Category Archives: Law

Judge criticises lawyers acting for boy accused of murder for filing misleading AI-created documents

Posted on by

Documents filed included references to nonexistent case citations and inaccurate quotes from a parliamentary speech, judge says

A judge has criticised lawyers acting for a boy accused of murder for filing misleading information with the courts after failing to check documents created using artificial intelligence.

“It is not acceptable for AI to be used unless the product of that use is independently and thoroughly verified,” Justice James Elliott told the supreme court in Melbourne.

Continue reading...

Israeli airstrikes on Tehran killed inmates in ‘apparent war crime’ – report

Posted on by

Human Rights Watch also finds that Iran abused survivors of June attack, which killed 80 people

Israeli airstrikes on Tehran’s Evin prison in June killed scores of detainees, visitors and staff in what Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called an “apparent war crime”. Iranian authorities have since subjected survivors to abuse, enforced disappearances and inhumane detention conditions, the rights group said.

HRW’s investigation, based on satellite imagery, videos and witness accounts, found the 23 June Israeli airstrikes destroyed visitation halls, prison wards, the central kitchen, the medical clinic and administrative offices. No evident military targets were identified in the facility, which held more than 1,500 prisoners at the time, many of whom had been jailed for peaceful activism.

Continue reading...

Next UK protest over Palestine Action ban aims to sign up 1,000 people

Posted on by

Defend Our Juries believes London protest in September could lead to ban being lifted, after 532 arrests on Saturday

The next mass protest in support of the banned group Palestine Action will aim to be twice the size of the last, organisers have said, as they increase pressure on the government to lift its proscription.

Last Saturday’s protest in Parliament Square was predicated on 500 people signing up but the next one, announced on Wednesday for 6 September in London, is conditional on 1,000 people agreeing to take part.

Continue reading...

More countries added to UK’s ‘deport first’ scheme for foreign criminals

Posted on by

Former justice secretaries criticise expansion of policy that they say allows perpetrators to go unpunished

Foreign criminals from 15 more countries face deportation before they have a chance to appeal in an expansion of the UK government’s “deport first, appeal later” scheme.

Ministers are extending the scheme, which applies in England and Wales and was restarted in 2023, to cover 23 countries including India, Bulgaria, Australia and Canada.

Continue reading...

Revealed: oligarchs spied on UK lawyers who ran Serious Fraud Office cases

Posted on by

The Guardian has obtained surveillance images taken by hired spies whose goal is said to have been identifying sources and gaining ‘leverage’

Oligarchs whose business empire was under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office spied on lawyers who ran some of the UK’s most sensitive criminal cases.

The Guardian has obtained surveillance images of former SFO prosecutors taken by hired spies. Their goal is said to have been gathering information on the agency’s activities, identifying its sources and gaining “leverage”.

Continue reading...

Released violent offenders to be ‘locked’ in restriction zones in England and Wales

Posted on by

Women’s safety campaigners welcome plan to switch from exclusion zones that ‘have made victims feel trapped’

Restriction zones aimed at “locking” violent offenders – rather than their victims – into specific areas when they are released from prison are to be introduced by the government in England and Wales.

At the moment, exclusion zones are often used to keep an offender away from their victim’s home but many campaigners for women’s safety have long called for this to be flipped.

Increased tagging for domestic perpetrators.

Requiring judges to flag domestic abuse at sentencing so prisons, probation and police can better identify and manage abusers.

Expanding specialist domestic abuse courts.

Bolstering transparency for victims at sentencing – including the provision of free copies of judges’ sentencing remarks for victims of rape and other sexual offences.

Continue reading...

Assault on Sudan’s Zamzam refugee camp may have killed more than 1,500 civilians

Posted on by

Guardian investigation finds number killed in April attack by Rapid Support Forces far greater than current estimates

More than 1,500 civilians may have been massacred during an attack on Sudan’s largest displacement camp in April, in what would be the second-biggest war crime of the country’s catastrophic conflict.

A Guardian investigation into the 72-hour attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on North Darfur’s Zamzam camp, the country’s largest for people displaced by the war, found repeated testimony of mass executions and large-scale abductions. Hundreds of civilians remain unaccounted for.

Continue reading...

Millions in line for payouts from £18bn car loan compensation scheme

Posted on by

City regulator says motorists should start to get payments in 2026 with ‘most payouts likely to be under £950’

Millions of drivers could be handed a share of a multibillion-pound compensation package after the City regulator said it would open a redress scheme for consumers affected by the car finance scandal.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will consult on the redress scheme, which could cost banks between £9bn and £18bn when it begins paying consumers compensation next year.

Continue reading...

Chancellor’s attempt to intervene in car finance scandal branded ‘disgraceful’

Posted on by

Defending industry over consumers sends ‘really bad message’, says Treasury committee member Bobby Dean

Rachel Reeves’ efforts to intervene in the supreme court case on the car finance scandal were “unprecedented and disgraceful” and send a “really bad message” to consumers that the government is willing to defend wrongdoing by banks, Treasury committee member and Lib Dem MP Bobby Dean has said.

While the supreme court largely sided with finance companies on Friday – helping lenders avoid a £44bn compensation bill – Dean said the chancellor had gone too far to show she was on the side of business.

Continue reading...

Chancellor’s attempt to intervene in car finance scandal branded ‘disgraceful’

Posted on by

Defending industry over consumers sends ‘really bad message’, says Treasury committee member Bobby Dean

Rachel Reeves’ efforts to intervene in the supreme court case on the car finance scandal were “unprecedented and disgraceful” and send a “really bad message” to consumers that the government is willing to defend wrongdoing by banks, Treasury committee member and Lib Dem MP Bobby Dean has said.

