Harry Dunn case

[sTeamTraen]

Harry Dunn was the lad who was run over and killed on his motorbike by Anne Sacoolas, the wife of an American stationed at a USAF an RAF base. She legged it back to the US and Harry's family want her to be extradited. The case seems to hinge on whether she was entitled to diplomatic immunity at that point. The High Court just decided that she was. The family and their representatives have released the statements that I've attached below.

This is a tragic case, and I hope Mrs Sacoolas has a great deal of difficulty sleeping at night for the foreseeable future, but tragic cases don't always make for good legal decisions. Is it just me who thinks that the rhetoric here might be getting ahead of the law? The parents are entitled to a lot of leeway, of course, but it's not clear to me exactly who the Radd Seiger person is or what his role is, other than to chase publicity. He doesn't seem to be a lawyer and his Twitter profile looks frankly rather dodgy.

Over the last couple of years we have seen how vital it is that the judiciary be as independent as possible of political interference, and yet here we have litigants calling openly for government ministers to get involved and hoping that Biden will somehow overrule whatever the US courts might decide, if it ever gets that far. And I think we can all imagine what the tabloids will make of it. To the extent that "Dominic Raab has won this round", I feel like I'm actually behind him on this. He can have a quiet word by all means, tell Trump or Biden how great it would be if someone persuaded Mrs Sacoolas to get on a plane and surrender, but that surely has to be the end of it in political terms.



Tangentially, I also wonder how much evidence the police have to convict her of "causing death by dangerous driving". My understanding is that "dangerous" is the top of the shop, above "reckless", "inconsiderate", "careless", and "without due care and attention" [not all of those may be actual formal offences] and would normally be reserved for something like people having a race on the M1, not someone from a drive-on-the-right country who drove out of a side road and forgot to drive on the left-hand side. (Maybe she was tearing up the country lanes of Northamptonshire at 80mph under the influence of MDMA and with loud trance music blaring out, but it seems unlikely.) So if it did go to trial and her lawyers got the level of the driving offence reduced to "careless", and she ended up with a community order, we could look forward to extensive ranting from the laura norder crowd about lenient magistrates, PC gorn mad, string 'em up, etc etc. (FWIW, in the 1960s my mother's car was hit by someone who had just come back from a couple of months in France and was on the wrong side of the road. He got a small fine for careless driving, although of course my Mum's leg injuries --- this was back in the pre-seatbelt era --- don't begin to compare with the consequences here.)

[discovolante]

Link to judgment: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ad ... /3185.html

[Woodchopper]

Link to judgment: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ad ... /3185.html

Also diplomatic immunity is laid out in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations

The members of the family of a diplomatic agent forming part of his household shall, if they are not nationals of the receiving State, enjoy the privileges and immunities specified in articles 29 to 36. [Which describe diplomatic immunity]

So the wife being covered doesn't seem to be inconsistent.

[sTeamTraen]

Link to judgment: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ad ... /3185.html

Ta. If I'm reading correctly, it looks like it comes down to a horrible, horrible technicality, even possibly a drafting error, in that her husband would not have been immune due to the advance waiver, and you would have thought that by natural justice the family members can't have a better deal than the personnel member concerned; but the lawyers are presumably mostly about the letter of the law.

I had a limited form of diplomatic immunity in my last job. I could have been prosecuted for, say, dangerous driving, at the weekends, or if I drove into town and back at lunchtime; but I was immune when driving between our buildings to go to a meeting, or on my morning and evening commute, as they were considered part of the execution of my duties.

[discovolante]

I've only skimmed it and skipped bits, but yeah that seems to be the gist of it, but it doesn't appear to have been as clear cut as 'she's got diplomatic immunity, get over it'. The letter of the law, yes, but also sort of but not quite no. Near the beginning of the judgment they quote Lord Sumption at length and comment on the importance of accurately interpreting treaties rather than pushing at the boundaries of how they could be interpreted out of a sense of 'fairness', and you can see the logic to this 1) for the reasons set out and 2) because these are presumably supposed to be professionals working in a specialist area, with access to legal advice, so giving a lot of leeway shouldn't really be necessary. So it seemed worth making a specific point in this case as to why the law had to be interpreted in that way, presumably due to the nature of the Claimant's legal arguments about derived immunity etc. But anyway, where you're talking about different types of rights and obligations, the courts aren't going to go behind or contradict what the legislation stipulates but might grant a bit more leeway to non-professional individuals, particularly people in vulnerable situations: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1601&p=45974&hilit ... per#p45974 (yah my own post). Although I'm not sure how entirely comparable the two situations are seeing as that link talks about legislation drafted quite differently, and the VCDR explicitly states that any waiver of immunity *must* be express, as the court points out (although not without having to work out, briefly, how Article 32 applied in this case). I just wanted to flag up that sometimes if there is room for manoeuvre the court will look at what is likely to have been intended by the drafting, to a fairly limited extent. And of course they're required to do so to an extent in some circumstances, due to s3 of the Human Rights Act.

[OneOffDave]

From the beginning I've always thought this could be resolved by the locals refusing to engage with or sell to anyone from the base. Make life difficult so that more and more things have to be provided on base (food, fuel, clothes, education, etc) this making it more difficult for them to operate

[bolo]

From the beginning I've always thought this could be resolved by the locals refusing to engage with or sell to anyone from the base. Make life difficult so that more and more things have to be provided on base (food, fuel, clothes, education, etc) this making it more difficult for them to operate

I suspect that the USAF has deeper pockets for that game than the local shopkeepers do.

