Category Archives: Law

Study warns of global rise in autocratic leaders ‘hijacking’ laws for own ends

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Poland the worst offender as global justice index identifies decline in checks on government power for second successive year

Autocratic rule is on the rise throughout the world, with a growing number of authoritarian leaders “hijacking” laws to consolidate their own power, a study of global justice has found.

Poland demonstrated the most significant turn towards authoritarianism over the past four years, followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. In all, 64% of 126 countries surveyed made similar moves towards autocratic rule in the past year alone, according to an annual rule of law index published by the World Justice Project.

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Rohingya crisis: UN investigates its ‘dysfunctional’ conduct in Myanmar

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Exclusive: Inquiry follows claims it ignored warning signs before alleged Rohingya genocide

The UN has launched an inquiry into its conduct in Myanmar over the past decade, where it has been accused of ignoring warning signs of escalating violence prior to an alleged genocide of the Rohingya minority.

UN sources have confirmed to the Guardian that the initially hesitant UN secretary general, António Guterres, decided to proceed with the investigation after a “build-up in pressure” within the organisation.

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Sajid Javid’s new knife crime laws ‘will criminalise the young’

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Groups working with children say home secretary’s proposals are ‘deeply counterproductive’

A coalition of human rights groups is pressing the home secretary to scrap his new measures to tackle knife crime, branding them “deeply counterproductive”.

Sajid Javid’s knife crime prevention orders place a range of curbs and curfews on suspects, but groups working with young people including Liberty, the Runnymede Trust and the Children’s Society, say they have “profound human rights concerns”.

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Shamima Begum’s family hope to bring her baby to UK

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Lawyer for family of 19-year-old who joined Isis in Syria is to ask her consent for plan

The family of Shamima Begum are exploring legal and practical options to bring her baby son to the UK without her while she embarks on the potentially lengthy appeal against the removal of her British citizenship, the Guardian has learned.

The lawyer representing the 19-year-old’s family is planning to travel to the refugee camp in Syria where she is living “as soon as possible” to set in motion the legal appeal process, and to ask her consent to bring her newborn son back to Britain while she awaits a resolution of her legally tangled case.

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Shamima Begum will not be allowed here, says Bangladesh

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Country at odds with UK over decision to strip 19-year-old of British citizenship

Shamima Begum is not a Bangladeshi citizen and there is “no question” of her being allowed into Bangladesh, the country’s ministry of foreign affairs has insisted, setting up a clash with the UK after Sajid Javid’s move to strip the teenager of her UK citizenship.

“The government of Bangladesh is deeply concerned that [Begum] has been erroneously identified as a holder of dual citizenship,” Shahriar Alam, the state minister of foreign affairs, said in a statement issued to the Guardian, adding that his government had learned of Britain’s intention to cancel her citizenship rights from media reports.

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Shamima Begum ‘a bit shocked’ that UK has revoked citizenship

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Teenager who travelled from London to Syria to join Isis says decision is ‘kind of heart-breaking’

Shamima Begum, the teenager who travelled from east London to Syria to join Islamic State in 2015, has described Home Office plans to strip her of citizenship as “kind of heart-breaking”.

Related: Shamima Begum: will the plan to revoke her citizenship succeed?

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Trump might have a solid case for emergency declaration, analysts say

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Though Trump himself suggested there is no real emergency, courts are unlikely to second-guess a presidents’ broad leeway

Many legal analysts who watched Donald Trump declare a national emergency over immigration on Friday thought the president had weak legal grounds for doing so. In particular, many thought Trump hurt his own case by admitting, right there in the White House Rose Garden: “I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster.”

“This quote should be the first sentence of the first paragraph of every complaint filed this afternoon,” tweeted George Conway, a top Washington lawyer and the husband of Trump aide Kellyanne Conway.

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Huawei founder: US cannot crush technology firm

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Ren Zhengfei hits back at criminal indictments he calls politically motivated

The US cannot crush Huawei, the company’s founder has insisted, as he hit back against criminal indictments levelled at the firm and allegations that it poses a security threat.

Washington has warned allies off using Huawei products in recent weeks. But Ren Zhengfei, whose daughter Meng Wanzhou – a fellow senior Huawei executive – is among those charged by US prosecutors, told the BBC on Monday that the firm would survive the pressure.

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David Gauke expresses ‘grave concerns’ about no-deal Brexit

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Justice secretary says leaving EU without deal would have ‘very adverse effect’

The justice secretary has said he has grave concerns about the prospect of leaving the European Union without a deal, saying it would have a “very adverse effect” on the UK’s economy, security and union with Northern Ireland.

David Gauke said the government was planning for the contingency of no deal, but suggested he would support extending article 50 if a deal between the UK and EU was not reached, since a no-deal Brexit was not in the national interest. He added that he expected the government to act responsibly if the current deadlock prevailed.

