Category Archives: Law

Government attacks on lawyers degrading, say former Tory law officers

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Dominic Grieve and Edward Garnier denounce ‘lefty lawyer’ rhetoric as dossier target fears abuse will turn physical

Two former Conservative law officers have criticised the political rhetoric against “lefty lawyers” as damaging and wrong as the head of the Law Society warned it could lead to physical attacks on immigration solicitors.

Dominic Grieve, a former attorney general, and Edward Garnier, a Conservative peer and former solicitor general, said lawyers should not be attacked for doing their jobs, regardless of who they represent or their personal views.

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Taskforce to pursue lawyers who ‘coach’ clients to lie on UK asylum applications

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Move designed to demonstrate PM’s commitment to ‘stop the boats’ policy criticised by legal experts

Lawyers who “coach” people to lie in their asylum applications will be targeted as part of a new government-led panel tasked with pursuing more prosecutions.

The move is designed to demonstrate Rishi Sunak’s commitment to “stop the boats”, but it was criticised by legal experts who said the record asylum backlog was the fault of the Home Office.

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Judge says E Jean Carroll allegation Trump raped her is ‘substantially true’ in court dismissal

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Ex-president claimed that writer defamed him when saying he raped her, but judge said term is commonly ‘used and understood’ in context

Donald Trump suffered another legal reversal on Monday, losing his counterclaim for defamation against E Jean Carroll, the writer against whom he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation and fined $5m, and who continues to pursue a separate defamation case against him.

Dismissing the counterclaim, a judge in New York, Lewis A Kaplan, said that when Carroll repeated her allegation that Trump raped her, her words were “substantially true”. Kaplan also set out in detail why it may be said that Trump raped Carroll.

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

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The Sofronoff inquiry has only further damaged the public’s faith in the justice system

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Public is now asked to believe flaws exposed by Lehrmann case can be remedied by report whose author had ‘lapse in judgment’

The Sofronoff report was supposed to bring finality.

It was to give some semblance of closure to a saga that has dragged on and on, plumbing new depths in each ghastly iteration.

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Two-thirds of sexual assault support centres in England branded inadequate

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Inspectors find failures to protect victims and risks of contaminating forensic evidence

More than two-thirds of England’s specialist support centres for victims of sexual assault or abuse have been found to have flaws in the care they offer in their most recent full inspections, the Observer can reveal.

Almost half were found to be breaching their minimum legal obligations to victims in their last full inspection, with problems ranging from a failure to deal with suicide and self-harm risks, cleaning so bad it risked contaminating forensic evidence collected for criminal cases, and failures to do adequate background checks on the staff working with victims.

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Ian Watkins, singer jailed for child sex offences, ‘stabbed in prison’

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Former Lostprophets frontman reportedly taken to hospital after being held hostage by other inmates at HMP Wakefield

Ian Watkins, the former lead singer with Lostprophets who was jailed for 29 years for child sex offences, has reportedly been stabbed at HMP Wakefield.

He is said to have been taken to hospital after being stabbed at the prison in West Yorkshire.

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Wrongly convicted in Britain no longer forced to pay ‘saved living costs’ in prison

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The government has scrapped controversial guidance over deductions to compensation in miscarriage of justice cases

People who have been wrongly convicted will no longer have to pay living expenses for the time they spent in prison, the government will announce on Sunday after widespread outrage over the case of Andrew Malkinson.

One of Britain’s longest-serving victims of a miscarriage of justice, Malkinson, 57, had his conviction overturned last month by the court of appeal after spending 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit.

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Immortal cells: Henrietta Lacks’ family settle lawsuit over HeLa tissue harvested in 1950s

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Cells taken without consent from cancer victim can reproduce indefinitely and were sold for unjust profit by Thermo Fisher Scientific, relatives argued

Laboratory equipment maker Thermo Fisher Scientific has settled a lawsuit brought by the estate of Henrietta Lacks, a long-deceased cancer victim whose “immortal” cells have lived on to fuel biomedical research for decades, lawyers for the estate have said.

The story of Lacks, a young African American woman who died in Baltimore in 1951, was made famous in Rebecca Skloot’s 2010 book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which became a movie in 2017 featuring Oprah Winfrey.

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Jailing shoplifters will not address root causes, says senior Tory

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Sir Bob Neill criticises government plan for failing to consider mental health and addiction problems of many offenders

Ministers cannot “warehouse” addicts and people with mental health problems who commit crimes such as shoplifting, a senior Conservative MP has said in response to a plan to give shoplifters mandatory sentences.

Sir Bob Neill, the chair of the Commons justice select committee, said the new policy would “pump low-level offenders” into almost-full jails at huge public expense and do nothing to change the “chaotic lives” of offenders.

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UK spy agencies want to relax ‘burdensome’ laws on AI data use

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GCHQ, MI6 and MI5 propose weakening safeguards that limit training of AI models with bulk personal datasets

The UK intelligence agencies are lobbying the government to weaken surveillance laws they argue place a “burdensome” limit on their ability to train artificial intelligence models with large amounts of personal data.

The proposals would make it easier for GCHQ, MI6 and MI5 to use certain types of data, by relaxing safeguards designed to protect people’s privacy and prevent the misuse of sensitive information.

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Fix ‘endemic’ problems in youth custody, urges prisons watchdog

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Monitoring boards chief warns of poor conditions at four young offender institutions in England

A prisons watchdog has warned that poor conditions are “endemic” at four young offender institutions in England and urged ministers to take urgent action to improve them.

