Category Archives: Law

Arrest warrants for Israeli leaders marks pivotal moment in international law | Beth McKernan

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Charges against Israeli prime minister and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant mark first time western-affiliated leaders have been targeted for war crimes

The international criminal court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over the war in Gaza has been welcomed by Palestinians as a landmark moment in their decade-long fight to challenge the Israeli occupation through international institutions.

Thursday’s announcement from the international criminal court’s pretrial chamber of arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has sent shockwaves through the international legal system. As the first time that officials from a democratic, western-allied state have been charged with war crimes, it is widely seen as the most significant action taken by the court since it was set up at the turn of the century.

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Gordon Brown says daughter’s death showed value of ‘good’ dying over assisted dying

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Former PM, whose daughter died when she was 11 days old, says debate is moving too fast and calls for commission on palliative care

• Gordon Brown: We need better end-of-life care, not assisted dying

The former prime minister Gordon Brown has declared his opposition to the legalisation of assisted dying, saying the death of his newborn daughter in January 2002 convinced him of the “value and imperative of good end-of-life care”.

In a rare and poignant glimpse into the tragedy, he says the time he and his wife, Sarah, spent at their baby Jennifer’s bedside “as her life ebbed away” were “among the most precious days of [our] lives”.

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Hungary invites Netanyahu to visit as world leaders split over ICC arrest warrant

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Viktor Orbán says he will not enforce ICC decision that requires court members to detain Israeli PM if he enters their country

Hungary’s illiberal prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has said he will invite his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, to visit in defiance of an international criminal court arrest warrant, as world leaders split over the ICC’s momentous decision.

The world’s highest criminal court issued warrants on Thursday for Netanyahu, his former defence minister Yoav Gallant and the Hamas commander Ibrahim al-Masri, commonly known as Mohammed Deif, who is believed to be dead, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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Slapps used to silence whistleblowers should be outlawed, says group of MPs

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Cross-party group cites legal threats used to hide Post Office Horizon scandal and allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed

Excessive legal threats used to silence those who tried to expose the Post Office Horizon scandal and allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed should be outlawed, a cross-party group of MPs have said.

MPs raised a series of cases, documented by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, where media outlets and whistleblowers have been prevented from publishing material that they believed was in the public interest.

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Essex police drop Allison Pearson case after CPS advice

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Police were advised there was no chance of conviction against journalist after hate crime investigation, Guardian understands

Essex police have dropped their hate crime investigation into Allison Pearson, the Daily Telegraph columnist visited by police after she wrongly accused people of colour of being antisemitic.

The decision followed advice from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) that there was no reasonable chance of a conviction, the Guardian understands.

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War crimes charges will be hard stigma for Netanyahu to shrug off

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The ICC warrants are a legal earthquake and could weigh heavier on the Israeli PM and his former minister over time

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The arrest warrants issued by the international criminal court (ICC) represent an earthquake on the world’s legal landscape: the first time a western ally from a modern democracy has been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by a global judicial body.

Inside Israel, the warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant will not have an immediate impact. In the short term they are likely to rally support around the prime minister from a defiant Israeli public.

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ICC issues arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged Gaza war crimes

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Joe Biden describes as ‘outrageous’ the warrants for Israeli PM and former defence minister, which put them at risk of detention if they go to some other countries

The international criminal court has issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant and the Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif for alleged war crimes relating to the Gaza war.

It is the first time that leaders of a democracy and western-aligned state have been charged by the court, in the most momentous decision of its 22-year history.

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Bangladesh to seek extradition of ousted leader Sheikh Hasina from India

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Interim leader Muhammad Yunus confirms plans to put former PM on trial accused of crimes against humanity

Bangladesh will seek the extradition of the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina to face trial on charges including crimes against humanity, the country’s interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, has said in a speech.

Hasina, whose autocratic regime governed Bangladesh for 15 years, was toppled in a student-led revolution in August. Since then she has been living in exile in India after fleeing the country in a helicopter as thousands of protesters overran the presidential palace.

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Bridget Phillipson says she is likely to vote against assisted dying bill

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Education secretary urges ministers to limit discussion on policy to behind the scenes after vocal opposition to bill by Wes Streeting

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has said she is likely to vote against the bill to legalise assisted dying, as she urged ministerial colleagues to restrict their discussions about the policy to behind the scenes.

Under a policy of government neutrality towards the private member’s bill by the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, which will get its first Commons vote this month, ministers are permitted to set a previously-known stance if asked but otherwise to keep out of the debate.

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UK court sides with Icelandic firm over artist’s spoof corruption apology

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Judge considering complaint by fishing firm Samherji rules artist Odee unlikely to be able to defend work as parody

The property rights of Iceland’s largest fishing company prevail over the right to artistic expression of an artist who spoofed the firm’s website to draw attention to a high-profile corruption scandal, London’s high court has ruled.

For his 2023 work We’re Sorry, the Icelandic artist Oddur Eysteinn Friðriksson, who goes by the moniker Odee, copied the corporate identity of Samherji, a major supplier to Britain’s fish and chips industry, and uploaded on to the spoof website a statement titled “Samherji Apologizes, Pledges Restitution and Cooperation with Authorities”.

