Is it legal under Czech and EU legal system to punish people with prison sentences for publicly expressing their political views? This site claims that (my emphasis): The Czech Republic's chief prosecutor has warned that expressing support for Russia’s attack on Ukraine could be a criminal offence, punishable by imprisonment. [...] Publicly backing the Russian invasion of Ukraine might be subject to custodial sentences of up to three years, Czechia’s Supreme State Attorney Igor Striz said in a statement on Saturday. [...] Striz’s statement cited sections 365 and 405 of the Czech Criminal Code, which state that whoever publicly approves a crime or publicly praises the perpetrator can be imprisoned for up to a year, and that anyone who “publicly denies, questions, approves or seeks to justify Nazi, communist, or other genocide” can face a jail sentence of up to three years. Is there anything in the Czech (e. g. its constitution) or the European legal system that would make such regulations (publicly expressing certain political views being punished with prison sentences) illegal?
For a challenge under the European Convention on Human Rights (to which Czechia is a signatory) the relevant articles are 10 and 17. Article 10, on the right to free expression, has the caveat that it: may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. This is analogous to Article 17(4) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of Czechia (which has constitutional force by virtue of Articles 3 and 4 of the Constitution): The freedom of expression and the right to seek and disseminate information may be limited by law in the case of measures essential in a democratic society for protecting the rights and freedoms of others, the security of the State, public security, public health, and morality. The Strasbourg court has often had to consider this exception in the case of hate speech, promotion of terrorism, and display of prohibited symbols. In extreme cases, ECHR Article 17 kicks in: Nothing in this Convention may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein or at their limitation to a greater extent than is provided for in the Convention. This has been held to limit the possibility of an Article 10 claim when the speech related to incitement to terrorism, Holocaust denial, political ideas incompatible with democracy, and other examples. For example, in Roj TV A/S v Denmark [2018], no. 24683/14, urging viewers to join the PKK and take part in guerrilla action was held to be over the line of Article 17. On the other hand, in Orban v France [2009] no. 20985/05, the banning of a book describing the author's participation in war crimes and lack of regret did not meet the standard, because the objective of the book was held to be contributing to a historical debate. Paragraph 35 of the Orban judgement does admit that if there were an unequivocal goal of justifying war crimes such as torture or summary execution, then the result could have been different: Il n'est pas douteux que des propos ayant sans équivoque pour but de justifier des crimes de guerre tels que la torture ou des exécutions sommaires sont pareillement caractéristiques d'un détournement de l'article 10 de sa vocation. In a specific example of a prosecution and human rights claim based on the question, this is the kind of distinction which might be drawn, looking at the context of the prohibited speech. Results would depend on the speaker (journalist? politician? random person yelling in the street?), mode of speech, what they actually said, and so on. If Article 10 were reached, then the court would examine whether the Czech law and its application were compatible with the caveat in all respects. A custodial sentence of three years might well be found to be excessive, as that is a significant interference with someone's freedom compared to (say) a fine. For example, in Cumpănă and Mazăre v Romania [2004], no. 33348/96, the Grand Chamber held (para 115): Although sentencing is in principle a matter for the national courts, the Court considers that the imposition of a prison sentence for a press offence will be compatible with journalists' freedom of expression as guaranteed by Article 10 of the Convention only in exceptional circumstances, notably where other fundamental rights have been seriously impaired, as, for example, in the case of hate speech or incitement to violence. Another important safeguard in Article 10 is the requirement that restriction must be &quot;prescribed by law&quot;, which entails that a law must be &quot;formulated with sufficient precision to enable citizens to regulate their conduct; they must be able – if need be with appropriate advice – to foresee, to a degree that is reasonable in the circumstances, the consequences which a given action may entail&quot; (Centro Europa 7 S.R.L. and Di Stefano v Italy [2012], no. 38433/09). It might be argued that the law prohibiting approval of a &quot;committed criminal offence&quot; is not clearly applicable to actions in the international sphere where there has not been a criminal conviction. In the same way, restrictions might be justified on the grounds of preventing disorder, or not: it would depend on whether there really is a public order danger. In Vajnai v Hungary [2008], no. 33629/06, wearing a prohibited Communist symbol (a red star) was held not to trigger &quot;actual or even remote danger of disorder&quot;. Restrictions have been upheld for actions during protests where there was such a danger. Similar observations apply to the other potential grounds, such as national security or protecting the rights of others. In summary, application of the Czech law could be found incompatible with the Convention rights, depending on the circumstances. The law is not incompatible on its face but it's the situation in a specific case which matters.