[sTeamTraen]

From the beginning I've always thought this could be resolved by the locals refusing to engage with or sell to anyone from the base. Make life difficult so that more and more things have to be provided on base (food, fuel, clothes, education, etc) this making it more difficult for them to operate

I suspect that the USAF has deeper pockets for that game than the local shopkeepers do.

A USAF base is extremely autonomous. I've spent quite a bit of time on Ramstein AFB in Germany and it's like Little America. There is a Burger King inside the base (with everything, down to the little packets of Heinz ketchup, labelled and packed in the US) even though there is a German franchised Burger King less than 3km away. The US military operates Popeyes Fried Chicken franchises on base in Afghanistan. So not having the occasional local person put up a stand when the base has a craft fair would not be a big deal.

The base will get their fresh food and fuel from large corporate or national agreements (aviation fuel will be part of the national pipeline network). The personnel receive a card that allows them to buy petrol at US prices at large numbers of fuel stations in the host country, even if there isn't a gas station on base (there is one at Ramstein, but I don't think there is at Croughton). There is a full American K-12 educational setup on the base at Croughton (see map), and the Base Exchange (BX; compare PX in the Army) will be stocked like a medium-sized Wal-Mart, so that's your groceries and clothes taken care of. You can buy a US-spec car on the base and drive it, unmodified, on UK roads, then ship it back to the States when your tour of duty is over. Most personnel will hardly be buying anything locally. It's a rather surreal world when you first enter it as a European; you can see how it makes sense when the base is a long way from Western comforts, but even in Europe they still fly pretty much everything in to keep the troops feeling right at home.

Also, what would a boycott be intended to achieve? What would the demands be? Sacoolas and hubby don't live there any more, so it would be entirely symbolic. The law appears to be on Sacoolas's side (and in any case, what the law decides shouldn't depend on public opinion), so any decision by her to turn herself in would have to be a personal one.

[OneOffDave]

From the beginning I've always thought this could be resolved by the locals refusing to engage with or sell to anyone from the base. Make life difficult so that more and more things have to be provided on base (food, fuel, clothes, education, etc) this making it more difficult for them to operate

I suspect that the USAF has deeper pockets for that game than the local shopkeepers do.

I doubt they provide fuel for private vehicles and feed and clothe dependents.

[OneOffDave]

[

Also, what would a boycott be intended to achieve? What would the demands be? Sacoolas and hubby don't live there any more, so it would be entirely symbolic. The law appears to be on Sacoolas's side (and in any case, what the law decides shouldn't depend on public opinion), so any decision by her to turn herself in would have to be a personal one.

Given there have been several near misses of a similar nature outside the base since the incident in question, it might force the base commanders to educate their personnel properly to obey the laws of the country thy are based in.

[bolo]

From the beginning I've always thought this could be resolved by the locals refusing to engage with or sell to anyone from the base. Make life difficult so that more and more things have to be provided on base (food, fuel, clothes, education, etc) this making it more difficult for them to operate

I suspect that the USAF has deeper pockets for that game than the local shopkeepers do.

I doubt they provide fuel for private vehicles and feed and clothe dependents.

See sTeamTraen's post above re on-base shopping. Definitely available to dependents.

[sTeamTraen]

I suspect that the USAF has deeper pockets for that game than the local shopkeepers do.

I doubt they provide fuel for private vehicles and feed and clothe dependents.

See sTeamTraen's post above re on-base shopping. Definitely available to dependents.

Yep, it is. We have a couple of very good friends who are part of the military community around Ramstein. He is now retired, she was always a civilian. He has a one-day-a-week contractor status that means both he and she still get all the air-base and not-quite-resident-in-Germany privileges (discounted petrol, can drive US spec car, can shop at the BX, can go to Landstuhl military hospital for the finest healthcare that tax dollars can buy, etc). They do all their shopping on the base; the only stuff that they buy in local stores is at the bakery (well, German bread is pretty good).

The BX/PX network is sufficiently big that it has "own-brand" goods; for example, when our friends come to visit, they bring me a 12-month supply of base-brand contact lens fluid that costs $3 a bottle, versus $7 for the genuine ClearCare of which it is a knock-off. The European brand name for this, AFAIK, is still AOSept, and it retails for 18-20 Euros in most opticians.

Another friend of ours, via the same couple, is a teacher. She teaches a US curriculum to her students and makes reasonably good money, but all in USD. Her husband is German --- they live a rather split life, buying whatever they need at whatever place offers best value. The USD-EUR exchange rate is a subject of discussion in the way that the weather might be for most people. It's a whole nother world that most people know nothing about.

[OneOffDave]

I can see everything being available at bigger bases like Mildenhall but RAF Croughton hasn't got a filling station and the BX is only the size of a Tesco Metro.

As there's no runway, everything that's delivered has to arrive by road or helicopter

[Imrael]

As it happens Croughton is about 5 miles from me. We dont see a huge amount of service personnel around town - some but not hordes. They are (or at least were) pretty good at a bit of vounteer and community stuff. I've only been on base once (arranged to see a historic spitfire pen) but I dont think there is a huge population. (Although its being combined with Shefford so maybe a bit more now).

[sTeamTraen]

I can see everything being available at bigger bases like Mildenhall but RAF Croughton hasn't got a filling station and the BX is only the size of a Tesco Metro.

I would bet money that many of the personnel do a major monthly grocery shop involving a drive to the nearest larger base.

When we first started going to Ramstein and hanging out in the "KMC" (Kaiserlautern Military Community") I could not get my head around just how much of a bubble the US forces in Germany live in. Our friends have been there for a long time, have German friends, speak enough German to get by, but AFAIK never, ever set foot in a German supermarket like Edeka or Lidl.