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Middle East crisis: Israeli strike kills six in southern Lebanon, health ministry says – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed. You can read all our coverage of the Israel-Gaza war here and all our coverage of Israel’s war on Lebanon here

Overnight the IDF announced that six soldiers had been killed in clashes with Hezbollah inside southern Lebanon.

The Times of Israel reports “it was one of the heaviest single-day losses in the operation that began in late September,” and that “according to an initial IDF probe, the soldiers were killed in an exchange of fire with at least four Hezbollah operatives inside a building in a village in southern Lebanon.”

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Man’s will written on back of food boxes is valid, UK high court rules

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Malcolm Chenery left estate to Diabetes UK charity when he died in 2021, writing will on fish and mince pie boxes

A will written on the back of cardboard food packaging has been found to be valid by the high court, meaning a charity stands to inherit £180,000.

Malcolm Chenery, who died in 2021, left his estate, including a three-bedroom house, jewellery, cash and an extensive collection of ornaments and pottery, to Diabetes UK.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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We can hit UK’s big carbon cut without disruption to people’s lives, says Starmer – UK politics live

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PM confirms target of 81% emissions cut at Cop climate summit but says ‘I’m not going to tell people how to live their lives’

Leadbeater introduces the next speaker, Nat Dye, who has terminal cancer. She says she thinks his views are the most important for people to hear at this press conference.

He says he has known “positive” experiences of death. His fiance and his mother both had relatively peaceful deaths. He says palliative care can work for some people.

Imagine I am dying and palliative care hasn’t improved. Well, I have no choice whatsoever: I die in pain or I die in pain.

I see this as a chance just to act with kindness and a choice for people at their darkest hour.

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ICC prosecutor to face external investigation into sexual misconduct claims

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Allegations against Karim Khan to be examined by outside body ‘to ensure fully independent, impartial and fair process’

The chief prosecutor of the international criminal court will face an external investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, the court’s governing body has said.

In a statement, the president of the body that oversees the ICC said the inquiry would examine the allegations against Karim Khan, which related to his alleged conduct towards a woman who worked for him.

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Finnish fathers taking nearly double length of paternity leave since 2022 reform

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Dads say rule change granting both parents equal time off has helped build bond between children and fathers

Paternity leaves in Finland have nearly doubled in length after a 2022 reform of the parental leave system, the social benefits agency has said.

The change granted both parents equal amounts of leave for the first time: 160 days each of paid leave, to be used before the child turns two. Sixty-three of the days can be transferred to the other parent, if desired.

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Mexico to pursue judicial elections plan after top court fails to block reform

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Reform requires elections to be held in June 2025 to replace wide range of judicial positions, and reduce supreme court

The Mexican government will press ahead with a controversial reform to elect all judges by popular vote after the supreme court fell one vote short in a bid to invalidate part of it.

After several hours of debate on the constitutionality of the judicial reform, only seven of the court’s 11 justices voted late on Tuesday to support a measure to roll back some of the reform’s key elements – one vote short of the eight required to pass it.

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‘It’s created an internal shitstorm’: turmoil at UK law firm accused of ‘whitewashing’ Saudi World Cup report

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Sources say key people at Clifford Chance were not consulted, as it emerges another company refused job due to reputational concerns

When the Saudi crown prince locked nearly 400 of his country’s most powerful people in a luxury hotel in 2017 and stripped them of their fortunes, a UK law firm allegedly played a significant role.

On the orders of Mohammed bin Salman, Clifford Chance - a “magic circle” legal giant with headquarters in London – was reported to have facilitated the forced transfer of assets from a Saudi TV station to the government.

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Crown court backlog in England and Wales ‘could hit 100,000 without radical overhaul’

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Chief inspector raises prospect of judge-only trials and greater use of magistrates to reduce prosecutors’ caseloads

The backlog of cases in crown courts in England and Wales could hit 100,000 unless radical action is taken to overhaul the criminal justice system, a watchdog has said.

Anthony Rogers, the chief inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Serious Fraud Office (SFO), said prosecutors’ caseloads were already beyond what had been seen before and he feared the situation could deteriorate.

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Not one government has paid into fund for victims of Uganda warlord, says ICC

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The international criminal court awarded a record €52.4m to survivors of Dominic Ongwen’s crimes but member states have failed to contribute

Not a single country has contributed towards reparations for the victims and survivors of the Ugandan warlord Dominic Ongwen, despite the international criminal court awarding €52.4m (£44m) in February, according to the ICC Trust Fund for Victims (TFV).

The ICC reparations order – the largest in the court’s history – was issued after a 2021 ruling in which the court found Ongwen, a former commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army militia group, guilty of various war crimes committed between 2002 and 2005, including murder, torture, sexual enslavement, the conscription of children into hostilities, and brutal attacks on four camps for internally displaced people in northern Uganda.

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Private schools to take legal action against planned VAT on fees

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Independent Schools Council says its focus is on children and it is concerned about impact on specialist schools

The Independent Schools Council (ISC) has said it will launch legal action against the government’s decision to impose VAT on independent school fees.

The council, which represents more than 1,400 private schools in the UK and abroad, reached its decision after a board meeting held on Thursday.

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