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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: September 12th, 2023

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  • There’s a simple reason the assets haven’t been seized, we have a legal system in Western Europe. There needs to be a legal basis for seizure of assets and a legal process that allows the on-payment to Ukraine.

    It is blatantly fair and just that the assets should be handed to Ukraine, but if we don’t carefully follow our legal principals principles then courts will unfortunately overturn the attempt.

    It’s easy to say “Russia has broken international law” it’s a tougher task proving it and working it through the courts then paying those damages to Ukraine. It needs to be done though.

    The only alternative to legal judgement and payment via that judgement is for laws mandating the asset seizure to be passed by the governments of the countries where the assets are held.

    The problem with that route is many constitutions forbid or severely restrict the ability of a government to seize assets.

    Those restrictions are there for a reason, it curbs the ability of nascent dictators (Orban et al) to seize private property on a whim or to punish enemies

    TL;DR freezing assets has a clear and well established precedent which thus has been done. Seizing assets however, while ever we have rule of law is rightly constrained