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, as there then were no provisions to allow the extradition of British residents, or naturalised citizens to face trial for war crimes in third countries. Other countries, such as the United States have used civil, rather than criminal proceedings, to resolve this issue by revoking citizenship of suspects, 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 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, has been convicted under the Act. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and died in jail in 2005.
Famous quotes containing the words war, crimes and/or act:
“That is what war is and dancing it is forward and back, when one is out walking one wants not to go back the way they came but in dancing and in war it is forward and back.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“... how have I used rivers, how have I used wars
to escape writing of the worst thing of all—
not the crimes of other, not even our own death,
but the failure to want our freedom passionately enough
so that blighted elms, sick rivers, massacres would seem
mere emblems of that desecration of ourselves?”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Don’t be so ready to defy everybody. Act as if you expected to have your own way, not as if you expected to be ordered about. The way to get on as a lady is the same as the way to get on as a servant: you’ve got to know your place.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)