that under certain circumstances the death penalty again is a possibility?

Schachtschneider: Yes, let’s talk about fundamental rights, for instance the right to life, and look at that in detail. In Art. II-62 VV it reads: “No person shall be sentenced to death, nobody shall be executed.” That seems to be in order.

But it is not the truth! The Constitutional Treaty stipulates that the explanation — the note to the fundamental rights — that has been taken from the Constitutional convent under Roman Herzog with the text of the European Convention on the protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR), and about which there has been such a long debate, is just as binding as the text of the Constitution itself. In the notes the reality becomes visible!

The Charter of Fundamental Rights is aimed, at least concerning the classical fundamental rights, at the Convention [EVRM] of 1950. At that time there was no other option but to leave the possibility of the death penalty with the various Member States of the Council of Europe. Germany had just abolished capital punishment in 1949, but in France, Great Britain and many other countries the death penalty still existed, and there would never have been a declaration of human rights if we had to maintain a general abolition of the death penalty.

However, this explanation of 1950 — after long discussion, not by accident, but very deliberately — has been adopted as very important note in the Charter of Fundamental Rights. And these notes, these explanations, one must be able to read and understand!

To begin with it states that no one may be sentenced to death or be executed. But then there are the notes, including “A killing is not considered a breach of this article if it is caused by the use of force required to legally defend someone against extralegal violence” — which is correct, legitimate self-defense — “to arrest a person lawfully, or to hinder the flight of someone who has been lawfully deprived of liberty” — that in fact goes very far, but then here it is — “to legitimately crush a riot or a rebellion”. That is the situation in Leipzig, or a violent demonstration that is seen as a riot or insurrection.

That is not the full story, however. Further along in the note it states: “A State may provide in its law the death penalty for acts committed in time of war or with immediate threat of war. This penalty may only be applied in the cases that are provided by law and are in accordance with those provisions.”

Therefore the death penalty is an option in times of war or immediate threat of war.

Now one may argue that the death penalty in Germany is not in any given state law. Exactly, but if the European Union issues a ruling to create an implementing provision for “missions”, that is waging war in the context of a response to crisis situations — when for instance they are preparing for such a war, which will allow the death penalty — then it cannot be argued any longer that applying the death penalty contravenes the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU constitution. For indeed it is consistent with the notes in the same charter.

The Constitutional protection of life in case of war or immediate threat of war therefore no longer exists. Because it will concern European acts of law, and those may no longer be measured according to the German constitution — Art. 102 GG, “the death penalty is abolished” — but be measured according to the notes on the Charter of Fundamental Rights. This means that the death penalty is possible, and also will be installed. But I cannot blame anybody for not noticing this, if that person has not been dealing with public law and European law his whole life. Reading this piece — the EU Constitution — is pure masochism!

8 comments:

Fjordman said...

The EU is evil and needs to be destroyed. Period. As we've pointed out here before, the EU is in reality the ANTI-European Union in that it is actively contributing to the displacement of native Europeans in their own countries by alien and hostile peoples. It also imposes a centralized, authoritarian bureaucratic structure which used to be alien to pre-Soviet Europe. It more closely resembles Ming Dynasty China. Throughout all of European history, no single authority has ever been able to successfully censor ideas throughout the entire Continent, which, frankly, has been one of Europe's greatest comparative advantages. The EU and national Multicultural elites are now purposefully destroying what has traditionally been Europe's greatest comparative advantages: High IQ combined with free inquiry.

Fjordman said...

Throughout the entire Western world, in North America as well as in Western Europe, there is powerful censorship of anything related to Multiculturalism and the results of mass immigration of non-European peoples. The EU isn't alone in doing this, but in Europe it is one of the major forces behind this. EU authorities in collaboration with the national authorities, the media and the academia in various countries are promoting A) mass immigration of non-European peoples and B) massive "anti-racism" censorship through social and legal intimidation and propaganda campaigns targeting anybody who might conceivably object to these policies. I would rank this as easily the most serious cases of censorship in this civilization's history. Much of Europe has enjoyed a remarkable genetic continuity since the Old Stone Age. We are now supposed to be displaced by peoples with a completely different genetic profile, but we're not allowed to debate the consequences of doing so.

