Category Archives: Law

Dominic Raab ‘totally misunderstands’ Northern Ireland Brexit terms, warns EU

Posted on by

European vice-president Maroš Šefčovič says claim about Brussels trying to erect barrier down Irish Sea undermines UK’s reputation

Britain’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has been accused by Brussels of displaying a “total misunderstanding” of the Brexit deal after claiming the EU was trying to erect a barrier between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

Maroš Šefčovič, the European commission’s vice-president, said Raab’s comments raised major questions, and warned that Britain was tarnishing its global reputation by ignoring the terms of its agreements with Brussels.

Continue reading...

French MPs approve ‘non-consent’ law to protect children from sexual abuse

Posted on by

Draft legislation says a child under 15 cannot be considered to have willingly engaged in a sexual act

French MPs have unanimously approved a long-awaited draft law to protect children from rape and sexual abuse.

The legislation, drawn up after a series of scandals involving high-profile figures, establishes an age of “non-consent” at 15 under which a child cannot be considered to have willingly engaged in a sexual act. In cases of incest, the age has been set at 18.

Continue reading...

FBI facing allegation that its 2018 background check of Brett Kavanaugh was ‘fake’

Posted on by

A Democratic senator has asked attorney general Merrick Garland to facilitate ‘proper oversight’ into concerns on the investigation

The FBI is facing new scrutiny for its 2018 background check of Brett Kavanaugh, the supreme court justice, after a lawmaker suggested that the investigation may have been “fake”.

Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator and former prosecutor who serves on the judiciary committee, is calling on the newly-confirmed attorney general, Merrick Garland, to help facilitate “proper oversight” by the Senate into questions about how thoroughly the FBI investigated Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.

Continue reading...

Endemic violence against women is causing a wave of anger

Posted on by

Analysis: Sarah Everard’s disappearance sparks furious demands to address misogyny in UK

Women feared this was coming. They waited, messaging each other in WhatsApp groups and on social media. They talked about their own attempts to stay safe, discussed their near misses.

When the news came on Wednesday evening – that police investigating the disappearance of Sarah Everard had found the remains of a body – a wave of grief crashed over them, followed quickly by anger.

Continue reading...

Bangladesh shipbreakers win right to sue UK owners in landmark ruling

Posted on by

Appeal court clears wife to sue company in London over husband’s death while helping to scrap tanker in Chittagong

British shipping companies that sell old vessels to be scrapped cheaply in dangerous, low-paid conditions in Bangladesh, India or Pakistan may now be sued in London for workers’ deaths or injuries.

In the first ruling of its kind by any higher court anywhere in the world, the court of appeal of England and Wales has held that a shipping company in London selling a vessel in south Asia could owe a legal “duty of care” to shipbreaking workers in Bangladesh even where there are multiple third parties involved in the transaction.

Continue reading...

EU parliament strips Carles Puigdemont and two other Catalans of immunity

Posted on by

Spain seeking extradition related to separatists’ role in organising 2017 independence referendum

The European parliament has voted to lift the immunity of the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and two of his ministers, taking them a step closer to extradition and prosecution in Spain.

MEPs voted by 400 to 248 with 45 abstentions in the case of Puigdemont and 404 to 247 with 42 abstentions regarding Antoni Comín and Clara Ponsatí, respectively the former health and education ministers in Puigdemont’s government.

Continue reading...

UK failed to inform EU countries about almost 200 killers and rapists

Posted on by

Exclusive: total of 112,490 criminal convictions not sent to relevant EU capitals over eight-year period

The conviction of 109 killers, 81 rapists and a man found guilty of both crimes in UK courts was not passed on to the criminals’ home EU countries due to a massive computer failure and subsequent cover-up, the Guardian can reveal.

The most serious cases are among a total of 112,490 criminal convictions not sent to the relevant EU capitals over an eight-year period due to a catastrophic computer error, which some fear has put lives at risk.

Continue reading...

Judge Judy: ‘Are my feelings PC and kumbaya? No. They are realistic’

Posted on by

Her TV show has been No 1 in the US since 1998, but many have criticised her approach to justice. As she hangs up her gavel after 25 years, she discusses wealth, success and repentance

Order, order. Court is in session, Judge Judith Sheindlin presiding, and while you are here you will follow her rules.

Don’t throw paper on the floor. Hang on to your gum wrapper until you get to a bin. Don’t befoul your community. Try not to scratch other people’s cars and, if you do, leave your details on the windscreen. Don’t tell lies. Confront your problems and try to solve them.

Continue reading...

Shamima Begum court decision brings shame on UK | Letters

Posted on by

Readers respond to the supreme court decision that Begum will not have her citizenship restored

Every day it seems the Guardian serves up another reason for being ashamed to be British. On Friday, it was the case of Shamima Begum (Shamima Begum loses fight to restore UK citizenship after supreme court ruling, 26 February). It makes it particularly difficult that I’m tutoring someone who is hoping to take an A-level in British politics. All the books list human rights and explain how carefully protected they are in our system. Article 5 is supposed to protect the right to liberty and freedom from arbitrary detention. Yet the supreme court is unable to protect Begum’s rights against a home secretary who is operating a policy based on pandering to public opinion in return for (hoped-for) votes.

We are told that legal protections are particularly important in difficult cases – that is, cases where an individual presents as unpleasant or undeserving. Begum was a teenager who took the extraordinary step of leaving her country to defend something she believed was deserving of her support. But even if she left with the firm intention of terrorising her fellow citizens, does this mean she should be deprived of her rights? It is a matter not of what Begum deserves but of what our national honour, and our constitution, deserve. This has been increasingly in doubt in recent years, with the government threatening to renege over the Northern Irish border agreement; not to mention the Chagos Islands and our participation in rendering citizens to be tortured during the “war on terror”.
Jeremy Cushing
Exeter

Continue reading...

