Agreed. I have nowhere near enough information to judge the moral positions of the maid and her employer.
This is why I argue from a strictly legal standpoint: the conduct of the employer, if true, constitutes a felony, for which arrest is legally permitted by the Convention on Consular Relations.
Agreed?
What’s your point?
I will agree, most definitely, if what constitutes a felony under US law is agreed to be the same thing that constitutes a grave offence under the convention on consular relations. Does the convention allow individual countries to lay down what constitutes offences under which they may arrest consular staff?
For one, I think it important that room and board be factored in. For another, I’m proposing nothing, except that the moral positions here are ambiguous at best.
I have difficulty imagining the U.S. retaliating against every single Indian diplomat in the U.S. and encouraging violence against them (by removing security barriers to their embassy, which is what the Indians did with ours).
And given how India treats female victims of rape and other crimes, the over-the-top outrage over this woman’s arrests seems a mite hypocritical.
No, she would have likely hired no one at all. Indian consular staff are not paid a great deal of money. But this argument is certainly more correct than the ‘slavery’ one, and I agree with you that it is why the law is probably in place and since it is in place, should be followed
p.s: Apologies for multiple posts. I have to access the board through a proxy, and the multi-quote button doesn’t work.
The differing types of immunity are not a secret. The Indian government is well aware of the difference between consular and diplomatic immunity. It just didn’t pop up in this case. Its a matter of international law and agreements. If they wish to play politics and pretend it doesn’t exist like that, well I guess it makes them popular to their constituents. But it doesn’t make them correct. She is not immune. No matter how many times you say it, it does not make it true. I really don’t care if she was insulted by being treated like a criminal after committing a crime.
That would be completely relevant if this happened in India.
For one, I am not yet certain that the US was within its rights to arrest and treat the consular officer in the manner that they did. While she did falsify paperwork in a visa application, it is not at all clear that it is a grave offence of the sort that requires her to be arrested from in front of her daughter’s school, handcuffed and strip searched.
That said, I think the over the top response is being driven by her fellow bureaucrats and Indian media. Indian administrative and foreign services are run by bureaucrats who are selected by a nationwide exam. They are in general a close and cliquish bunch, and this strike has been against one of them. It is no surprise at all that they are reacting in this manner. As for the media(and to some extent political) outrage - it’s the media. Generally slow news cycle, a fairly nationalist and young middle class, a general election in four months, what do you expect?
Some people are more equal than others.
I’ve already mentioned why it’s relevant. I’m making a limited point with this - the claim that the woman is being exploited as a slave of some sort by a priviliged, evil and insensitive upper class person is wrong. The woman would have been in India, making at most 15000 INR, without room and board, had it not been for the evil exploity lady. The woman working as a maid was strictly better off by agreeing to the deal, and then proceeded to make herself even better off halfway through by breaking it off. This has little bearing on whether or not the consular officer’s actions were illegal and whether or not the US response was justified.
And is this not true in the US? Never been guilty of hypocrisy have they?
As has been explained, the only thing needed for it to hit the “grave” threshold is that the offense be a felony. Its not a matter of opinion but a matter of law. Cites were provided up thread.
If you are arrested you get handcuffed. Bail was set high because she is an obvious flight risk. If you can not make bail you get sent to lock up. If you go to lock up you get your clothes taken away and it is ensured that you have nothing that can harm you or others. Otherwise someone would have to sit and stare at her until bail could be made. Sorry, she’s not that special.
Bricker, I am really interested in your response to this. Because there was a pretty ugly statement made by an Indian politician about what constitutes grave offences and allows prosecution of consular staff that may actually apply.
Exactly. On page one I cited the last page of this, which is what the State Department distributes to law enforcement agencies across the country. It specifically states that consular officers may not be arrested or detained EXCEPT in the case of a felony and pursuant to a warrant. They are immune from prosecution only for official acts. The detailed guidance is clear that only a court, and not a law enforcement officer, State Department official, or anyone else, may determine what an official act is. (See page 6.) If the Indian official wants to make a claim that her actions are covered by the official acts immunity, it is an affirmative defense that she must raise in court.
I mentioned this earlier. She quit her job in June, presumably over the low wages, and it sounds like India wanted the U.S. to arrest her for quitting since that’s probably a violation of her visa. The U.S. apparently opted to arrest the diplomat paying the low wages instead of the servant who was being badly underpaid.
Live-in servants still have to be paid the minimum wage and compensated for overtime. So in the best case, people insisting that room and board should count are asking for an exception from the law. But even if we pretend this woman’s room and board was worth $3,900 a month and that she was really able to live on $573 a month and was compensated for overtime, that’s something that easily could’ve been worked out ahead of time.
‘Felony’ is a US definition. Does the individual country’s decision apply? It is not clear to me at all that fudging paperwork is a ‘grave offence’ that necessitates holding another country’s diplomatic staff in prison. The ugly statement made above was by a politician who stated that the Indian penal code(which was really instituted by the british) now again makes homosexuality a criminal offence. It is clear to me that it isn’t an offence at all, yet Indian law now says it is. If it came to the situation that it ended up applying to a foreign country’s diplomats, I’m sure India would try that it not. In fact, it recently DID provide a visa to the partner of a US official posted to India, even though they couldn’t be legally married in the US and thus did not meet the Indian requirement for a spouse visa. Just general good manners in treating another country’s staff, which have not been followed in this situation, no doubt for a specific reason that we do not know of.
I’m not arguing that what happened wasn’t illegal under US law. I’m arguing that it is not as morally clear cut position as some in the thread are making it out to be. And I’m arguing that US response could have been more sensitive to diplomatic niceties. Which they chose for it not to be. That’s fine. I don’t think it was the best choice they could have made, but that’s just an opinion.
That’s possible. But the room and board thing is not a solid basis for that argument.
I don’t see why it’s unfortunate at all, I hope we throw her ass in jail.
Why not? The woman was getting room and board, and in addition a wage that she could never have hoped to make in India even without room and board included. To compare it to American minimum wages is not sensible(in the context of morality). That woman’s alternative wasn’t an American minimum wage, it was an Indian one (which only really exists in rural areas).