While the supreme court largely sided with finance companies on Friday – helping lenders avoid a £44bn compensation bill – Dean said the chancellor had gone too far to show she was on the side of business.

Continue reading...

Israel closes 88% of cases of alleged war crimes or abuse without charges – report

Posted on by

Conflict monitoring group Action on Armed Violence says Israel is seeking to create a ‘pattern of impunity’

Nearly nine out of 10 Israeli military investigations into allegations of war crimes or abuses by its soldiers since the start of the war in Gaza have been closed without finding fault or left without resolution, according to a conflict monitor.

Unresolved investigations include the killing of at least 112 Palestinians queueing for flour in Gaza City in February 2024, Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) said, and an airstrike that killed 45 in an inferno at a tented camp in Rafah in May 2024.

Continue reading...

Israel closes 88% of cases of alleged war crimes or abuse without charges – report

Posted on by

Conflict monitoring group Action on Armed Violence says Israel is seeking to create a ‘pattern of impunity’

Nearly nine out of 10 Israeli military investigations into allegations of war crimes or abuses by its soldiers since the start of the war in Gaza have been closed without finding fault or left without resolution, according to a conflict monitor.

Unresolved investigations include the killing of at least 112 Palestinians queueing for flour in Gaza City in February 2024, Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) said, and an airstrike that killed 45 in an inferno at a tented camp in Rafah in May 2024.

Continue reading...

Starmer ‘listening to hostages’ but intends to stick to Palestine statehood plan

Posted on by

Freed British-Israeli accuses PM of ‘moral failure’ over move to recognise Palestine at UN unless Israel changes course

Keir Starmer has said he is listening to hostages taken by Hamas but still intends to recognise a Palestinian state unless Israel commits to a ceasefire and two-state solution.

The prime minister said he had spoken to the freed British-Israeli Emily Damari, held hostage by Hamas for 471 days, after she accused him of “moral failure” over the move to recognise Palestine as a state in September at the UN.

Continue reading...

Will of man suspected of being army’s top IRA spy Stakeknife to be sealed, high court rules

Posted on by

Judge rules that Freddie Scappaticci’s will cannot be made public for 70 years in a legal first

The will of the man alleged to have been Britain’s top agent inside the Provisional IRA is not to be made public, the high court has ruled in a legal first.

Ordering that the will of Freddie Scappaticci, who is suspected of being the mole known as Stakeknife, should not be open for public inspection as is usual, Sir Julian Flaux said it was the first time this had been done for a person who was not a member of the royal family.

Continue reading...

‘Really cautious’: why the ICJ is delaying a Gaza genocide verdict

Posted on by

While Palestinians starve and global opinion hardens, judgment from international court may not come until 2027 – or later

While Palestinians in Gaza die in ever-increasing numbers from starvation each day and a growing number of legal scholars, aid officials and politicians have begun describing Israel’s actions as genocide, a definitive ruling on the question by the world’s top court will be a long time coming.

Experts on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said a judgment on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is unlikely before the end of 2027 at the earliest, amid warnings that the international community should not use the court’s glacial proceedings as an excuse to put off action to stop the killing.

Continue reading...

France’s top court annuls arrest warrant for Bashar al-Assad

Posted on by

Judges rule document invalid as former Syrian leader had immunity as head of state

France’s highest court has cancelled an arrest warrant for the former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad for complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity during the country’s civil war.

The Cour de cassation declared the warrant invalid under international law, which gives heads of state personal immunity from prosecution in foreign courts while they are in office.

Continue reading...

Women who conceived in abusive relationships lose legal challenge over benefits ‘rape clause’

Posted on by

Justice Collins Rice says it is for politicians and not courts to change rules around two-child benefit cap

Two women who conceived their eldest children while they were in violent and controlling relationships have lost a legal challenge to the rules around the two-child benefit cap.

A high court judge said the accounts of the abuse the women faced when they were “vulnerable girls barely out of childhood” were “chilling”.

Continue reading...

Ministers to enshrine UK charities’ right to peaceful protest in new ‘covenant’

Posted on by

Agreement between government and voluntary sector aims to reset relations after erosion of trust under Tories

The right to engage in political activity and protest peacefully is to be enshrined in a new agreement between the government and UK charities and campaigners aimed in part at ending years of damaging “culture wars”.

The agreement is intended to reset relations between government and the voluntary sector after years of mutual distrust during which Conservative ministers limited public rights to protest, froze out campaigners, and targeted “woke” charities.

Continue reading...

Thousands of Afghans relocated to UK under secret scheme after data leak

Posted on by

Conservative government used superinjuction to hide error that put Afghans at risk and led to £2bn mitigation scheme

Conservative ministers used an unprecedented superinjunction to suppress a data breach that required the UK to offer relocation to 15,000 Afghans in a secret scheme with a potential cost of more than £2bn.

The Afghan Response Route (ARR) was created in haste after it emerged that personal information about 18,700 Afghans who had applied to come to the UK had been leaked in error by a British defence official in early 2022.

Continue reading...

UN’s Albanese hails 30-nation meeting aimed at ending Israeli occupation of Palestine

Posted on by

The Hague Group aims to agree political, economic and legal actions in ‘existential hour’ for Israel and Palestine

The UN rapporteur hit with sanctions by the US last week has vowed not to be silenced as she hailed a 30-nation conference aimed at ending Israel’s occupation of Palestine as “the most significant political development in the past 20 months”.

Francesca Albanese will say the two-day gathering in Bogotá, Colombia, starting on Tuesday and including China, Spain and Qatar, comes at “an existential hour” for Israel and the Palestinian people.

Continue reading...