Confiscation (from the Latin confiscatio "to consign to the fiscus, i.e. transfer to the treasury") is a legal form of seizure by a government or other public authority. The word is also used, popularly, of spoliation under legal forms, or of any seizure of property as punishment or in enforcement of the law.
Redistribution of income and wealth is the transfer of income and wealth (including physical property) from some individuals to others through a social mechanism such as taxation, welfare, public services, land reform, monetary policies, confiscation, divorce or tort law. The term typically refers to redistribution on an economy-wide basis rather than between selected individuals.
Understanding of the phrase varies, depending on personal perspectives, political ideologies and the selective use of statistics. It is frequently used in politics, to refer to perceived redistribution from those who have more to those who have less. Rarely, the term is used to describe laws or policies that cause redistribution in the opposite direction, from the poor to the rich.
Spain in the 19th century was a country in turmoil. Occupied by Napoleon from 1808 to 1814, a massively destructive "liberation war" ensued. Following the Spanish Constitution of 1812, Spain was divided between the constitution's liberal principles and the absolutism personified by the rule of Ferdinand VII, who repealed the 1812 Constitution for the first time in 1814, only to be forced to swear over the constitution again in 1820 after a liberal pronunciamiento, giving way to the brief Trienio Liberal (1820–1823). This brief period came to an abrupt end with Ferdinand again abolishing the 1812 constitution and the start of the Ominous Decade (1823–1833) of absolutist rule for the last ten years of his reign.
Economic transformations throughout the century included the privatisation of communal municipal lands—not interrupted but actually intensified and legitimised during the Fernandine absolutist restorations —as well as the confiscation of Church properties. The early century saw the loss of the bulk of the Spanish colonies in the New World in the 1810s and 1820s, except for Cuba and Puerto Rico.
Search and seizure is a procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems by which police or other authorities and their agents, who, suspecting that a crime has been committed, commence a search of a person's property and confiscate any relevant evidence found in connection to the crime.
Some countries have certain provisions in their constitutions that provide the public with the right to be free from "unreasonable searches and seizures". This right is generally based on the premise that everyone is entitled to a reasonable right to privacy.
The Green armies (Russian: Зеленоармейцы, romanized: Zelenoarmeytsy), also known as the Green Army (Russian: Зелёная армия, romanized: Zelonaya armiya) or Greens (Russian: Зелёные, romanized: Zelonyye), were armed peasant groups which fought against all governments in the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1922. The Green armies were semi-organized local militias that opposed the Bolsheviks, Whites, and foreign interventionists, and fought to protect their communities from requisitions or reprisals carried out by third parties. The Green armies were politically and ideologically neutral, but at times associated with the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. The Green armies had at least tacit support throughout much of Russia. However, their primary base, the peasantry, were largely reluctant to wage an active campaign during the Russian Civil War and, with an impending Bolshevik victory, dissolved in 1922.
The ager publicus (Classical Latin: [ˈaɡɛr ˈpuːblɪkʊs]; lit. 'public land') is the Latin name for the state land of ancient Rome. It was usually acquired via the means of expropriation from enemies of Rome.
Prodrazverstka, also transliterated prodrazvyorstka (Russian: продразвёрстка [prədrɐˈzvʲɵrstkə], short for продовольственная развёрстка, lit. 'food apportionment'), alternatively referred to in English as grain requisitioning, was a policy and campaign of confiscation of grain and other agricultural products from peasants at nominal fixed prices according to specified quotas (the noun razverstka, Russian: развёрстка, and the verb razverstat, refer to the partition of the requested total amount as obligations from the suppliers).
The term is commonly associated with war communism during the Russian Civil War when it was introduced by the Bolshevik government. However, the Bolsheviks borrowed the idea from the grain razverstka introduced in the Russian Empire in 1916 during World War I.
A search warrant is a court order that a magistrate or judge issues to authorize law enforcement officers to conduct a search of a person, location, or vehicle for evidence of a crime and to confiscate any evidence they find. In most countries, a search warrant cannot be issued in aid of civil process.
Jurisdictions that respect the rule of law and a right to privacy constrain police powers, and typically require search warrants or an equivalent procedure for searches police conducted in the course of a criminal investigation. The laws usually make an exception for hot pursuit: a police officer following a criminal who has fled the scene of a crime has the right to enter a property where the criminal has sought shelter. The necessity for a search warrant and its abilities vary from country to country. In certain authoritarian nations, police officers may be allowed to search individuals and property without having to obtain court permission or provide justification for their actions.