There are a lot more differences than this, but if your teacher sums up what he/she means by that sentence. Here, specifically, in Civil Law, the decision of the courts must comply with the laws as enacted, which means there are specific statutes required to make something illegal. Common Law features Stare Decisis which basically means that if Case A is decided in one way, and Case B is a similar Case to Case B, Case B must yield the same decision for all cases in that jurisdiction and lower courts below that court. This means that while statutes (laws) can be made by a legislature, the courts can "make law" by deciding cases. For example, some States in the United States and England and Wales only recently (within the past 30 years) adopted an actual law that made murder illegal? Prior to that murder was illegal under Common Law Murder that had been based on precedence from bazillion cases before that said it's illegal. Nobody bothered to write it down in an actual law. There are several other big differences such as Inquisitorial vs. Adversarial nature of courts, how and when punishments are decided (The famous "Just following Orders" Defense was given in part because of this difference and a lack of understanding over it.), who is the trier of fact vs. who is the trier of law, but as far as what is "Law" this is a good single summation of the difference in a single sentence. But it really shouldn't be condensed to a single sentence.
It depends on the nature of the documents. This law specifies that it is illegal to disclose or publish etc. classified information concerning the nature, preparation, or use of any code, cipher, or cryptographic system of the United States or any foreign government and there are 4 such subcategories. Violation results in imprisonment up to 10 years. This is an ordinary prohibition. Government employees may also be given access to classified information whose disclosure is not criminal in the general case, but would be illegal for the government employee to disclose owing to his position, under this law.
It is reported that this is the result of new legal reasoning in German law. In the cases of Demjanjuk in 2011 and 2015 it was found that being a camp guard is enough to be found guilty of accessory to murder, even without specific evidence of a crime. In a more recent trial (Rehbogen) the prosecution used the same reasoning to charge and try a concentration camp guard.
Germany would not extradite to Saudi Arabia. India and Kuwait might, because they and a few other countries have extradition treaties with KSA. To put this squarely in the realm of illegal (it's not clear that accidentally encountering Shiite material online is a crime in KSA), assume that the person deliberately watched porn then fled to India. Generally speaking, this is a severe enough offense to allow extradition under the India-KSA treaty. However, India gets to review the request for exceptions. Under article 3, the central question is whether this is a political crime. There are enumerated acts that are not deemed to be political. Watching porn is not a listed exception. Accordingly, India could determine that this is a political crime, and refuse to extradite. If the crime is advocating atheism, however, then under Article 3 (1)(j), this is presumably not an excludable offense, because atheism is officially terrorism in KSA per Royal Decree 44 (I can't find an official copy). On the third hand, India may still reserve the right to apply their definition of terrorism. Even if there were an extradition treaty between Germany and KSA, German law Act on International Cooperation in Criminal Matters of 23 December 1982 §3(1) would currently preclude extradition because Extradition shall not be granted unless the offence is an unlawful act under German law or unless mutatis mutandis the offence would also constitute an offence under German law. There might be acts that are offenses in both countries, but not e.g. "watching porn" or "advocating atheism". The boundaries of blasphemy under German law are not clear to me. Section 166 of the Strafgesetzbuch imposes a maximum of 3 years in prison for blasphemy, so it could be an extraditable offense. Sect. 6 of the "Cooperation" law also sets forth exclusions for reasons of political and religious persecution. Also, KSA would have to assure Germany that the death penalty would not be imposed.
