Unison says decision affects other types of employee payments and is ‘victory for underpaid workers’
Many UK workers could be entitled to thousands of pounds “unfairly” deducted from their pay after a supreme court decision, according to unions.
The judgment relates to a long-running row about holiday pay but Unison, which participated in the case, said the ruling affected all other types of payment to employees and called it a “victory for underpaid workers”.
Continue reading...Maria Rooney’s action against Leicester city council is first tribunal case to consider the symptoms as a disability
A former children’s social worker has told an employment tribunal that she felt “colluded against” by the council she worked for due to suffering symptoms of menopause.
Maria Rooney initiated legal action against Leicester city council in the first tribunal case to consider the symptoms as a disability. She has alleged she was constructively dismissed after discrimination over suffering menopause symptoms.
Continue reading...The second day of Trump’s trial got off to another combative start after Trump branded the case a ‘fraud’ and ‘scam’
The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial issued a gag order on Tuesday after the former president made comments about the judge’s clerk.
“Consider this statement a gag order forbidding all parties from posting, emailing or speaking publicly about any of my staff,” the judge, Arthur Engoron, said on Tuesday afternoon. “Personal attacks on members of my court staff are unacceptable, inappropriate and I will not tolerate them in any circumstances.
Continue reading...Ex-president rails against judge and prosecutors accusing him of years-long fraud they say inflated his wealth by as much as $2.2bn
Donald Trump attacked the judge and New York prosecutors who have charged him with orchestrating a years-long fraud on Monday as state prosecutors accused the former president of using the scam to inflate his wealth by as much as $2.2bn.
Trump arrived at a New York court just a few miles south of Trump Tower on Monday for the first day of a fraud trial that could see the former president and his family business paying hundreds of millions of dollars in damages and that has already threatened to end his business career in the city where it started.
Continue reading...Hopes fade of deal being struck, with one sticking point being right to occasionally breach detention centre standards
European Union member states have failed to reach an agreement on changes to the bloc’s migration laws after Germany and Italy clashed over key proposals relating to human rights guarantees in detention centres and the role of NGOs in facilitating migrant arrivals.
But, as hopes faded on Thursday of a deal being struck, ministers said they expected “fine tuning” in coming days to lead to a pact that would apply in the event of a sudden refugee crisis such as that of 2015 when more than 1 million people arrived from Syria and beyond.
Continue reading...Report urges changes in the law to make it easier to take down content and prosecute its makers
As much as 90% of pornographic content online features verbal, physical and sexual violence towards women, and a significant amount of violence shown is punishable under existing laws in France, a report by the government-nominated equality watchdog has found.
France’s high council for equality between women and men on Wednesday handed the government a damning report on illegal porn-industry practices, urging changes to the law to prosecute makers of pornography and to take down content in order to protect those who have been filmed.
Continue reading...Operation Dudula changes tactics from evictions and violence, with plans to fight elections on platform of expelling foreigners
An anti-migrant vigilante organisation in South Africa has registered as a political party and plans to contest seats in next year’s general elections.
Operation Dudula, whose name means “to force out” in Zulu, wants all foreign nationals who are in the country unofficially to be deported.
Continue reading...Comments from Paul Johnson of Institute of Fiscal Studies come as Downing Street hints at delay to work on second phase of rail link
Around 20,000 university workers are out on strike this week at more than 50 universities across the UK, despite a dramatic last-minute scaling back of industrial action.
Strikes had been set to go ahead at 142 UK universities this week as part of a long-running dispute over pay and working conditions, but it emerged last week that two thirds of branches of the University and College Union (UCU) had declined to take part.
Davey said the Lib Dem commitment – dating back to 1992 – to raise income tax by 1p to improve public services is unsustainable in the current economic climate. Originally the money raised was earmarked for education, but at the last election the party said it would use it to fund the NHS.
Speaking from Bournemouth to broadcast studios, Davey suggested the burden should instead fall on companies making “huge profits” while people struggle with the cost of living.
Continue reading...UK law firm Leigh Day says money given to 77 workers for murders and rapes ‘sidesteps’ multinational’s responsibility over attack
Unilever is to make payments to 77 tea pickers who worked on one of its plantations in Kenya that was targeted during post-election violence in 2007.
The UK law firm Leigh Day, representing the workers, said the London-based consumer goods multinational had agreed to make voluntary, or ex-gratia, payments to former workers at its subsidiary Unilever Tea Kenya, who were attacked by armed assailants at its plantation in Kericho.
Continue reading...Human rights lawyers are working with Ukraine’s public prosecutor to prepare dossier to submit to the international criminal court
Human rights lawyers working with Ukraine’s public prosecutor are preparing a war crimes dossier to submit to the international criminal court (ICC) accusing Russia of deliberately causing starvation during the 18-month-long conflict.
The aim is to document instances where the Russian invaders used hunger as a weapon of war, providing evidence for the ICC to launch the first prosecution of its kind that could indict the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
Continue reading...White Island/Whakaari volcano exploded in 2019, prompting debate over natural hazard tourism
The landowners of a New Zealand volcano that fatally erupted in 2019 have rejected arguments from the country’s workplace safety regulator that they ultimately managed and controlled activities on the island and bore legal responsibility for whether visitors to it were safe.
