The War Crimes Act 1991 is an
Act of the
Parliament of the United Kingdom. It confers jurisdiction on courts in the
United Kingdom to try people for
war crimes committed in
Nazi Germany or German-occupied territory during the
Second World War by people who were not British citizens at the time, but have since become British citizens or residents. The legislation was enacted since there were no provisions to allow the extradition of
British residents or
naturalised citizens to face trial for war crimes in third countries at the time. Other countries, such as the
United States, have used
civil
Civil may refer to:
*Civic virtue, or civility
*Civil action, or lawsuit
* Civil affairs
*Civil and political rights
*Civil disobedience
*Civil engineering
*Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism
*Civilian, someone not a membe ...
rather than
criminal
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...
proceedings to resolve this issue by revoking citizenship of suspects, therefore facilitating their deportation.
The Act was rejected by the
House of Lords, and so it was passed with the authority of only the
House of Commons under the provisions of the
Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949
The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 are two Act of Parliament, Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which form part of the constitution of the United Kingdom. Section 2(2) of the Parliament Act 1949 provides that the two Acts are to be St ...
. The Parliament Acts are rarely invoked: the War Crimes Act was only the fourth statute since 1911 enacted under their provisions, and the first since the
Parliament Act 1949. The War Crimes Act remains the only time that the Parliament Acts were invoked by a
Conservative government.
To date only one person,
Anthony Sawoniuk
Anthony Sawoniuk, born Andrei Sawoniuk ( be, Андрэй Саванюк, ''Andrej Savaniuk''; 7 March 1921 – 6 November 2005) was a Belarusian Nazi collaborator from the town of Damačava in Brest Region.
After taking part in the murder of t ...
, has been convicted under the Act. In 1999, he was sentenced to
life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...
for
murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...
during his involvement with the collaborationist
Belarusian Auxiliary Police. He died in jail in 2005.
The first person to be charged, however, was fellow Belarusian officer, Szymon Serafinowicz Sr.. His trial commenced in 1997 for the murder of three unnamed Jews committed as during his role as Police chief in
Mir. At this stage, he was in the advanced stages of
dementia and was declared medically unfit. He died later that year.
References
External links
*
Law of war
War crimes
United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1991
English criminal law
1991 in military history
Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed under the Parliament Act
Ex post facto law
{{UK-statute-stub