by Julian Ku
Another day, another chance for folks in the UK to make threats about bringing legal action against the Pope during his upcoming September visit to the UK. The latest attack comes from noted atheists Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. It looks like the focus will be on breaking down the Pope’s head-of-state immunity defense, rather than trying to fit the sex abuse into the category of crimes against humanity. I think even this argument is very shaky, and wouldn’t fly in the U.S. because courts would give absolute deference to the executive branch’s decision to recognize the Vatican as a state, and the Pope as the head of state. But these UK lawyers are serious, they have real money behind them, so legal action will likely happen. Will the Pope take the chance and visit anyway?
Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are paying lawyers to investigate whether Pope Benedict XVI should be arrested when he visits Britain in September.
Mr Dawkins and Mr Hitchens believe the Pope should face charges for the alleged cover-up of sex abuse in the Catholic Church, The Guardian reports.
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Mark Stephens, a lawyer for Mr Dawkins and Mr Hitchens, says only those with UN protection are safe.
“The Vatican is not recognised as a state in international law. People assume that it has existed for time immemorial but it was a construct of [Italian wartime leader Benito] Mussolini and, when the Vatican first applied to become a member of the UN, the US said no,” Mr Stephens told The Guardian.
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“[Fellow lawyer Geoffrey Robertson] and I have both come to the view that the Vatican is not actually a state in international law. It is not recognised by the UN, it does not have borders that are policed and its relations are not of a full diplomatic nature.”