Forfeiture of Citizenship in USA

 UNION OF INDIA & ANR. Vs M/s. GANPATI DEALCOM PVT. LTD.

Forfeiture of Citizenship in USA:

The aforesaid proposition has also been confirmed by the House of Lords in R v. H, [2003] 1 ALL ER 497. 17.19 In Kennedy v Mendoza¬Martinez, 372 US 144 (1963), the Supreme Court of the United States, while concerned with the constitutionality of legislation that imposed forfeiture of citizenship on those who had left or remained outside the United States during wartime to evade military service, had laid down the following relevant factors to classify forfeiture law:

(a) Whether the sanction involves an affirmative disability or restraint;

(b) Whether it has been historically regarded as a punishment;

(c) Whether it is only applicable where there has been a finding of scienter (that is, a finding that an act has been done knowingly and intentionally);

(d) Whether its operation promotes the traditional retributive and deterrent aims of punishment;

(e) Whether the behaviour to which the statute applies is already a crime;

(f) Whether an alternative purpose to which it may be rationally connected is attributable to it; and

(g) Whether it appears excessive in light of the alternative purpose assigned.

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