In her new role as the national chair of the Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs), Elisabeth Davies has taken the unusual step of writing a letter to the prisons minister, Damian Hinds, to raise serious concerns about the welfare of children in YOIs in England.

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Solicitors’ watchdog investigates claims of wrongdoing in asylum cases

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Announcement by body that regulates profession in England and Wales follows allegations law firms offered to submit false claims

The solicitors’ watchdog in England and Wales is investigating firms and individuals at the centre of allegations of wrongdoing in dealing with asylum applications, it has said.

The news came as the justice secretary, Alex Chalk, demanded the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) come down hard should it uncover any cases of wrongdoing. “I would strongly encourage you to use the full force of sanctions available to you against solicitors where there is a finding of a breach,” Chalk said on Thursday.

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US begins sharing Russian war-crimes evidence with Hague court

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Quiet decision ends dispute within Biden administration over ICC cooperation after Pentagon had been accused of obstruction

The Biden administration has said it has begun sharing evidence with the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague on war crimes committed in Ukraine.

The announcement ends a months-long dispute within the administration over the issue, in which the national security council (NSC) and the state department backed cooperation with the ICC, with the Pentagon resisting on the grounds it would imply endorsement of an international court that could one day seek to prosecute US soldiers.

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Home Office ordered to change rules that restrict help for trafficking victims

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Court rules all potential victims must be assessed for support, after policy disqualified people with criminal convictions

A high court judge has ordered the home secretary to change a key part of a trafficking policy introduced just months ago.

In an urgent hearing on Wednesday, lawyers representing trafficking victims said they were at risk of human rights violations such as slavery, servitude and forced labour if the policy continued.

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The RSF are out to finish the genocide in Darfur they began as the Janjaweed. We cannot stand by | Kate Ferguson

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Peace between Hemedti’s RSF and Sudan’s army will not end war crimes. As UN security council president, Britain must act

As conflict in Sudan escalates, it is becoming clear that the Rapid Support Forces has returned to Darfur to complete the genocide it began 20 years ago. The RSF is the Janjaweed rebranded, the “devils on horseback” used by the Sudanese government from 2003 to implement widespread and systematic crimes against non-Arab communities across Darfur. The RSF was, and still is, commanded by Gen Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo.

In recent weeks, what we knew was coming has been confirmed. Yale University’s Conflict Observatory, which uses a combination of satellite imagery, Nasa thermal-detection data and open-source analysis, found evidence of the “targeted destruction of at least 26 communities” by the RSF between 15 April and 10 July. Mass graves have been discovered, and satellite imagery shows entire urban neighbourhoods and villages have been burned down.

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Scheme to stop people being quizzed by abuser in court failing, lawyers say

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Exclusive: Courts in England and Wales unable to attract sufficient numbers of advocates

A scheme designed to ensure people representing themselves in court do not have to be questioned by their abuser is failing due to lack of resources, family law experts have said.

Since last year, family and civil courts have been required in certain cases to appoint a qualified legal representative (QLR) so that litigants in person are not cross-examined by the perpetrator or alleged perpetrator of their abuse and vice versa, but there has been a shortage of lawyers signing up to the scheme.

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Sexual violence is junta’s ‘modus operandi’, Myanmar activist tells UN

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People are united to end military dictatorship but international support is needed, Naw Hser Hser says

The crisis in Myanmar should be referred to the international criminal court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including widespread sexual violence, an open session at the UN security council will be told.

Naw Hser Hser, the first Myanmar human rights defender to brief council members in an open session since the 2021 coup, will also call for greater action to cut crucial supplies of arms and finances to the military junta.

In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for rape and sexual abuse on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

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Scottish ministers have ‘duty’ to protect seabed from harmful fishing, says court

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Licensing for scallop dredging and trawling must comply with National Marine Plan after judicial review by Open Seas charity

The Scottish government should stop approving licences for fishing vessels using methods believed to cause harm to habitats, a charity working to protect marine life has urged, after a court declared a routine licensing decision to be unlawful.

Scotland’s highest court ruled that the Scottish government had failed to act in accordance with Scotland’s National Marine Plan (NMP) when varying fishing licences last December, after a judicial review by the conservation charity Open Seas. It is legally obliged to act in accordance with its environmental duties, as stated in the NMP, when making these decisions.

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Legal aid cuts denying vulnerable women access to justice, says thinktank

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Women’s Budget Group says changes have disproportionately affected women and cut critical lifeline in England and Wales

Vulnerable women in England and Wales, including survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, are being denied justice because of cuts to the civil legal aid budget, a thinktank has said.

The Women’s Budget Group says a decade on from major changes to legal aid, women have been disproportionately affected, leaving them without essential support to fight discrimination, violence and housing insecurity.

Ineligibility, for example some employment discrimination not being included in legal aid.

Inaccessibility due to insufficient legal aid providers.

Lack of awareness and signposting of what qualifies for legal aid.

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Ugandan president and son accused of sponsoring violence in ICC testimony

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Documents containing allegations of torture filed to court in support of complaint made by Bobi Wine

The Uganda president, Yoweri Museveni, and his son Muhoozi Kainerugaba have been accused of sponsoring violence and abusing critics in harrowing testimony filed before the international criminal court.

The submissions contain detailed allegations of the torture of opposition figures and activists who report being arrested arbitrarily and being held incommunicado in “torture centres”, where they were reportedly interrogated about their links with the opposition figure Bobi Wine and subjected to physical harm and indignifying treatment.

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