QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; Finland and Switzerland are violating the basic human rights that you cannot punish someone without first establishing the act as wrong and then prescribing the penalty. I think this was a major issue in the American Revolution and in the French Revolution. Am I correct? It looks like your wheel of fortune has revolved in so many areas.
Thank you for shining the light
KB
ANSWER: Yes. Very good. The Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson, for which the king sent an entire army to his home just to hang him personally, included: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”
It has been historically a fundamental human right that Finland and Switzerland are violating in their greed. It is known as the Ex Post Facto Clause. You cannot write a law AFTER the fact and then punish someone for violating a law that did not previously exist. That was a favorite abuse of the king who was also broke.
Part of that fundamental human right that Switzerland and Finland are violating is also the punishment. You ethically cannot be subject to a fine based upon INCOME. What is the penalty? You have to know you are committing an offense and you must be aware of the penalty. What these two countries are doing is indistinguishable from say jay-walking and then they say oh, that is 25 years in prison because we need prison labor we do not have to pay.
Finland has a very questionable past regarding the Ex Post Facto rights of man. Generally, the Finnish legal system does not permit Ex Post Facto laws that would expand criminal responsibility. Curiously, this is not expressly forbidden by any definitive right. It is more a practice than a recognized right. In civil matters, such as speeding or taxation, Ex Post Facto laws do not apply in Finland in any strict sense and may be made in some circumstances, which appear to be whenever they need money.
Finland’s past with respect to this basic human right is very dark. Following the Finnish civil war of 1918, the Parliament of Finland passed a law setting up tribunals to try suspected rebels. These tribunals issued death sentences for crimes that were not predefined. Several hundred people were summarily executed under what was clearly a violation of international human rights not to be subjected to any ex post facto legal arrangement. During the war, and before the tribunals were set up, thousands of people had been executed without trial by both sides.
After World War II, Finland was under pressure to convict political leaders whom the Allied powers considered responsible for Finnish involvement in the war. An ex post facto law was passed in the autumn of 1945 to permit prosecution for war responsibility, and eventually eight politicians were convicted. So there has never been any solid recognition of this human right in Finland which is now applied to speeding tickets to raise money.
In another post-war case, the weapons cache case, an ex post facto law was passed in 1947 so that military personnel could be prosecuted for unofficially preparing for guerrilla resistance in case of Soviet occupation. So there is plenty of historical problems in Finland with the Ex Post Facto right.
In the the United States, the Supreme Court has referred repeatedly to its ruling in Calder v. Bull 3 U.S. 386 (1798), in which Justice Samuel Chase (April 17, 1741 – June 19, 1811) held that the prohibition applied only to criminal matters, not civil matters. So the US government is free to issue fines for acts AFTER the fact today as long as they are classified as “civil” rather than “criminal”. So the Supreme Court would uphold abusive fines for acts that vary and were not predefined.
The US taxation on worldwide income violates Human Rights for it rejects that Americans are free and can live where they choose and if they do not use American services, they should not have to pay for not living there. The right to tax based upon birth is indistinguishable from slavery.
