Should cruelty be allowed if it is justified by culture?

So, to resume this, I just had a massive discussion with my teachers, some people at school, and my family.

I currently live in Colombia and our constituion grants Indian reserves special jurisdiction to judge and punish crimes acording to their costums.

In our constitution it says that we are suppouse to respect their culture since it is inherent to their human dignity.

Ok so far so good but this is where it gets tricky.

Recently we where reviewing a judicial decision in which a men, with in the reservation, a native, killed another native. Thus he was judged according to their cultural tradition. The men had no right to legal council or any sort of defense and was senetenced to be expelled from the reservation and be submitted to 20 lashes or something by the chief of the tribe. The men imposed a tutela (which is a mechanism by which one can ask the state to protect human rights when they are being violeted). The judge (a colombian judge not a native judge) dismissed his plea and thus he was flagellated. Even when the constituion forbids and sort of corporal punishmet. The judge argument was that protecting the traditions and jurisdiciton of the tribe was more important, in this case, than the clear prohibition by some articles of the constitution and international law of this sort of punishments. Do you agree with this decission?

edited 11th Sep '11 4:40:22 PM by Baff

Ah, so that's where you live.

Well, in my opinion it has to do with where. If they're on reserve and the Natives have control over the legal proceedings there, then so be it.

But as soon as you step onto Ottawa Canadian soil, you'll be punished by Canadian law.

We sure he is talking Canada Columbia?

He said Colombia. With an O. So the South America Colombia, I'd imagine. BC has a U.

That is what I was thinking but I want to make sure it is not a typo.

@thread title,

Yes.

The U.S. Constitution's take on this question:

• Amendment VIII: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

However, Your Milage May Vary as to what constitutes "excessive", "cruel", or "unusual".

Unless I'm not imagining this correctly, 20 lashes desn't seem all that horribly cruel for murder when in a lot of countries you could get life or death. I'm aware some lashing instruments are worse than others; the Romans had some particularly nasty ones.

Indeed, death isn't necessarily a cruel punishment for heinous crimes. It is the manner of execution that would matter, not the fact that the person would be getting executed.

~shrug~

We are no less barbaric than they are. We are simply better at structuring it. Can't tell someone they're wrong when you are no more right.

@Tueful: We have the same issues. I'm sure Baff meant it for everywhere in the Americas.

Oh, this is a tough one.

If I am understanding this correctly, yes, the tribal leaders have the authority to impose corporeal punishment on the man. The crime was committed on their soil and involving civilians from the area in question. When given the choice to intervene, the government refused.

Whether it is moral or not is an entirely different question and opens up large quandary regarding human dignity and cultural relativism. Thanks for posting this thread, the discussion should be interesting.

edited 11th Sep '11 6:59:08 PM by Pentadragon

Twenty lashes is an extraordinarily light punishment for murder. I'm surprised the guy appealed the decision.

In general, I oppose cultural relativism, but I can't consider the customs applied in this case to be a very serious human rights violation.

edited 11th Sep '11 6:54:29 PM by silver2195

No legal counsel though... how was he found and did he protest his innocence or simply the nature of the punishment?

And instead, what would you have us do?

Besides, human rights are an artificial construct.

No.

Not against anyone.

Not addressing the "what defines cruelty" question (as some people think eating meat, etc, constitutes an act of cruelty and we live in a society where that's legal), and looking at this question as specifically addressing acts of cruelty by people towards other people, I don't think human rights violations should be considered acceptable just because a country's culture says it's so.

It's funny. I used to be the complete opposite about this, and a big proponent of cultural relativity. It was pretty confronting for me when I realised that yes, there are some things that I don't think can be excused by the "it's their culture so other people don't have a right to criticise" argument. Like female circumcision, for example, or the death penalty.

edited 11th Sep '11 7:57:04 PM by raisingirl83

This particular situation doesn't sound particularly cruel to me. The Native Council has, according to Baff, the right to punish as they see fit if it stays on the reservation. I presume that all the people living there are familiar enough with the legal system to know they don't get a lawyer. Then the man asked for council from the outside (which I assume is also fairly well known or the man wouldn't have done it) and it was heard by a judge and dismissed.

All in all, banishment from the reservation and twenty lashes sounds like a fairly light sentence for killing a man. He is, at the very least, not getting prison time. I am, however, assuming that this is the usual punishment for murder for the natives of this country. (I don't know the particulars of Columbian Indians.) This doesn't sound like cruelty, it just sounds like the native legal system that they are and were allowed to operate.

It's a tricky issue, with the sovereignty of the native tribes versus the law of the country.

Regarding the belief that twenty lashes is a light punishment, that's variable depending on the effects of the lashing. If this is in very rural South America, it would be definitely plausible for any wounds from the lashing to not get treated and become infected. And without medical attention (which the man would be less likely to get, due to being expelled from his tribal home as well), then...

Considering that he was able to get heard by a judge, I don't think he was so isolated that he couldn't get medical attention. Of course, you're also assuming that they don't treat the wounds afterwards. (I wonder if they do, actually.) I'm just saying it seems light because here in America you quite often get life in prison for murder, if not years. Though this might be a slight values dissonance; I have no idea how this applies to his ability to see his family and what not.

But again, as this was in accordance with their laws and all, I don't think it was particularly cruel. And it's evidently not that unusual.

Define "cruelty" in a way that is independent of culture. Then get everyone to agree with that definition.

What Deboss said. Until humanity can agree on one moral compass to follow, preventing cruelty is as simple and difficult as redefining the term.

I think the judge is a fricking retard.

If the legal system is willing to overlook principles such due process, a fair trial and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment for sake of cultural sensitivity, western civilisation doesn't stand a chance.

20 lashes and expulsion is a very light punishment for murder.

But he didn't get due process, so we will never know whether he done it or not.

IF Columbia's Law for murder by regular citizens is many years in prison after due process, then: either he done it and got off lightly or he is innocent and is better off being expelled from the tyrannical tribe because now he is a regular citizen and has the free-born right to due process.

Conversely, a state with due process has the right to hang murderers, because we know he done it beyond all reasonable doubt. A stste without due process should impose smaller punishments because they don't know whether he done it or not.

edited 12th Sep '11 12:19:51 AM by Trotzky

@Op: Depends on whether it is voluntary or not. Clearly the man did not consent to this, and therefore it is wrong.

Cultural relativism implies that The Complainer Is Always Wrong until and unless they succeed in changing the culture. I believe that some complainers were right, and furthermore, I don't see why a force outside a culture has less of a right to try to change it than a force inside the culture.

Of course, this assumes both that the outside force knows what it's doing, and that it's capable of making changes as well as insiders can. Neither of those assumptions are always true in real life.

To an extent. Things like female circumcision... Well, the victims don't have much of a choice about being in that culture, and they haven't really done anything to deserve it. Things like traditional punishment, however... I think the best way to avoid it is not to commit crimes. And in this particular situation it also seems that if he was worried about floggings and the like, he could have left the community of his own accord. Not much sympathy for criminals.

edited 12th Sep '11 3:27:03 AM by ekuseruekuseru