Temporary measures introduced during Covid crisis will be made made permanent from April
Outdoor weddings and civil partnerships are to be legalised permanently in England and Wales, ministers have announced.
Since last summer, couples have been able to hold their civil wedding or ceremony outside under temporary measures introduced during the coronavirus pandemic.
Continue reading...WikiLeaks founder’s application ‘didn’t raise an arguable point of law’, UK supreme court says
Julian Assange has moved a step closer to a US trial on espionage charges after the UK’s highest court refused to hear his appeal against extradition.
The WikiLeaks founder was attempting to appeal against a judgment by the high court in December that ruled he could be extradited after assurances from the US authorities with regard to his prison conditions there.
Continue reading...Federal government’s appeal against the release of NZ man due to his claim of Aboriginality is being criticised as ‘a significant step backwards’
The Morrison government’s plan to restore its power to deport Aboriginal non-citizens has been criticised as “disrespectful and wrong” and a “significant step backwards” in the recognition of Aboriginal societies.
Both claims are made in submissions to an appeal by the federal government to overturn the landmark Love and Thoms decision.
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Continue reading...Working group led by Helena Kennedy QC recommends law to crack down on daily abuses that ‘absolutely degrade women’s lives’
A misogyny act for Scotland, created exclusively for women to crack down on street harassment, organised online hate and an onslaught of rape and disfigurement threats, has been recommended to the Scottish government by Helena Kennedy.
Set up in February 2021 to consider the creation of a standalone offence of misogynist hate crime, Lady Kennedy’s working group has returned a far more ambitious report that recommends naming explicitly the daily abuses that “absolutely degrade women’s lives”.
Continue reading...Court rules government failed to fulfil obligation to collect correct amount of customs duties and VAT
The British government faces paying a hefty charge to the EU after the European court of justice ruled it had been negligent in allowing criminal gangs to flood European markets with cheap Chinese-made clothes and shoes.
Publishing its final ruling on Tuesday, the court concluded that the UK as member state had “failed to fulfil its obligations” under EU law to combat fraud and collect the correct amount of customs duties and VAT on imported Chinese goods. The failures by HMRC date from 2011 to 2017.
Continue reading...Party urged justices to overturn maps imposed in North Carolina and Pennsylvania that made elections more competitive
The US supreme court has rejected requests from Republicans in North Carolina and Pennsylvania to overturn electoral maps imposed by the state supreme court in both places that make elections more competitive.
The justices ruled 6-3 on Monday not to block the new North Carolina maps from going into effect, with justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas saying they would have paused the state supreme court’s ruling.
Continue reading...Radwa Helmi sits on bench of state council, marking ‘historic’ step along road to equality
Radwa Helmi has made history as the first female judge to sit on the bench of Egypt’s state council, a top court in the Arab country.
Helmi, making her appearance in a Cairo courthouse, was among 98 women appointed last year to join the council, one of Egypt’s main judicial bodies, after a decision by the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Continue reading...Court closures, defunded legal aid and barrister shortages are adding to an already excruciating ordeal, while invasive investigations are leading many to drop proceedings altogether
For Nina, the prospect of walking into a police station and reporting her stepfather for child sexual abuse was, she says, her “worst nightmare ... It was something I’d dreaded my whole life,” she says. She had been raped by her stepfather for years when she was a child – and he had promised all sorts of consequences if she ever told anyone. Her mother, he told her, would kill herself. He implied that he might, too – but one thing he always assured her was that he would never go to jail.
When she was in her late teens, Nina finally told her mum, who was devastated, but believed her. It took years, however, before she felt ready to press charges. “One of the things that stopped me from telling anyone that it was happening at the time was the terror of standing in a courtroom putting all that shame on show – and that felt even worse the older I got.
Continue reading...‘We miss her all the time,’ say relatives of woman killed by serving Met police officer Wayne Couzens
The family of Sarah Everard have paid tribute to her on the first anniversary of her murder by a police officer, saying she was “wonderful and we miss her all the time” and that they “live with the sadness of our loss”.
Everard, 33 was abducted, raped and killed by serving Met officer Wayne Couzens as she walked home in south London on 3 March last year.
Continue reading...International criminal court inquiry has been expedited by unprecedented number of countries backing move
A war crimes investigation has been launched into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine after an unprecedented number of countries backed the move and Boris Johnson called the military intervention “abhorrent”.
Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor for the international criminal court (ICC), said he would begin work “as rapidly as possible” to look for possible crimes against humanity or genocide committed in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Dissident couple say their lives would be under threat if returned from Bosnia to Kuwait, as rights groups claim notice undermines refugee law
A Kuwaiti princess seeking asylum in Bosnia-Herzegovina has claimed the Kuwaiti state is using an Interpol red notice to intimidate and harass her and force the extradition of her partner, a prominent dissident blogger, back to the country.
