|
[Home] [Video&Photos] [Ludicrous] - About The Natrix ] [Software] |
Any copyright of ownership of this document is rejected. Harassment Juridically Reconsidereddansk / danishIn the following argumentation there will not be made any distinction between "harassment" and "bullying", in that these two expressions are here considered to be synonymous: "bullying" is thus considered here merely to be a popular term for "harassment", or "harassment" a technical term for "bullying". Regardless of the fact that the following aims at arguing an upper delimitation of penalty from the point of view of the very serious nature harassment can have in the most severe cases, it is none the less recognized that harassment or "bullying" may occur in more or less severe degree, and that it is of course not any instance which should call upon the harshest possible sanction. It is merely the intention to clarify the rationale of a quite high definition of the upper limit of penalty for what can in particularly severe case be a very serious crime. Harassment is known typically to may result in psychological consequences to its victim in the form of what is popularly known as "shell shock", and in severe cases possibly even hallucinations and other serious, crippling mental disturbances, as well as in possibly fysical side effects of stress, such as f.x. hightened risk of ulcer, cancer, etc. For that reason alone harassment should not be treated lightly, but considered as seriously as other forms of violence of a particularly severe, potentially crippling, nature. This fact may not be very commonly known, and will not be included in the argumentation made here. However, with regard to the juridically oriented argumentation, I believe it should at least be mentioned. However I will take offset in another, commonly known, fact that harassment may have downright lethal outcome. For there can hardly be anyone who can honestly claim themselves to be unaware of the fact that harassment with some regularity result in the victim of the harassment commiting suicide. People who commit harassment against another person can therefor not honestly claim that they are not perfectly aware of the fact that their way of treating the person in question in actual fact bring that persons life in real danger. Furthermore, in context of harassment, examples of explicit or implicit encouragents or prompts aimed at third party to kill the victim (which is of course by already existing law punishable), or explicit or implicit encouragements or prompts to the victim to commit suicide. The fact that such encouragements or prompts does not occur in all cases ought not be taken as a signifier that the harassemnt may not have such a motive; but should merely be seen as a signifier that those who conduct the harassment are clever enough not to express it. Since harassment implicitly entail a risk of the victim commiting suicide, which fact those who conduct the harassment, as mentioned before, can not sincerely claim to be ignorant of, and givn that the harassment is actively accumulating that risk by, regardless of wether or not it is supported by encouragements to do so, implicitly motivating the victim to commit suicide, it ought therefor be considered to be an element of the rationale of harassment, that it aims at bringing the victim's life at risk. does not change the serious nature of the matter: In that regard it is comparable to a group of persons playing a kind of russian roulette, where they take turns of spinning the drum and pointing the revolver at the victim of the harassment: Even though each individual time it is most likely that the revolver clicks, any reasonable person should be able to realize that the propability that the "fun" will come to a deadly conclusion is proportionally increasing with the number of times they do it, and that if only they keep doing it long enough then the victim will be killed sooner or later. If somebody played that kind of russian roulette with somebody else's life at stake surely it would not be accepted as a valid defence that each and every individual time they pulled the trigger at the person in question it "was not very likely that it would go off": Those who participated knew that there was a live bullet in the barrel and that the risk of the victim getting killed by what they were doing was increasing the more times they did it. The fact that the risk in each instance of harassment may possibly be something less that 1/6 is for that matter irrelevant: If a group of persons had subjected another person to the just described kind of russian roulette with a revolver which had not 6 but f.ex. 100 or 1000 chambers in the barrel, it would hardly make much difference with regard to the seriousness of what they were doing: The fact is that regardless of the number of chambers there was still a live bullet in the barrel, which was perfectly well known to those who participated. which in and by itself is deadly does not make any difference either: In that regard it may be comparable to - rather than pointing a revolver with a live bullet which would be instantaniously lethal - in stead, f.ex., repeatedly exposed the victim to a strong dose of radiation; such as by placing radioactive material in that person's immediate vicinity: Each