Diplomatic immunity laws can u arrest full#

That the US is entitled to prosecute is not to say that consular officials have no immunity at all with respect to criminal proceedings relating to private/non-consular acts. Personal Inviolability & Immunity from Arrest & Detention I will deal with this question below, after examining whether Ms Khobragade was immune from arrest in the first place. However, it is not clear that the move will enable her to benefit from immunity from prosecution. This move also perhaps constitutes an admission by India that as a consular official, she is not entitled to immunity from prosecution. Presumably, the reason for this is to enable her to benefit from the immunities which representatives to the UN are entitled to. However, it has been reported that Ms Khobragade has been moved to the Indian Permanent Mission to the UN. Therefore, Ms Khobragade, is not immune from prosecution in the US with regard to the visa fraud charges. It is not one done in the exercise of consular functions. It seems clear that employing domestic staff is a private act.

This means that the host state (the US) is entitled to prosecute consular officials for private acts. In other words, consular officials are only entitled to immunity with respect to their official acts (immunity ratione materiae) and only with respect to those official acts carried out in the exercise of their consular functions. “Consular officers and consular employees shall not be amenable to the jurisdiction of the judicial or administrative authorities of the receiving State in respect of acts performed in the exercise of consular functions.” 43(1) of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963), which India and the US are both party provides that:

Diplomatic immunity laws can u arrest full#

Most of the media have reported the US position which is that consular officials, unlike diplomatic agents, are not entitled, under international law, to full immunity from criminal jurisdiction. It is not clear whether India has similarly asserted that she is immune though India has demanded an apology which suggests that they think the US has done something wrong. Her lawyers have asserted that she is immune from US jurisdiction. The key legal question that has arisen in this episode is whether the Indian consular official is entitled to immunity from prosecution. This post address three main issues (i) whether the Indian official is immune from prosecution (ii) whether she was immune from arrest in the first place and (iii) the legality of India’s response to the incident. Those measures include the removal of some privileges previously accorded to US diplomats, a refusal by Indian officials to meet with a US Congressional delegation in India, and perhaps most seriously, the removal of security barricades that were in front of the US embassy in Delhi (see here and here). Although US Secretary of State Kerry has called the Indian authorities to express regret over the incident, India has demanded an apology from the US and has taken “retaliatory” measures. The dispute over her arrest has become particularly acrimonious because it is alleged that not only was Ms Khobragade arrested at her daughter’s school, that she was handcuffed (which is denied by US authorities) and then subjected to a strip-search (which seems to be admitted) (see New York Times piece).

She is also accused of paying the maid less than the minimum wage prescribed by US law. Ms Khobragade is accused of submitting false documents to US authorities in order obtain a work visa for her housekeeper/maid. The brief background to the story is that last week, US Federal authorities arrested Devyani Khobragade, who is the Indian Deputy Consul-General in New York, on charges of visa fraud. For a subsequent posts on this issue see part 2 and part 3.Ī serious diplomatic row is brewing between India and the United States regarding the arrest and treatment of an Indian consular official accredited to the United States (see coverage by the BBC, New York Times & the Daily Mail).