Sheikha Moneera Fahad al-Sabah and Mesaed al-Mesaileem, said they face torture and threats to their lives if they are returned to Kuwait due to their political activism.
Continue reading...Even if Russian leader were charged, he would have to be arrested in a state that accepts the court’s jurisdiction
The prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague announced this week that he would launch an investigation into possible war crimes or crimes against humanity in Ukraine. How likely are Putin or other Russian political or military leaders to be brought to justice and what are the obstacles that must be overcome for that to happen?
Continue reading...Public prosecutors’ claim that detainees inflicted injuries on themselves with a coin is ‘laughable’, says Human Rights Watch
Detainees seen in videos allegedly showing torture in a Cairo police station inflicted their injuries on themselves, according to Egyptian authorities, who have charged the prisoners with spreading “fake news”.
Up to 13 people detained in El-Salam First police station for unknown petty crimes made multiple videos that they say show the abuse they suffered at the hands of police officers and security forces.
Continue reading...British women and girls are still being cut abroad and foreigners who are vulnerable are denied asylum by the UK
‘But why should we care about a practice that is being performed overseas?” It was a blunt question put to me by an audience member at a conference on female genital mutilation. Should we care because of a commitment to human rights? Our collective duty to prevent suffering? We have a moral obligation to end the practice in Britain and also to focus efforts on eliminating it globally.
After spending many years researching FGM, I have spoken to women who vehemently support it and those that actively resist it. If we are going to end FGM, it is important that we hear all women’s voices, however uncomfortable that may make us.
Continue reading...An army of drivers risked their health to get us goods during lockdown. But what is it like making deliveries while negotiating parking fines, traffic jams and spiralling costs?
Abdul Khan has a dream. He wants to own a farm, or maybe a zoo. He will keep rabbits, sheep, cows, dogs, cats, horses and pigeons. There will be a guesthouse that he can rent out to tourists. He doesn’t mind where the farm is – in the UK or back home in Pakistan – as long as there is room for his animals. “I love all the animals,” he says. “Farming is a dream life. I would love it.”
For now, Khan (not his real name) works in London as a courier for a delivery app. Khan, who is in his early 30s, didn’t expect to end up couriering. His plan was always to set up a business. He is a natural entrepreneur. When he was at school in Pakistan, he bought sandwiches and sold them for profit at a market. When he was studying business management, he sold sim cards at a train station. He was good at it – and it is not hard to see why. Khan is charming and charismatic, the sort of person who – as his mother-in-law always tells him – could sell sand to Arabs and ice to Inuit.
Continue reading...Joe Biden on Friday nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the supreme court, seeking to elevate a Black woman to the nation’s highest court for the first time in its 232-year history.
Biden’s decision to nominate Jackson to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer, 83, for whom she clerked, sets up a fierce confirmation battle in the deeply partisan and evenly-divided Senate. Breyer, the most senior jurist in the court’s three-member liberal wing, will retire at the end of the court’s current session this summer.
Continue reading...Zahir Jaffer tortured and beheaded Noor Mukadam, in July last year, in case that sparked outrage over violence against women
A court in Islamabad has sentenced to death the tycoon’s son who raped and murdered Noor Mukadam, a case that sparked outrage in Pakistan.
Mukadam, 27, the daughter of a former Pakistani diplomat, was held captive, tortured and beheaded in July last year by Zahir Jaffer, a member of a well-known industrialist family.
Continue reading...Blow to UK nationals as advocate general finds against Alice Bouilliez, who objected to losing voting rights
The European court of justice has been advised that British nationals living on the continent do not keep the advantages of EU citizenship now the UK has left the bloc, in a blow to campaigners fighting to keep more of their rights after Brexit.
Anthony Collins, an Irish advocate general at the court, said in an opinion published on Thursday that British nationals “who enjoyed the benefits of union citizenship do not retain those advantages following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU”.
Continue reading...A lawyer at a top London firm has suggested recruiting a chief happiness officer. Could this be the answer to mid-life burnout and the great resignation?
Name: Happiness officers.
Age: The psychological and philosophical pursuit of happiness was going on thousands of years ago in China, India and Greece. Think Confucius, Buddha, Socrates, Aristotle. More recently, Roger Hargreaves published his scholarly text Mr Happy in 1971.
Continue reading...Remote Sgt Adam Eberl tells court he did not consider Walker to be dangerous when police first encountered him
A police officer involved in the attempt to arrest Kumanjayi Walker before his death has told a court he was “surprised” other officers had not used their guns when the Warlpiri man threatened them with an axe during a seperate incident days earlier.
Remote Sgt Adam Eberl was the other officer in the room when Constable Zachary Rolfe shot dead Walker on 9 November 2019 in the remote community of Yuendumu, about 300km from Alice Springs.
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