individual time one did that it would not be in and by itself neither necessarily nor instantaniously lethal; but if one thus maintained a state of more or less constant radiation the accumulated effect would in time result i what is popularly known as radiation illness, with those effects in the form of leuchemia, etc., which would then in time kill the victim. If somebody robbed another human being of his or her life by using that method then surely it would not be accepted as a valid defence that each individual portion of radioactive material "was neither immediately nor in and by itself deadly": Those who participated in doing it knew that each portion of radioactive material was contributing to weaken the victim, and that what they were doing, if they kept doing it long enough, in time would result in the victim's death. and were not thinking about the fact that their actions could or would eventually kill the victim, is not a valid defence either: If a group of persons had participated in the before mentioned form of russian roulette with another person's life at stake it would surely not be accepted as a valid defence either; that they "did it for fun" and "were not thinking about the risk" that the revolver could go off. was not delivered by the perpetrators directly, but was left to the victim, is not a valid defence either: If a group of persons deny another human being any other choice than death as the only alternative to what must rightfully be considered to be torture, it can hardly be termed a real "choice" at all: Such as f.ex. if a group of persons had cornered another person on the edge of the roof of a twenty story building, and in that situation were giving that person a very painful treatment; such as f.ex. by blowing at him or her with a blowtorch, or something similar, and thus thereby left the person in question without any other option of avoiding the painful treatment than jumping to his or her death. If somebody had in that way caused another person to jump out from the roof of a twenty story building surely it would not be accepted as a valid defence that it was the person in question's "own choice" to jump to his or her death. Harassment ought thus logically and juridically not be treated any more lightly than atempted murder or accessory to atempted murder. Atempted murder can, as far as I am informed, by danish law, in itself result in a maximum penalty life in prison, and can in certain states of the US in some cases be punishable by lethal injection or the electric chair. What the punishment of torture may be I don't know, but in as much as the method of killing consist in subjecting the victim to so much suffering that he or she is forced to choose death as the only way out, harassment should more precisely be termed as an atempt to torture the victim to death. And similarly: if a person who is being subjected to harassment fend for him- or her-self by whatever fysical or psychological means he or she may deem necessary, to stop or fend off what is in actual fact an ongoing atempt on his or her life, it ought similarly logically and juridically be taken into consideration that in reality it is a case of self defence against actions which in actual fact are subjecting the person in question not only to inhumane suffering but are actually endangering his or her life. It is one of the important functions of the justice system to maintain the citizen's feeling of justice by ensuring him or her that the society which through the law is severely limiting his or her possibilities of seeking satisfaction for the urge of vengeance of crimes commited against him or her, may then in return be expected on his or her behalf to prosecute and sentence the person or persons who have committed such crimes against him or her. If serious, possibly even life threatening, crimes against the citizen are consequently being treated lightly, ignored, and left unpunished, the feeling of justice of the citizen is undermined, and he or she will feel urged to seek justice on his or her own. This, however, is not to urge anyone to choose less bright solutions such as what has been seen in the US and other places, where students at different highschools have gone amok with machineguns or similar: Quite the contrary it must be considered a much wiser cause of action (not to mention; as for that matter; also a better revenge) to use one's abilities of argumentation and documentation and one's common sense to urge- and see to it that legislation is passed, which makes harassment a criminal offence punishable by a juridic measure that actually correspond to the measure of suffering and risk of life and health that this crime is causing its victims. Once again it should finally be mentioned that the argumentation at hande has taken its offset in argumenting for the rationale of a quite high definition of the upper limit of penalty, although it is recognized that harassment may occur in more or less severe degree, and that it is of course not any instance which should call upon the harshest possible sanction. It is merely the intention to clarify the rationale of a quite high definition of the upper limit of penalty for what can in particularly severe case be a very serious crime. Any copyright of ownership of this document is rejected. |