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UK’s Saudi weapons sales unlawful, Lords committee finds

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Report finds UK arms ‘highly likely to be cause of significant civilian casualties in Yemen’

The UK is on “the wrong side of the law” by sanctioning arms exports to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen and should suspend some of the export licences, an all-party Lords committee has said.

The report by the international relations select committee says ministers are not making independent checks to see if arms supplied by the UK are being used in breach of the law, but is instead relying on inadequate investigations by the Saudis, its allies in the war.

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‘Free the nipple’ female campaigners lose challenge to US topless conviction

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New Hampshire court upholds conviction of three women arrested in 2016 after removing their tops at a beach

New Hampshire’s highest court has upheld the conviction of three women who were arrested for going topless on a beach, finding their constitutional rights were not violated.

In a 3-2 ruling, the court decided that an indecent exposure law in the New Hampshire city of Laconia does not discriminate on the basis of gender or violate the women’s right to free speech.

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MPs and peers call for end to indefinite detention

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Joint committee on human rights says people should be held for no longer than 28 days

Indefinite detention in immigration centres is traumatic and the practice should be stopped, with people ideally held for no longer than 28 days, a parliamentary committee has recommended.

In a highly critical report, the joint committee on human rights (JCHR), made up of MPs and peers, described the UK’s immigration system as “slow, unfair and expensive to run”, and said detention should be authorised only by decision-makers independent of the Home Office.

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Yang Hengjun: lawyers denied access to Australian held in China

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Authorities say Chinese-born writer refused to see legal team but secretive process means claim can not be verified

Two lawyers hired by the wife of an Australian detained in Beijing for suspected espionage have said they were denied access to him by Chinese authorities, who said the detainee had not agreed to their appointment.

Yang Hengjun, a 53-year-old Chinese-born writer, was detained in the southern city of Guangzhou while waiting for a transfer to Shanghai in January. He had flown in from New York.

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Belgium agrees to take in former Ivory Coast president

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International criminal court freed Laurent Gbagbo on Friday after his shock acquittal

Belgium has agreed to take in the former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo following his acquittal at the international criminal court in The Hague, a foreign ministry spokesman has said.

Karl Lagatie confirmed the agreement on Saturday, and added that he did not know if the ex-president was already in Belgium.

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Laurent Gbagbo: former Ivory Coast president freed by war crimes court

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First former head of state ever to stand trial at the ICC spent seven years in custody in The Hague

The international criminal court has freed the former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo after his shock acquittal in January on charges of crimes against humanity.

Supporters sang and waved flags in The Hague after judges decided to release the 73-year-old on condition that he stays in an as-yet-unnamed country pending an appeal by the prosecution.

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UN court judge quits The Hague citing political interference

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Christoph Flügge warns over ‘shocking’ moves by Trump administration and Turkey

A senior judge has resigned from one of the UN’s international courts in The Hague citing “shocking” political interference from the White House and Turkey.

Christoph Flügge, a German judge, claimed the US had threatened judges after moves were made to examine the conduct of US soldiers in Afghanistan.

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Wang Quanzhang: China sentences human rights lawyer to four years in prison

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Lawyer who defended activists, victims of land seizures, and members of Falun Gong found guilty of ‘subversion of state power’

The prominent Chinese rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison for subversion.

A court in Tianjin heard on Monday that Wang had been found “guilty of subversion of state power”.

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UN executions expert to visit Turkey to lead Khashoggi inquiry

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Investigation comes as Saudi efforts to normalise relations with west move on to Davos

A UN expert on executions is to travel to Turkey next week to lead an “independent international inquiry” into the death of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian journalist killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.

Agnes Callamard, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said she would evaluate the circumstances of the crime and “the nature and the extent of states’ and individuals’ responsibilities for the killing”. She will report on the findings from her five-day visit to the UN human rights council in June.

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Amanda Knox: European court orders Italy to pay damages

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American wants conviction of malicious accusation over Meredith Kercher’s murder overturned

The European court of human rights has ordered Italy to pay Amanda Knox €18,400 for police failures to provide her access to a lawyer and a translator during questioning over the 2007 killing of her British flatmate Meredith Kercher in Perugia.

The ruling opens the way for Knox’s lawyers to challenge her last remaining conviction, for malicious accusation, in the Italian courts.

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Mother of alleged Isis killer loses legal fight against Home Office

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Judges rule decision to share evidence with US without death penalty assurances not unlawful

The mother of an alleged hostage killer for Islamic State has lost her legal challenge against a Home Office decision to share evidence with the US without seeking assurances that her son and another suspected jihadist terrorist would not face the death penalty.

El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey are accused of belonging to a group of Isis members, nicknamed the Beatles because of their British accents, responsible for killing a number of western captives.

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