When White Island/Whakaari exploded on 9 December 2019, 22 people were killed – 17 of them Australians – with 25 others injured. It prompted renewed debate about controls for natural hazard tourism in New Zealand.
Continue reading...Ethiopian government is failing to protect its citizens from ‘grave’ human rights abuses, amid rising violence and hate speech – report
Human rights abuses are still being committed in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region more than 10 months after a ceasefire formally ended the bloody civil war, according to a group of UN experts.
The latest report by the UN’s International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia said the nation’s government was failing to protect its citizens from “grave and ongoing” human rights abuses being committed by militias and Eritrean troops, who fought alongside Ethiopia’s federal military and remain in border areas of Tigray.
Continue reading...Changes to anonymity law mean people can apply to discover donor’s name, date of birth and address
Dozens of young adults born via sperm or egg donation will be able to find out their biological origins in the coming weeks, with the first just days away from being able to apply to find out more information about their donor, health officials have said.
Changes to the donor anonymity law will mean that most donor-conceived young adults born after a certain date will be able to discover the people whose donations led to their conception.
Continue reading...Free speech advocate Hisham Kassem sentenced for defaming former minister Kamal Abu Eita
A court in Cairo has sentenced a former newspaper publisher, free speech advocate and rights activist to six months in prison, in a trial observers say constitutes an attack on a leading critic of the Egyptian state.
Hisham Kassem, the former publisher of Al Masry Al Youm newspaper, received six months in detention and a fine of 20,000 Egyptian pounds (approximately £523) for slandering and defaming Kamal Abu Eita. Abu Eita is a former minister and current member of Egypt’s presidential pardon committee, tasked with granting clemency towards some of the tens of thousands of detainees in the Egyptian prison system.
Continue reading...Inquests flag up gaps in the care of prisoners in relation to at least nine deaths in custody since 2021
Prison understaffing and workload issues have been flagged in at least nine inquests into deaths in custody since the start of 2021, according to an Observer analysis of coroners’ reports.
Issues raised include gaps in monitoring of prisoners due to understaffing, a lack of prison-based clinical staff and shortcomings in the keyworker programme. Coroners have also repeatedly identified problems with staff training and the assessment, care in custody and teamwork (ACCT) process for prisoners identified as being at risk of suicide or self-harm.
Continue reading...Apology and ‘substantial’ payouts to Patsy Stevenson and Dania al-Obeid mark major climbdown after years of legal battles
Scotland Yard has apologised and paid “substantial damages” to two women arrested during the vigil for Sarah Everard, in a major climbdown following years of legal battles over the policing of the event.
In a move that the new Metropolitan police commissioner, Mark Rowley, will hope draws a line under one of the darkest periods of the Met’s recent history, the force acknowledged that it was “understandable” that Patsy Stevenson and Dania Al-Obeid had wanted to attend a candlelit vigil at Clapham Common because they felt women had been “badly let down”.
Continue reading...Shops that serve unveiled women could be shut under draft law UN human rights body says suppresses women into ‘total submission’
Women in Iran face up to 10 years in prison if they continue to defy the country’s mandatory hijab law, under harsher laws awaiting approval by authorities. Even businesses that serve women without a hijab face being shut down.
The stricter dress code, which amounts to “gender apartheid”, UN experts said, comes one year after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, who had been detained for allegedly wearing the Islamic headscarf incorrectly. Her death, after allegedly being beaten by police, led to the largest wave of popular unrest for years in Iran.
Continue reading...Striking down of ‘reasonableness’ clause abolishing ability to overrule government could trigger constitutional crisis
Israel’s supreme court justices have begun hearing petitions against a key part of the rightwing government’s judicial overhaul limiting the court’s powers, a development that could trigger an unprecedented constitutional crisis.
For the first time, a panel of all 15 judges convened on Tuesday to discuss eight filings aimed at striking down the “reasonableness” clause, passed by the Knesset in July, which abolished the supreme court’s ability to overrule government decisions.
Continue reading...After sightings in the area, teams descended to search gardens with dogs and check vehicles, while helicopters whirred overhead. Now picnics and sunbathing can resume
The Saturday morning news that Daniel Khalife, the terror suspect who escaped from HMP Wandsworth on Wednesday morning, had been spotted in Chiswick caused predictable intrigue in the leafy west London district. Police swiftly mustered in the area. Some drivers were being stopped and others reportedly asked for identification.
A police helicopter had been whirring overhead for much of the night and some residents said they had awoken to find officers sweeping through gardens. Police dog handlers and armed officers were all spotted along one of the area’s main roads by early morning.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Witnesses say federal forces have been looting villages and shooting farmers in their hunt for defiant Fano militiamen
Ethiopian soldiers killed more than 70 civilians and looted properties in a town in Amhara, multiple witnesses have claimed.
The killings took place in Majete, a rural town in north-eastern Ethiopia, after two weeks of heavy fighting between federal soldiers and the Fano, an Amhara militia.
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