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a)
for practical purposes, there is no difference between the crime of
terrorism and the crime of treason or aggravated terrorism classified
under Peruvian law and both are open to broad interpretation which, in
turn, leaves room for confusion.
They are open-ended criminal
classifications “couched in vague language,” contrary to the modern
principles of criminal law that require very specific terminology with
little or no room for interpretation. This is a violation of a basic canon
of criminal law, which requires a precise legal description or definition
of the crime or other classification;
b)
the principle of nullum crimen nulla poena sine lege praevia is
the cornerstone of a government of laws and a basic principle of
criminal law. When coupled with the principles of legal certainty and
juridical security, a range of principles follow that serve to reinforce it:
1) guarantees of criminal procedural law; 2) guarantees for those
imprisoned or in custody;
3) the
guarantee of a competent,
independent and impartial judge previously established by law; 4) the
guarantee of judicial control of execution of sentence; 5) the principle
of nonrespectivity of laws and prohibition of retroactivity when
unfavorable to the defendant; 6) the principle prohibiting the use of
analogy in criminal law; 7) the principle of adjudication by the laws
and the constitution in effect at the time the crime was committed; 8)
the principle of the proportionality of the sentence; 9) the principle
prohibiting judicial lawmaking; 10) the principle prohibiting ambiguity
in the law; and 11) the principle whereby sentences may not be
amended for the worse, or reformatio in peius, etc.;
115.
c)
the crime of treason, as the State itself has acknowledged, is the
nomen iuris of aggravated terrorism. Apart from being open-ended,
this classification removes prosecution of this criminal behavior “from
the jurisdiction of the competent, independent and impartial tribunal
previously established by law, which is the regular court, and transfers
it to the military court.” Furthermore, “the crime of treason as a
classification […] under criminal law has nothing to do with terrorism.”
Treason is a crime against the security of a nation and is criminalized
in order to protect a nation’s independence, sovereignty or integrity,
which is not at issue in this case; and
d)
Article 2 of Decree-Law No. 25,659 provides who the authors of the
crime of treason are. However, it makes no provision for alien
perpetrators. In other words, it does not specify whether the State is
demanding allegiance of certain foreign citizens, and under what
conditions it must do so. This is a violation of the principle of nullum
crimen nulla poena sine lege praevia. Allegiance to the Peruvian
nation is the duty of Peruvian citizens. Aliens cannot be prosecuted for
a failure to fulfill a duty of allegiance that the law does not require.
Argument of the State:
The legal classification of the crime is in Decree-Law No. 25,659, promulgated
in August 1992. In other words, “at the time [the alleged victims] were
detained and brought to trial, the laws were already on the books.” They
“knew perfectly well what drastic legal consequences they were risking.”