As you may have suspected, I'm kind of addicted to crack. Er, Cracked. Imagine my delight, then, when this recently came out.
The 6 Most Ridiculous Abuses of Diplomatic Immunity
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Not that they've asked me to independently assess the validity of the claims in the article, but yes, yes, not always, yes but see below, awesome, and a bit more nuanced than that plus embassies aren't legally foreign soil.
Now obviously I wouldn't have any experience in kidnapping, killing or running casinos (as far as you know), but I do have some expertise in that which is far more more bad-ass, um, parking.
In congested central London, parking is a VERY big deal. And expensive. And confusing. Thus, the perkiest of perks diplomats in the city have are their diplomatic license plates and the dedicated parking spaces that love them.
Come to daddy
Now before y'all go message boarding Cracked asking them to hate on diplomats even more, know that in London: (a) embassies had to pay a lot for those spaces upfront; (b) no matter how many diplomats it may have, each mission can have only up to five parking spaces; and (c) parking may be free, but everyone can pay up to £120 (over P7,000) just for driving into the city.
(b) is actually kind of amusing in practice, as there are only a few hundred diplomatic parking spaces total around London, but there are several thousand diplomats who work in the city. (London, after all, likes to brag that it has the largest number of bilateral diplomats in the world) (not that there's anything wrong with that). So there's an unwritten agreement within the London diplomatic community that no one parks in another mission's slots during weekday office hours, but its Mad Max rules once the sun goes down. For us embassies located in the theatre district, this means strange (and often more bitchin') cars suddenly show up outside at night and take up our spaces.
Boss, boss! "D" plates! "D" plates!
We try to hit back at weekends by parking at other embassies located near bars and Harrods parks and museums. On those occasions when a car from one embassy makes the mistake of prematurely parking at another's, there's a lot of harrumphing, but ultimately an understanding that things have to be settled, well, diplomatically. What's funny is how different embassies go about it: some actually send formal Notes Verbale, others are perfectly fine with leaving handwritten post-it notes from the ambassador on the windshield.
(By the way, remember how I said each mission only gets five spaces? Guess where I rank within the Embassy? That's right, sixth!)
You will be mine. Oh yes, you will be.
Which brings us to (c) -- literally. Seriously, the circled "C" is one of the most despised symbols in London, as it stands for Congestion Charge, i.e. big money you immediately have to shell out if you decide to bring your car to work. So even though a diplomat may have a free parking space waiting for him at his embassy (if he's ranked higher than sixth, hmp), getting there can set him back at least £10 (i.e. P700) a day.
Look at it, just staring at you, like the eye of Sauron
Ah, but the infallible Cracked says drivers with diplomatic plates can choose to ignore those types of parking fines, adding "While most developed nations do try to pay them, most third world nations just don't care and don't even try." Well, to paraphrase Yakov Smirnoff, "in London, developed nations like Russia don't even try to pay you!" Yep, over here it's the biggest countries that owe the most unpaid Congestion Charges, a complaint that goes right to the top. Meanwhile, smaller countries (like everyone in ASEAN) duly and promptly settle all their charges. In fact, as newly appointed office concierge, it's part of my job to hunt down every embassy personnel who incurs a penalty, escorting them to an ATM or standing over them as they write a check if I have to. Like I said, I'm a parking bad-ass.
So how do the superpowers get away with not paying the London Congestion Charge? It comes down to legal semantics. The powers claim the Charge is actually a tax, and therefore diplomatic missions are exempt from payment under the Vienna Convention. London city authorities on the other hand say the Charge is exactly just that, akin to a toll that every road user would have to pay. It's tricky, and so far no court resolution appears in sight. It would take an extremely sharp legal mind to definitively settle the mess.
Fortunately, the word "lawyer" also appears on this blog's title, and in my years of legal study and practice, I know exactly where to look for answers.
7 Brilliant Movie Lawyers (Who Suck at Their Job)
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