Category Archives: Law

UK government ‘let lawyers bypass sanctions’ to help Putin ally sue journalist

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Documents seen by Open Democracy show UK firm got approval to engage with Wagner group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin

British lawyers were given government dispensation to bypass sanctions in order to help Yevgeny Prigozhin, the controversial Russian businessman and Wagner group founder, sue a journalist, according to documents made available to the website Open Democracy.

The documents concern a libel case brought by Prigozhin against Eliot Higgins, the founder of the investigative group Bellingcat, in 2021. The revelations will raise further questions about the abuse of UK libel law by the super-rich.

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Probation service and ministers have ‘blood on hands’, say Zara Aleena’s family

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Watchdog report uncovers series of failings in supervision of Jordan McSweeney, who murdered the law graduate last year

Ministers and the probation service have been accused of having “blood on their hands” after a watchdog uncovered failings which left a violent, woman-hating racist free to murder the law graduate Zara Aleena.

Jordan McSweeney should have been seen by probation officers as a high-risk offender with a long history of misogynistic and racially aggravated incidents and recalled to prison after missing appointments, the chief inspector of probation, Justin Russell, said.

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‘Dirty wee torturers’: Northern Irish man tells of British army abuse during Troubles

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Jim Auld, 72, was one of 14 ‘hooded men’ subjected to interrogation methods since ruled as torture

Jim Auld was so tortured by British army interrogators during the Troubles that he tried to kill himself. He survived but has never seen a counsellor or psychologist or psychiatrist, and never will.

“I don’t trust them that it wouldn’t end up in a paper somewhere. I don’t want the torturers learning from me so they can improve their techniques,” he said last week.

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Tory mayor condemns ‘broken begging bowl culture’ of Sunak’s levelling up policy – UK politics live

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Latest updates: West Midlands mayor Andy Street says it should be for local decision-makers to determine where money is spent

Rishi Sunak has defended the distribution of levelling up funds, saying that the north of England has received more per head than the south.

Speaking on a visit to Accrington, in Lancashire, he said:

The region that has done the best in the amount of funding per person is the north. That’s why we’re here talking to you in Accrington market, these are the places that are benefiting from the funding.

If you look at the overall funding in the levelling-up funds that we’ve done, about two-thirds of all that funding has gone to the most deprived part of our country.

With regard to Catterick Garrison, the thing you need to know is that’s home to our largest army base and it’s home to actually thousands of serving personnel who are often away from their own families serving our country.

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Mental health racial bias in England and Wales is ‘inexcusable’, says report

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MPs and peers say draft mental health bill must go further to strengthen patients’ choices

Ministers must use legislation to address an “unacceptable and inexcusable” failure to address racial disparity in the use of the Mental Health Act, MPs and peers have said.

The joint committee on the draft mental health bill says the bill does not go far enough to tackle failures that were identified in a landmark independent review five years ago, but which still persist and may even be getting worse.

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Australian justice appointed to Hong Kong court argues foreign judges shouldn’t ‘vacate the field’

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Exclusive: Some legal figures have raised concerns about message his appointment sends in light of Beijing’s crackdown on freedom in Hong Kong

The former Australian high court judge Patrick Keane has dismissed criticism of his appointment to a top Hong Kong court, saying he weighed up the role carefully but believed foreign judges should not “vacate the field”.

Legal figures have noted Keane’s eminent record, but some raised concerns about the message his appointment sends in light of Beijing’s increasing crackdown on rights and freedoms in Hong Kong.

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Nurses to strike again as ministers prepare to introduce ‘spiteful’ bill

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Industrial action also set to escalate in other sectors while government gears up anti-strike legislation

A wave of further teaching, ambulance and civil service strikes is likely to move forward this week as nurses are set for their second major period of industrial action.

While ministers signalled a new deal may be close with the rail unions, strikes looked set to escalate in other sectors as ministers geared up to introduce controversial new anti-strike legislation to the House of Commons on Monday.

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‘Utterly disgraceful’: new federal court rules limiting access to documents criticised by media union

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While the court says rules are designed to protect respondents from early reporting of allegations, MEAA president says decision ‘goes against the concept of open court’

New federal court rules barring media from accessing documents until the first directions hearing have been labelled “utterly disgraceful” and a breach of the concept of “open” justice.

Enacted in mid-December by federal court judges without consulting the media and published on the gazette Thursday, the rules appear designed to protect respondents against reporting of allegations at the earliest stages of a case.

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Protesters gather at Iranian prison in attempt to stop ‘imminent executions’

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Alarm raised after two men found guilty of running over police officer are moved to solitary confinement

Protesters have gathered outside a prison near the Iranian capital in an attempt to prevent the rumoured imminent execution of two young detainees found guilty of running over a police officer in a car during protests in November.

Footage posted on social media showed the mother of one of the men, 22-year-old Mohammad Ghobadlou, pleading for her son outside Rajaei-Shahr prison in Karaj, a satellite city west of Tehran. She said it had been established that her son had not been at the scene when the police officer died.

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Negotiations on Chagos Islands’ sovereignty face legal challenge

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Pre-action letter says talks between UK and Mauritius ‘being held without consulting Chagossian people’

A legal attempt has been launched to halt negotiations between the UK and Mauritius over the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, Britain’s last African colony, claiming Chagossian people’s views are being ignored.

Bernadette Dugasse, who was born on Diego Garcia, an island within what is known today as the British Indian Ocean Territory, is seeking judicial review of the government’s approach to the talks.