More than 50,000 people call for inquiry into use of Queen’s consent

Posted on by

Tens of thousands sign petition to investigate mechanism that allows Queen to vet draft laws

More than 50,000 people have called for a parliamentary investigation into an “unfathomable” mechanism that allows the Queen to vet draft laws before they are approved by the UK’s elected representatives.

They have signed a petition supporting an urgent investigation by a House of Commons committee as they are concerned that the “royal family has a worrying and undemocratic ability to influence the government behind closed doors”.

Continue reading...

Yazidis have been forgotten during Covid. They need justice, jobs and a return home | Nadia Murad

Posted on by

Survivors of Islamic State brutality are pushed further into the margins as the pandemic causes the world to turn inward

Staring at the same four walls day after day, unable to find work, reunite with relatives, or send your children to school. The Covid pandemic has rendered this bleak picture a reality for many people across the globe. Yet for many who have survived or are living through conflict, these hardships are hardly novel.

For the Yazidi ethnic minority in Iraq, Islamic State’s 2014 genocide created adversity long before the pandemic ever did. For more than six years, hundreds of thousands of Yazidis have been in camps for internally displaced people (IDP) staring at the same four walls of their tents. They are unable to find work because Isis razed their farms and businesses. They cannot reunite with relatives still in Isis captivity or attend the burials of family members whose bodies remain in mass graves.

Continue reading...

UK’s anti-terror chief fears rights group boycott threatens Prevent review

Posted on by

Neil Basu says move to protest appointment of William Shawcross could harm process

Britain’s best chance of reducing terrorist violence risks being damaged amid a huge backlash to the government’s choice of William Shawcross to lead a review of Prevent, the country’s top counter-terrorism officer has told the Guardian.

Assistant commissioner Neil Basu’s comments came after key human rights and Muslim groups announced a boycott of the official review of Prevent, which aims to stop Britons being radicalised into violent extremism.

Continue reading...

Uber drivers are workers, UK supreme court rules

Posted on by

Decision means drivers will be entitled to basic rights such as paid holidays, say lawyers

The UK supreme court has dismissed Uber’s appeal against a landmark employment tribunal ruling that its drivers should be classed as workers with access to the minimum wage and paid holidays.

Six justices handed down a unanimous decision backing the October 2016 employment tribunal ruling that could affect millions of workers in the gig economy.

Continue reading...

ECHR tells Russia to free Alexei Navalny on safety grounds

Posted on by

Russia says it will ignore ruling, which it calls a ‘blatant and gross interference’ in its affairs

The European court of human rights has told Russia to free Alexei Navalny, prompting a new standoff between Europe and Moscow over the fate of Vladimir Putin’s staunchest critic.

Russia has said it will ignore the ruling despite a requirement to comply as a member of the Council of Europe, calling the court’s decision “blatant and gross interference in the judicial affairs of a sovereign state”.

Continue reading...

Dutch court reinstates Covid curfew minutes before its start time

Posted on by

Earlier ruling that emergency powers were wrongly used is overturned, with full hearing due on Friday

A Dutch appeals court has ruled that the government’s controversial coronavirus curfew must stay in place until a hearing later this week to decide whether the measure is legal.

The government had been stunned when a lower court judge ruled earlier that it must immediately lift the Netherlands’ first curfew since the second world war because it had wrongly used emergency powers to invoke it.

Continue reading...

Key pro-democracy figures go on trial over Hong Kong protests

Posted on by

Veteran activist Lee Cheuk-yan accuses police and government of depriving Hongkongers of constitutional rights

A veteran champion of democracy in Hong Kong has described its legal system as an instrument of political suppression, after he and eight other high-profile figures went on trial in one of the biggest court cases linked to the protest movement that paralysed the city for more than a year.

“It’s the department of justice, the police department and the Hong Kong government who should be on trial because they have deprived us of our constitutional rights,” said Lee Cheuk-yan after the day’s proceedings. “This year is the year of the ox so we should be stubborn as an ox.”

Continue reading...

British barrister Karim Khan elected ICC’s new chief prosecutor

Posted on by

Khan, 50, won on second round of voting by 131 member states and replaces Fatou Bensouda, who was hit with US sanctions

A British QC has been elected as the new chief prosecutor for the international criminal court in an election by the court’s 131 member states at the UN in New York. Karim Khan will replace Fatou Bensouda from the Gambia, and as he starts his nine-year term he faces a daunting task trying to secure more convictions and spread acceptance of the court’s jurisdiction across the globe.

The secret ballot for the post was the first in the court’s history – and took place amid some controversy and high politics between member states.

Continue reading...

Nigerians can bring claims against Shell in UK, supreme court rules

Posted on by

Ogale and Bille villagers say Shell oil operations have caused severe pollution including to their drinking water

Two Nigerian communities can bring their legal claims for a cleanup and for compensation against the oil company Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary in an English court, supreme court judges have said.

In what lawyers said was a “watershed moment” for the accountability of multinational companies, on Friday the court overturned a decision by the court of appeal, and ruled that the cases against Shell could proceed.

Continue reading...

Pakistan ends death penalty for prisoners with severe mental health problems

Posted on by

Supreme court ruling welcomed by rights activists who say it opens the way to broader prison reforms

In a landmark decision, Pakistan’s supreme court ruled this week that prisoners with serious mental health problems cannot be executed for their crimes.

The verdict was hailed by rights activists, who said it laid the groundwork for broader prison reforms in the country.

Continue reading...