That's a terrible idea. It would mean that people would fear to report genuine crimes because they are then harshly punished if the accused is acquitted.
The fact is that the justice system is not perfect. Occasionally a guilty person will be acquitted, and it would really be best not to also punish an innocent as a result of that.
A false accusation is different from an accusation that wasn't provable. There have been many cases of false accusations in which it was proven that the accuser was intentionally lying in order to get revenge or reap some reward. There have even been cases in which the accuser later admits to having lied, but with zero
legal consequences.
In France the state's prosecutor is the accusation, and cites the victim as a witness. That allows pursuing the trial if the victim is pressured to remove the complaint.
The idea seems directly connected with an other idea that is sadly fairly common: assumed guilt. If we assumes that the accused is guilty until proven innocent, then the power imbalance is so great that we need to increase the counter weight by increasing the cost of false accusations.
Personally I prefer the old system of innocent until proven guilty. You loose the mob justice, and you can't demand a lower standard of evidence, but in return people can report crimes without fear of repercussions. It is a fair trade, with the only drawback that a guilty person will have their punishment delayed until the justice system concludes with a guilty verdict.
In Sweden we had a minister of justice a couple of years ago who thought it would be a good idea that persons suspected of buying sexual services (which is illegal in Sweden) got their court order sent in a special large purple envelope. The purpose was that they would then be both publicly shamed (by the mailman, neighbors and what not) as well as would be less able to conceal it from their spouse.
Hehe, yeah, voting is a joke. First take the ballot of your preferred choice in clear view of everybody (unless you care enough about your voting privacy to take one ballot of each choice) then go behind a screen to put that one ballot everyone has already seen and put in a fully opaque (as in black inside) envelope.
If you apply the "innocent until proven guilty" principle, it's not a bad idea. It should be proven that the accuser lied to get condemned. I would expect this to happen not that often - basically never when it's just "my word against your word" - but it would create a big risk for those who are rationally plotting to launch a false accuse - in the unlikely but possible case that evidence is found that they willfully lied, eg if there was a witness they didn't know about, if there was a recording of what happened, etc.
It can be structured so that an accuser does not automatically become guilty of false accusations because the accused was found 'not guilty'. In other words, sexual harassment cases can have 3 verdicts : 'guilty', 'not guilty' and 'other'( technicalities, not enough evidence etc). Then, you will still need to prove that the perpetrator knowingly accused someone of sexual harassment for some gain. Looks fairer to me
> Occasionally a guilty person will be acquitted, and it would really be best not to also punish an innocent as a result of that.
That's not how it works, is it? it is not a battle where someone has to be guilty - either the accused or the accuser. Someone can be acquitted without anyone lying, or making false statements, or anything else. Just a few examples: insufficient evidence to prosecute, contradictory timelines.
It is bizarre that anyone thinks that this could be the system - get a conviction or suffer a conviction yourself.
There is a spectrum between provable accusations and demonstrably false claims that includes uncertainty, doubt and poor evidence. It isn't like going all-in in poker!
However, I still think that the kind of 'eye for an eye' approach proposed by the comment I was relying to would have a non-trivial, negative impact on the reporting of crimes. Just as guilty people can be acquitted, innocent people can be found guilty (even if it's not automatic), and this means that the accuser is exposing themselves to risk.
Fundamentally, no one should ever have to worry about the consequences of reporting a crime.
>no one should ever have to worry about the consequences of reporting a crime
The rub is, they should have to worry about the consequences, if they're making a bad-faith false report. They should have to worry a lot, because they themselves are committing a wrong by reporting a false crime in such a way.
The fact is that the justice system is not perfect. Occasionally a guilty person will be acquitted, and it would really be best not to also punish an innocent as a result of that.