A  PRICE  FOR  SUPPORTING  TERRORISM

 

 Solon always had a sneaking liking for that young whipper-snapper Socrates, as well as admiration for his abilities and exasperation at his fatal unwillingness to manipulate the citizen body of Athens into acting sensibly. Acquaintance with Socrates has left Solon ever after with a conviction that criminal law should never be used to inhibit free speech, a conviction far too often reinforced by experience since then. But Solon also espouses the widespread principle of civil law that speech or writing which damages someone else should make the speaker or writer liable for those damages.

  Political terrorism lives and is maintained by a wider base of support, spoken or unspoken. This support helps to damage, sometimes fatally, those citizens attacked by the terrorists. Solon judges that it is in accord with the principles of responsible democracy that those who express support for terrorists should be regarded as making themselves liable, individually and collectively, for the damages these terrorists do to their fellow citizens. Solon excepts from this liability damages done to the property of governments, as outwith the ambit of the principle of law he seeks to apply. However, private damages to a citizen who happens to be employed by a government, for example a policeman, are included.

  Openly voiced support for any form of terrorist violence is fairly rare. Much more common is support voiced by refusal to condemn. Solon therefore proposes a simple mechanism to define those liable for these damages. Anyone refusing to subscribe to a simple public declaration before a notary public or before a judge reading “I do not support violence committed by (such and such terrorist organisation)” would make themselves liable for any and all damages to other citizens from violence by that body back to the date of their 18th birthday.

Signature of the declaration followed by proof at a later date that you did support the organisation would make you a preferred payer of any damages due. Signature later after a refusal in the first place would cease your liability for damages incurred after you had signed, and make your liability to pay for earlier damages contingent upon their not having been collected from preferred payers.

  Any citizen damaged by or at risk from threats by the terrorist organisation could ask for such a declaration from any other citizen. This right would, of course, extend to associations of citizens at risk, for example a police trade union, a political party suffering terrorist attacks or a group of victims of terrorism.  

 The damages due would be collected by civil procedures. A small central secretariat paid for out of moneys collected would keep track of the names of those liable, collect moneys through the usual civil procedures, keep records of to whom what damages were due (claims by those damaged, certified by an expert and countersigned by a judge.) and pay out appropriately, asking guidance from the courts on priorities for payment when such guidance was required. 

 Terrorist supporters could, of course, sign the declaration and run the risk of being discovered later. But to be so discovered would invite bankruptcy. They would tend to become very wary of showing support in any way. Other terrorist supporters might put all their assets in other names, and then refuse to sign. But those who then took title to the assets would be asked to sign, in turn. And so on. Enthusiasm for the terrorist cause would, Solon feels, diminish in direct proportion to what the supporter had to lose. The idea that your salary or your pension might be attached to pay the damages caused by the form of struggle you supported would revise ideas of what form of struggle to support in a democracy. 

 Such pressures diminishing terrorist support are, for the Unit’s lawyers, a by-product of the normal legal process of paying for the damages to other citizens that you have helped to cause. On the other hand, Solon’s economist colleagues regard it as a parallel case to making polluters of the environment pay. The economic incentives are adjusted to make it less likely that other people will have costs imposed upon them by the action of their fellows. The compensation payments to those damaged are a desirable incidental to the economists.

  Nevertheless, the economists of USE point out that the appropriate economic value for loss of life is much greater than many legal systems seem to recognise. Compensation of US$ 1,000,000 would appear from the best studies that have been done in developed countries to be a minimum, significantly below an appropriate average.

  Solon suggests that all countries should amend their laws, when convenient, to include such a provision. It would act as a deterrent to potential supporters of new terrorist groups. For those with current acute or potentially acute terrorist problems – Ireland, the United Kingdom Spain and France in Europe – he suggests that legislative time be found for the appropriate small measure of amendment to the laws as soon as it is drafted.

 

  Should you wish to comment, an email to solon@use-solon.org may draw a response.

 

  

 *     *  *  *