When people are asked about what constitutes the most serious case of anti-scientific censorship in Western history, they will usually cite the case of Galileo vs. the Inquisition about Sun-centered astronomy. That was indeed a bad moment, but the attempted censorship of the Sun-centered cosmology of Copernicus had little long-term effect. It may have had some limited impact in Catholic countries, but in the rest of Europe the Copernican theory was still studied. In contrast to China, there was no authority that could successfully censor all of Europe at the same time. Moreover, the attempted censorship in this case didn't do anything to change physical reality. The Earth still orbits the Sun.

As author James Evans says, “Owen Gingerich has examined nearly all the surviving copies of the 1543 and 1566 editions of De revolutionibus, which total more than 500 books. The majority of copies in Italy were censored in conformity with the decree. But the decree had almost no effect elsewhere. Not even in Catholic Spain or Portugal were copies censored. The condemnation of De revolutionibus had very little impact on the acceptance of the heliocentric hypothesis. Even the famous trial of Galileo for continuing to advocate heliocentrism after the condemnation only served to popularize the new cosmology.”

ɱØяñιηg$ʇðя ©™ said...

Does anyone really believe that they're gonna use the death penalty to execute cultural enrichers? I have a feeling it is rather for use against ethnical europeans who oppose multiculturalism and the islamization of their own countries. Execute all key figures and you scare the rest of the population into compliance. We truly have dark times ahead of us. My intuition tells me the irish will vote yes this time. After that only Vaclav Klaus stands as a bulk between us and HELL ON EARTH!

Fjordman said...

Research by Rice University professor John Alford in 2008 found that identical twins were more likely to agree on political issues than were fraternal twins. He thinks that political scientists are too quick to dismiss genetics, and believes that genetics should be studied along with social influences.

Alford's research - and there are others studies with similar results - indicates that people who have a similar genetic make-up also think in similar ways. Let us take this principle and apply it to entire societies: What if culture has a genetic component, perhaps even a powerful one? I am not a believer in genetic determinism as there are quite a few events in history that cannot be successfully explained by IQ or genes, but there are also many that can. Even if genes do not determine everything that does not necessarily mean that they don't matter at all, yet the ruling ideology in the West today stipulates that everything is "socially constructed" and that all differences between groups of people are caused by prejudice and "racism," by which is usually meant white racism only.

Fjordman said...

When scientists first decoded a human genome after the year 2000, they were quick to portray it as proof of mankind’s remarkable similarity. The DNA of any two individuals, they emphasized, is at least 99 percent identical. But new research is exploring the remaining fraction to explain observed differences. After all, you who read these words may be 99,5 % or more genetically identical to Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, but that last little bit made a rather huge difference. An article from 2007 in The New York Times in the USA, a center-left newspaper very concerned about “racism,” real or imagined, asks “whether society is prepared to handle the consequences of science that may eventually reveal appreciable differences between races in the genes that influence socially important traits.”

Maybe a few generations from now, claiming that people are more or less genetically identical and that emphasizing differences in natural abilities between various ethnic groups is "racism" and evil will appear as quaint and irrational as it does for us to read claims that the Sun orbits the Earth. The big difference is that once anti-Copernicanism had been discredited, the Western world was still much the same as before. If or when anti-racism has been scientifically discredited an entire civilization, the most creative and influential one in human history, could in the meantime have been destroyed.

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

"EU authorities in collaboration with the national authorities, the media and the academia in various countries are promoting ... "

The complicity of academia from the university chancelor to the primary school teacher in my opinion has largely been ignored - maybe this is because most critics of multiculturalism maybe university educated themselves and dont wish to devalue their own degrees or education.

Academia has been at the forefront in driving the multicultural agenda, academia and universities urgently need to be thoroughly purged of multiculturalism.

Anonymous said...

, but then here it is — “to legitimately crush a riot or a rebellion”

A rebellion will only be defined as such, if it is a move to overthrow the dictat of the EU.

Unknown said...

A little additional information:

A short video on this can be viewed here: "Lisbon Treaty and the Death Penalty". The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union as adapted at Lisbon can be downloaded here [pdf; see there p.3] and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, with the relevant protocols, can be downloaded here [pdf; see there p.3 and p.27]

It is perhaps telling that the same EU has in 2007 declared a "European Day against the Death Penalty", which is held annually on October 10 …