Dawkins wants to arrest the Pope - but he must think of a crime first

It seems that Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens want to arrest the Pope when he comes to Britian.  You certainly can't say that they are lacking in zeal.

The Guardian reports that they are exploring legal options.  The first aspect is to establish whether the Pope is immune from prosecution as a Head of State, and they seem to believe that they can get round this.

However, the much bigger problem would seem to be finding a crime that the Pope can stand accused of.  The suggestions in the Guardian look beyond flimsy to Mouse.

One is that we apply for a warrant to the international criminal court. Alternatively, criminal proceedings could be brought here, either a public prosecution brought by the Crown Prosecution Service or a private prosecution. That would require at least one victim to come forward who is either from this jurisdiction or was abused here. The third option is for individuals to lodge civil claims.

Well those would appear to be options of a kind.  However, lets just think about them.

The International Criminal Court looks like a non starter to me.  Firstly, it has no retrospective jurisdiction prior to its creation in 2002, which rules out the vast majority of the period when abuse claims have been made.  Secondly, it exists to try "persons accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes."  Whilst the abuse itself is a terrible crime, it is impossible that the ICC will put the Pope's personal role in the case as anything approaching genocide or war crimes.

So how about a public or private prosecution in the UK?  Well the first of those would require the CPS to believe that there is a case to answer that has a reasonable chance of success.  If someone did come forward in the UK to claim abuse by a Catholic priest, they would also have to demonstrate that the Pope was somehow responsible, which seems pretty inconceivable.  As for a private prosecution, the same principle applies that someone wishing to initiate a private prosecution must demonstrate to a suitable local court that there is a case to answer with a reasonable chance of succeeding.  Same problem.

So we're left with civil claims.  Nice try, but you can't arrest someone on a civil claim - you can just sue them.

The inspiration of this is probably Peter Tatchell's attempted citizen's arrest of Robert Mugabe when he was in the UK.  The difference is that Tatchell went armed with a dossier from Amnesty International and the Zimbabwe High Court.  Dawkins and Hitchens have virtually nothing linking the Pope to the cover-up of abuse, and certainly nothing which would stand up to the ICC or CPS definition of evidence.

The other case study is the arrest of Augusto Pinochet when he came to Britain in 1998.  Again, the difference here is that official reports from Chile amply demonstrated that crimes of politically inspired murder (of 2,279 people) and torture were readily available.  Pinochet had not been prosecuted in Chile due to an immunity deal, although there was never any doubt of his guilt.

It would be interesting to see how much Dawkins and Hitchens are paying for this legal advice.  If they want a cheaper option, Mouse offers the analysis above, and the conclusion that they have absolutely no hope of succeeding so should think of another publicity stunt.