exile

exile

, in politics and government

exile, removal of a national from his or her country, or the civilized parts of it, for a long period of time or for life. Exile may be a forceful expulsion by the government or a voluntary removal by the citizen, sometimes in order to escape punishment. In ancient Greece, exile was often the penalty for homicide, while ostracism was a common punishment for those accused of political crimes. In early Rome a citizen under sentence of death had a choice between exile and death. In this case, exile was a means of escaping a greater punishment. During the Roman Empire, deportation to certain islands became a general punishment for serious crimes. The ancient Hebrews allowed those who committed homicide to take refuge in designated cities of sanctuary. Until 1776, certain types of English criminals were transported to the American colonies, and later, until 1853, they were sent to penal settlements in Australia. Both the Russian czarist and Communist regimes have transported prisoners to Siberia. With the growth of nation-states and the acceptance of the doctrine that ties between state and citizen are indissoluble, exile for criminal reasons has become infrequent. However, modern civil wars and revolutions have produced many political exiles, including large numbers of refugees who have been victims of the upheavals in some manner. Such exiles are not subject to extradition and may demand protection from the country receiving them. The concept of “government in exile”—one person or a group of persons living outside their state and claiming to be the rightful government—has become accepted in international law during the 20th cent. This situation usually arises when a warring state is occupied by the enemy and its government is forced to seek asylum in another state. The government is recognized as lawful if it attempts to regain control and if it has armed forces integrated in a large alliance. During World War II, the monarchs and governments of Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium (without the king), and Yugoslavia were exiled in London, while the governments of Charles de Gaulle of France and Eduard Beneš of Czechoslovakia were formed in exile. See deportation; refugee.

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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Exile

 

in Soviet criminal law, a punishment consisting of the removal of a convicted person from the place of his residence, with obligatory settlement in a certain locality for the term imposed in the sentence.

Exile may be applied as the basic punishment if the character and degree of social danger of the committed crime and the personality of the guilty person give reason to believe he can be rehabilitated without isolation from society but on condition of his removal from the milieu in which the crime was committed. Exile may be imposed as a supplementary punishment only in instances indicated in the law (such as arts. 91 and 117 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR). It may also be applied when the unserved part of a term of deprivation of freedom is replaced with milder punishment. Persons who have not reached the age of 18 at the time of commission of a crime, pregnant women (regardless of whether conception occurred before or after pronouncement of the sentence), and women with dependent children under eight years of age cannot be exiled.

The procedures and conditions of exile are regulated by correctional labor legislation. The legal regime for serving a term of exile consists in limitation of freedom of movement to within the administrative district to which the convicted person has been exiled. The convicted person must register each month with the organs of internal affairs and must inform such organs of any change in place of residence or work at least three days prior to such change. The working conditions of persons serving terms of exile are regulated by labor legislation. The time spent working during exile is included in the individual’s total length of service and in the length of service in his specialty.

In modern bourgeois states, exile was introduced as a measure of criminal punishment as early as the 15th and 16th centuries. Criminals were exiled from Great Britain to America until 1776 and to Australia until 1852, a practice that brought in settlers for the new lands. Relegation (exile) of recidivists from France, chiefly to former French Guiana and New Caledonia, was common until 1946. The difficult climate in places of exile led to the death of most exiles, so that exile came to be called the dry guillotine. In France, deportation was a special type of exile.

Exile has survived in some Western European countries in the 20th century. Until 1974, political prisoners were exiled from Portugal to the African colonies. Between 1967 and 1974, during the military dictatorship in Greece, political prisoners were exiled to islands in the Aegean Sea.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

exile

the expulsion of a person from his native land by official decree

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005