Category Archives: Law

Two Muslim students face ‘bogus’ charges of inciting Delhi riots

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Lawyers say pair were peacefully protesting against Indian citizenship act

Delhi police have been accused of slapping two Muslim student activists with “bogus” charges of conspiring to incite the recent riots, the worst religious violence in India’s capital for decades, and in which the police were accused of being complicit.

Meeran Haider and Safoora Zargar, students at Delhi’s Muslim-majority Jamia Millia Islamia University, were charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which is usually reserved for terrorist activity and means they can be held for six months.

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Court hearings via video ‘risk unfairness for disabled people’

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UK equalities watchdog warns move amid virus to focus on online sessions could hamper rapport and access to justice

Remote video trials could disadvantage people with learning disabilities, the equalities watchdog has warned, as courts switch to online hearings during the coronavirus crisis.

An interim report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has highlighed concerns about the impact of conducting cases without defendants being present in court.

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Dutch court approves euthanasia in cases of advanced dementia

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Ruling means doctors cannot be prosecuted even if patient no longer says they want to die

Doctors in the Netherlands are able to carry out euthanasia on patients with severe dementia without fear of prosecution even if the patient no longer expresses an explicit wish to die, the country’s highest court has ruled.

The supreme court’s decision followed a landmark case last year in which a doctor was acquitted of wrongdoing for euthanising a woman in 2016 with severe Alzheimer’s who had requested the procedure before her condition deteriorated.

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Kingfisher Airlines tycoon loses appeal against extradition to India

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Multimillionaire ‘king of the good times’ Vijay Mallya faces allegations of £1bn fraud

The Indian multimillionaire businessman Vijay Mallya has lost his appeal against a decision to extradite him to India to face allegations of a £1bn fraud at his now defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

High court judges on Monday rejected Mallya’s appeal against a 2018 decision granting his extradition, ruling that there was a “prima facie case of fraud by false representation”.

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China ‘bars lawyer from going home’ after prison release

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Wang Quanzhang’s wife fears Covid-19 may be used as pretext to keep him under house arrest

A prominent Chinese human rights lawyer barred from returning home after his prison release two weeks ago has been prohibited from reuniting with his family after a 14-day quarantine period.

Wang Quanzhang’s wife and rights groups fear authorities are using the coronavirus pandemic as a pretext to hold him indefinitely under de facto house arrest.

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On the trail of a Nazi war criminal: ‘It’s my duty as a son to find the good in my father’

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East West Street author Philippe Sands uncovers secrets and lies on the trail of Otto Wächter, his devoted wife – and the son brought up to believe his father was a decent man

In the 1960s, my brother and I often visited our grandparents in Paris, near the Gare du Nord. As children, we understood that the past was painful, that we should not ask questions. Their apartment was a place of silences, one haunted by secrets. They only really began to be addressed when I was in my 50s, the consequence of an invitation to deliver a lecture in Lviv, in Ukraine. Come talk about your work on crimes against humanity and genocide, it said.

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South Korean businessman convicted of rape gets suspended sentence

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Ex-chair of DB Group Kim Jun-ki ‘forgot his responsibilities’, says Seoul court

The former head of a South Korean conglomerate who was convicted of raping his maid and sexually assaulting a secretary has been given a suspended sentence.

Kim Jun-ki, the 75-year-old former chair of DB Group, which has activities in finance and steel, repeatedly violated the two women, the Seoul central district court found.

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Four men jailed in first year since upskirting law was introduced

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Work is still needed to raise awareness about the problem, campaigners say

Four men have been jailed in the year since the upskirting law was introduced in England and Wales, figures show.

Campaigners said the legislation offered a route to justice for victims, but said more work was needed to raise awareness about the seriousness of the issue.

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Fire at Siberian penal colony after riot sparked by claims of brutality

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Videos on social media show buildings alight in prison near Angarsk near Lake Baikal

Fire has engulfed a penal colony in Siberia after a riot broke out – reportedly sparked by accusations of brutality.

Videos posted to social media on Friday showed buildings ablaze at the IK-15 prison in the Siberian city of Angarsk, 2,500 miles southeast of Moscow and near Lake Baikal’s southern shore

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Tool to report lockdown rule-breakers ‘risks fuelling social division’

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Majority of forces in England and Wales adopt online form allowing people to report others

New police tools that encourage the public to report people they suspect of breaching coronavirus restrictions risk fuelling “social mistrust and division”, a barrister has warned, as the majority of the UK’s forces adopt the scheme.

Twenty-six of the 43 police forces in England and Wales have launched dedicated online forms allowing people to report suspected breaches of the lockdown, such as large gatherings in parks.