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Russia must face tribunal for ‘crime of aggression’ in Ukraine, say cross-party leaders

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Pressure grows on Putin as politicians and lawyers point to principles that led to Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals

Demands for a special tribunal to investigate Russia for a “crime of aggression” against Ukraine have been backed by senior UK politicians from across the political divide in a move to show Vladimir Putin and his generals that they will be held to account.

In a joint statement shared with the Observer, figures including the Labour leader Keir Starmer, the former Nato secretary general George Robertson, the former foreign secretary David Owen, and former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith say the tribunal should be set up to look into the “manifestly illegal war” on the same principles that guided the allies when they met in 1941 to lay the groundwork for the Nuremberg war crimes trials of Nazi leaders.

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900,000 crimes committed by people on bail under Tories, analysis finds

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Offences committed in England and Wales have included murder, kidnap, and child rape, study of data shows

Nearly 900,000 offences including murder, kidnap, and child rape, have been committed by people on bail in England and Wales since the Conservatives came to power, a new analysis has found.

The latest government figures show more than 20,000 offences were committed by those released from custody as they awaited a hearing, equating to 55 offences a day.

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Anger as Pakistan court frees rapist after he agrees deal to marry his victim

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Dawlat Khan had received a life sentence for the rape of a young deaf woman but a council of elders intervened to offer a compromise

A court in Pakistan has caused outrage after it freed a convicted rapist when he agreed to marry his victim.

Dawlat Khan, 25, had been sentenced to life imprisonment in May by the district court of Buner, in north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, for the rape of a young deaf woman.

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ExxonMobil launches legal challenge to EU’s windfall tax on energy firms

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US oil firm contests legal authority for ‘solidarity contribution’ to raise funds to offset soaring energy prices

ExxonMobil has launched a legal challenge against the EU in an attempt to derail the bloc’s windfall tax on the profits of energy producers.

In a high-stakes political battle as countries across Europe and the wider western world struggle with soaring energy costs and sky-high inflation, the US oil firm said it believed the EU had overreached its powers with the windfall tax.

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Parents in Wales lose legal fight against ‘woke’ sex eduation in primary schools

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Judge at Cardiff hearing rejects families’ complaint, saying relationships curriculum does not advocate any one gender identity

A group of parents has lost a legal challenge against the teaching of children about gender identity and sex in primary schools across Wales.

Campaigners launched a judicial review in the high court against the Welsh government’s new relationships and sexuality education (RSE) curriculum, which they depicted as “dangerous” and “woke”.

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Scathing report condemns UK police for ‘victim blaming’ in rape cases

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Examination exposes failure to track repeat suspects and botched investigations by struggling forces

A damning official examination into how police forces tackle rape has exposed persistent failings in the criminal justice system, including a failure to track repeat suspects, “explicit victim-blaming” and botched investigations.

The long-awaited independent report into the first year of Operation Soteria Bluestone – launched by the government after a catastrophic fall in rape prosecutions – also paints a picture of a over-worked, traumatised and inexperienced police workforce in England and Wales, which is struggling to cope with an increase in rape reports after years of austerity.

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UN to investigate use of ‘parental alienation’ tactic in custody cases

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Fears an increase in allegations, particularly against mothers, of deliberately alienating a child against the other parent in domestic abuse cases may put victims at further risk

The UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls is to investigate how family courts around the world approach “parental alienation” (PA) and how this may lead to the double victimisation of those who have suffered domestic abuse.

There is no single agreed definition of parental alienation but a generally accepted description is a child’s rejection of one parent as a result of psychological manipulation by their preferred parent.

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Watchdog criticises UK ministers’ ‘antagonism’ towards human rights

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Council of Europe report finds government’s attitude is weakening protections for the public

The UK government has “an increasingly antagonistic attitude” towards human rights that is weakening instead of strengthening protections for the public, a European inquiry has found.

Inflammatory language used by MPs and officials to describe lawyers could put their safety at risk, according to the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatović.

Provisions in the PCSC Act that de facto criminalise Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities leading a nomadic lifestyle must be rescinded.

There is “a high level of anxiety among stakeholders” about human rights protection in the UK, in view of the significant impact of recent and proposed legislation.

The UK’s policies towards refugees, asylum seekers and migrants are eroding their rights. Proposals criticised in the report include newly introduced inadmissibility rules for asylum claims, the possibility of removing persons to Rwanda, and the criminalisation of asylum seekers arriving irregularly.

The emergence of a harsh political and public discourse against trans people in the UK has a negative impact on their rights.

The UK government should consider withdrawing the legacy bill, which offers a conditional amnesty to people accused of killings and other Troubles-related crimes.

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Indonesia passes legislation banning sex outside marriage

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Rights groups say amended criminal code underscores shift towards fundamentalism

Indonesia’s parliament has overhauled the country’s criminal code to outlaw sex outside marriage and curtail free speech, in a dramatic setback to freedoms in the world’s third-largest democracy.

Passed with support from all political parties, the draconian legislation has shocked not only rights activists but also the country’s booming tourism sector, which relies on a stream of visitors to its tropical islands.

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UN refugee body criticises ‘errors’ in asylum report backed by Braverman

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Organisation questions use of ‘illegal’ to describe asylum seekers in report calling for radical crackdown

A report partially endorsed by the UK home secretary, Suella Braverman, calling for a radical crackdown on those seeking asylum has been criticised by a UN body for “factual and legal errors”.

Braverman wrote the foreword to the report by the right-leaning Centre for Policy Studies that says “if necessary” Britain should change human rights laws and withdraw from the European convention on human rights in order to tackle Channel crossings by small boat.

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