Almost every European nation has a &quot;hate speech&quot; law that makes the use of offensive bigoted words of phrases illegal. The U.S. does not have any such laws, and the First Amendment makes such laws unconstitutional. The closest the U.S. can get are laws criminalizing &quot;Hate Crimes&quot; which are ordinary crimes which were motivated in part or in whole by the victim's actual or perceived protected class status. Other specific examples as mentioned in comments, are that Germany has strict laws about advocacy of Nazi ideology. This is completely legal in the United States. Nazi ideology is not popular in the U.S. by any means, but it's allowed to be advocated for because of the strong Freedom of Speech Laws in the United States. In other regards, while U.S. Law is fairly similar to U.K. Law (you have to get into weeds about the differences), it is way more difficult to sue for defamation in U.S. than in the U.K. For starters, the U.S. has the &quot;Public Person&quot; rule which requires that any defamation about a person who is largely known to the public (politicians and celebrities largely) must prove Actual Malice Or Reckless Disregard for the Truth (I.E. You didn't even do the basic research into the statement) in order to prove defamation. But there's also the matter of the burden of proof. In the U.K. the speaker of the alleged defamation must prove in court that the statement was not defamatory. In the U.S., all legal challenges to are &quot;protected speech&quot; until proven otherwise in a court of law. This means that even with the &quot;Public Person&quot; rule set aside, the statement's original speaker need not prove that their speech is truthful, and the burden's on the accuser of defamation to prove it. Edit: Additional Info based on comments, but &quot;Protected Speech&quot; is a legal term used in the U.S. that defines speech that is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States as opposed to commercial speech, which is speech used to make advertise or to further commerce and is restricted, and unprotected speech, which is speech that can land one in trouble. While the list of types of speech is long, every form of speech restriction is very very narrowly tailored. &quot;Hate Speech&quot;, which would be the utterance of words or phrases that can be offensive to people of a protected class (a characteristic that is beyond the individuals control). &quot;Hate Crimes&quot; are not necessarily spoken during the commission of the crime, but rather can be charged in addition to the crime. Suppose a serial killer was killing people of a certain race, this is not enough for police to go on because most serial killers target victims that meet a physical description (same skin color, same hair color, same gender). Once the killer is captured, police search his apartment and find a manifesto where the killer admits that he is selecting his target because he believes people of this protected class are subhuman and thus his superior nature gives him the right to kill them, this would show that the killings were motivated out of hatred, and thus qualify as a hate crime. The way he phrases this may be purely academic and use in offensive language OR it could be laden with all manner of crass slurs. It doesn't matter... what he said is protected speech but what he did is... well... to quote Guardians of the Galaxy... is &quot;murder... on of the worst crimes of all. So also illegal.&quot; Hate crimes criminalize crimes that are motivated by hatred... they do not criminalize speech that is hateful.
A person isn't required to state their evidence that the claim is true when they make the claim, and as a public figure, a defamation suit filed by Trump would be judged under the stronger "actual malice" claim, meaning that the statement was made with knowledge that the claim is false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false. You would have to look at the specific statement. It is generally not defamatory to hurl insults like "rapist!", "pedophile!", "criminal!" etc. against a public figure especially a political figure, since such word don't generally amount to an actual accusation of wrong-doing. On the other hand, a detailed but false claim purporting to relate factual events could cross the threshold. Hyperbole is not actionable.
would this be illegal in the U.S.A.? This would almost certainly fail under the US Constitutions 8th Amendment as being a &quot;cruel and unusual punishment&quot;: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted While the inmate has been sentenced to execution, they are still afforded a lot of protection and are entitled to a stay of execution at any point (which is why there is typically an open telephone line to the state governor etc right up to the point at which the execution starts). Being deliberately put in harms way to catch a killer just because they have been sentenced to execution would be both a cruel and an unusual punishment.