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Child sexual abuse victims should not be put off by George Pell decision, experts say

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It would be ‘legally wrong’ to conclude that the high court ruling undermined the point of bringing cases to trial, professor says

Victims of child sexual abuse should not be dissuaded from coming forward and reporting perpetrators as a result of the jury conviction of Cardinal George Pell being overturned by the high court, a barrister and professor of law at La Trobe University in Melbourne says.

Prof Gideon Boas said he was concerned by those questioning the merit of future cases brought in the criminal or civil jurisdiction based on the Pell ruling.

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Killer of Bangladesh independence leader arrested after 45 years on run

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Ex-military captain one of dozens sentenced to death for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman murder

Police in Bangladesh have arrested a fugitive killer of the country’s independence leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, nearly 45 years after the brutal assassination, the country’s home minister has said.

Abdul Majed, a former military captain, was arrested in the capital, Dhaka, Asaduzzaman Khan said, adding that the arrest was “the biggest gift” for Bangladesh this year.

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Slavery in New Zealand: inside the story of the Samoan chief who abused power for profit

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Joseph Auga Matamata lured villagers to his adoptive country promising work and study, reaping ‘bags of cash’ from their unpaid forced labour

When Loto* saw the police arrive at the rural property in New Zealand where he had been held captive for nearly two years, the man who had imprisoned him there told him to run. Instead, Loto quietly waited to be discovered by police.

Loto had spent 17 months being held as a slave on a property in Hastings on New Zealand’s North Island. He was never paid for his work and was subject to cruel beatings from Joseph Auga Matamata, a 65-year-old Samoan chief, or matai.

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Alex Salmond’s lawyer quits as head of Scottish legal body

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Gordon Jackson was filmed on train talking about Salmond and sexual assault trial

The lawyer who helped secure Alex Salmond’s acquittal over allegations of sexual assault has quit as the head of Scotland’s advocates body after a furore over remarks he made about Salmond and his accusers.

Gordon Jackson QC announced on Friday he was standing down as the dean of the Faculty of Advocates, one of the most powerful posts in Scotland’s legal profession, because he is under investigation for professional misconduct.

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Myanmar blocks hundreds of news sites and threatens editor with life in jail

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Fears abuses may go unreported after journalist arrest under terrorism laws for interview with rebel group Arakan Army

Myanmar has cracked down on journalists, blocking news websites and maintaining a longstanding internet ban in some areas, prompting warnings it is becoming increasingly hard to monitor abuses in the country.

On Tuesday, Myanmar charged a journalist under a terrorism law for publishing an interview with the Arakan Army, a rebel group that demands greater autonomy for the state’s ethnic Rakhine people. The group had recently been labelled a terrorist organisation.

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Scottish lawyers call plan to suspend jury trials ‘kneejerk reaction’

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Courtroom lawyers say plans designed to fight Covid-19 are ‘premature, disproportionate and ill advised’

Lawyers have attacked plans to suspend jury trials for up to 18 months in Scotland to cope with the coronavirus crisis as a “knee-jerk reaction instigated by panic”.

The Scottish government is pushing through a swathe of emergency powers to help the criminal justice system and public adapt to the pandemic in a bill expected to be approved by Holyrood on Wednesday in a single day.

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We Ugandans are used to lockdowns and poor healthcare. But we’re terrified

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Coronavirus has given President Yoweri Museveni an opportunity to further clamp down on freedoms

In Uganda, for the first time since 2013, more than three people can legally meet without needing to inform the police. Last week, parts of the Public Order Management Act, a law used to gag political opponents, was declared unconstitutional. But most Ugandans are staying away from crowds and keeping at home to control the spread of coronavirus.

The government moved quickly to close schools and universities. Measures became more and more stringent – closing borders, compulsory quarantine, banning public transport and the sale of non-food items at open markets.

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UK cooperation with US over two alleged Isis killers ruled unlawful

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Supreme court says UK broke law because it did not get assurance that men would not face death penalty

The government’s decision to cooperate with US authorities over the prosecution of two alleged Islamic State executioners without assurances that they would not face the death penalty was unlawful, the supreme court has ruled.

In a unanimous judgment that will have repercussions for US-UK relations, the court’s seven justices said the home secretary’s agreement to provide evidence about El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey breached data protection rules.

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Former child bride wrongfully accused of murdering husband sues in Pakistan

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Rani Bibi was 14 when she was convicted but received no compensation for the miscarriages of justice that led to her spending two decades in prison

A child bride who spent 19 years in prison for a murder she did not commit is to sue the Pakistan authorities in an effort to persuade the country to help thousands of other victims of miscarriages of justice.

Rani Bibi was just 14 when she was convicted, alongside her father, brother and cousin, of the murder of her husband and spent the next two decades sweeping the floors of an overcrowded Pakistan prison.

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