Selective Rights and Punishments
By Vivian Lau
What the Nazis did was unforgivable. It is morally impossible to be sympathetic to such crimes against humanity. But in a society in which law is the mediator between people and their governments, governments must remain constant within their decision making.
This session, the United States Supreme Court rejected an appeal involving John Hansl, a former concentration camp guard, who admittedly took part in the persecution of Jews. Hansl and his family have lived in the United States since 1966 and are naturalized citizens. But on April of 2005, the American government denaturalized Hansl’s citizen status on the basis of his past Nazi crimes. In addition to Hansl’s loss of citizenship, he now undergoes the prospects of deportation.
Yet, what must be understood is that becoming an American citizenship is a right that one is granted. Once this right has been attained, it may not be taken away. Currently, the only grounds on which the United States government can revoke a person’s citizenship are evidence that he lied during the process of obtaining his citizenship. Although in most cases former Nazi guards have violated this by lying about their affiliation with the Nazi party to obtain citizenship, Hansl did not conceal his Nazi past; he attained his citizenship through the natural process of the system. The United States government chose to grant Hansl citizenship; it would thus be “cruel and unusual punishment” to strip him of it.
As Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the case of Trop v. Dulles (1958), "denationalization as a punishment is barred by the Eighth Amendment [for it is] the total destruction of the individual's status in organized society".
Now consider Private First Class Lynndie England and Specialist Charles Graner, the US soldiers who were involved in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses. Both England and Graner were indicted and charged with maltreatment of detainees. England was sentenced to three years in prison and Graner to 10 years. Both were dishonorably discharged.
The Abu Ghraib scandal is of a similar scale as the atrocities by the Nazis; in both cases there was degradation of human beings. Why then was Hansl’s citizenship revoked while England’s and Graner’s punishments are almost as extreme?
Although this is not a defense of Nazi supporters, what must be taken into account is that laws should not apply on a “case by case basis.” It is the government’s responsibility to universalize all laws. If the law states that citizenship can be taken away as punishment for a heinous crime, then even US-born criminals should be subject to it. Justice should be unbiased, even in the most extreme cases like those of the Nazis. The valuation of American laws must remain constant.
