#High Court Bar Association elections

[townpostin]

Jamshedpur Bar Association Elections Set for August 24

66 candidates compete amid controversy over missing names in voter list The Jamshedpur District Bar Association prepares for its 2024-2026 elections, facing disputes over voter list omissions. JAMSHEDPUR – The Jamshedpur District Bar Association will hold its elections for 2024-2026 on August 24, with 66 candidates competing for various positions amid controversy. The bar building has been sealed…

[reasonsforhope]

I keep seeing news about charges and what-not being piled onto Trump, and all I can keep saying to myself is "but is he going to experience one (1) single consequence of this?" So... is there any iota of a hope that something could come of this circus that will make the slightest ding in his capacity to run in 2024?

So, the answer to this is a bit complicated - partly because there are a lot of factors and a long time scale, and partly because it depends on how you define "consequences"

If you mean "any serious consequences at all," good news, that has already happened!

If you need to catch up on the whole "cases against Trump" situation, read this: The Cases Against Trump: A Guide. Via The Atlantic, November 1, 2023

1. The New York Fraud Case

A judge has ordered that the Trump Organization must be dissolved in a ruling that is being widely described as a "corporate death penalty." This is an incredibly rare ruling, and a huge deal.

The details will take a while to hash out - currently, Trump's kids are in the middle of testifying in a trial for this fraud case, but it's not to determine whether he's guilty - only the extent of the damages and the outline of how the org will be dissolved. It's extraordinarily unlikely Trump will be able to get out of this one. And high up on the list of things he's probably going to lose? Trump Tower itself.

Now, admittedly, this actually isn't because of, you know, the whole attempted coup thing. It's because the Trump Organization's finances were built on decades of absolutely massive fraud - including the very wealth that Trump lied about in order to explain why people should vote for him.

Oh, and let's not forget that in this case, Donald Trump spent weeks absolutely shit talking the judge to try to "poison the jury pool" (make sure that people on the jury would go in with a negative opinion of the judge already). ONLY TO FIND OUT THAT THERE IS NO JURY IN THIS CASE because his attorneys forgot to request one, so the sole arbiter of his fate is the judge he just spent weeks absolutely slandering in an attempt to win over the jury! And all else aside, judges very infamously do not like being insulted

Oh yeah, and the prosecutors are seeking a permanent ban on Trump doing business in the state of New York

Fraud trial explainer (New York Times, no paywall) Sources: x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x

2. 14th Amendment Lawsuit

Okay so I did all the other sections first, then came back and wrote this one. It's shorter because of that, and because this issue is a lot newer and doesn't have nearly as much legal stuff or investigations going on yet.

What's happening here is that several states have people who are filing petitions and lawsuits to try to get Trump taken off the ballot for the 2024 election, under the 14th Amendment, which was passed in the aftermath of the Civil War and bars anyone who has committed insurrection from holding office.

So far (as of the first week of November, there are cases to kick Trump off the ballot in about 20 states. Oral arguments have started in Colorado and Minnesota.

Basically, my take on the short version is that this could happen, but we'll have to wait at least a few more months to see how likely it is.

However, even if it does go through, Trump would only be kicked off the ballot on a state by state basis. So, if Colorado kicks him off the ballot, he'll still be on the ballot in the other 49 states, and the process would have to be repeated in each one. Still, even if it was just one state, that could be a big deal, voting-wise - and if he gets kicked off the ballot in more than a couple states, he might not end up being the Republican nominee anymore, given the size of that disadvantage.

Correction, 6 min after posting: It's expected that if Trump DOES get kicked off the ballot in any state, the Supreme Court will hear the case and weigh in. The decision would be binding for all states. Supreme Court probably unlikely to ban Trump from the ballot since they cheated their way into a conservative supermajority and 3 of them are Trump appointees

Explainer: Trial to kick Trump off the ballot in Colorado Explainer: Strengths and weaknesses of cases to kick Trump off the ballot Sources: x, x, x, x, x, x, x

3. The Classified Documents Case

So, the fraud case above is actually a civil case (that is, not a criminal case). The classified documents case, however, is a criminal case, and it's arguably the one most likely to lead to legal and political consequences for Trump, in large part because everything's very clear cut.

Like, Trump has literally admitted he retained classified documents on purpose - which is super against the law! Trump is just arguing a variety of nonexistent technicalities for why that law doesn't apply to him. But he did it! We know he did! We have photos of classified documents stored in the Mar-a-Lago bathroom! We have testimony from the employees he ordered to secretly move the boxes before the FBI probe. We have records proving he asked Mar-a-Lago's IT guy about erasing the surveillance footage of the move! We even have proof that a) he stole nuclear secrets, and b) a recording of him waving around the "plans of attack," bragging about them to other people!

All super damning.

(Post continues below, at length; sources at the end of each section.)

And another thing that's extremely key: Trump is charged in this case with violating the Espionage Act. And the Espionage Act explicitly does not give a single fuck about why you retained documents, or whether there's any proof you intended to show anyone. Any and all hoarding of national defense documents is illegal under the Espionage Act - EVEN if they're not classified, which is great since "I declassified them with my brain" (not how it works) is Trump's main defense here.

So, this case is basically the surest criminal conviction - and the most likely to have electoral consequences. Partly because Republicans, as few issues as they care about, generally are security hawks - "Trump stole nuclear secrets and showed them to people" is giving Repubs pause in a way that the insurrection just isn't, probably esp in the military and ex-military demographic.

Trump could also serve jail time if convicted in this case (which again he probably will be).

However, violating the Espionage Act doesn't ban you from running for or holding public office, which imho seems like a pretty major oversight.

Classified documents case explainer Sources: x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x

4. The Insurrection

So, this is where things get really complicated, because the case is complicated and so many things about it are so unprecedented.

There are two different cases here: a criminal case in the state of Georgia and a federal criminal case (that's the one run by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is also running the classified documents case).

I definitely can't summarize all of this huge situation here, but here's some key points re: whether there will be legal consequences:

I actually have a pretty high level of trust in Jack Smith, in large part due to his record: he's serving as special prosecutor while on sabbatical from his normal job of prosecuting war crimes at the Hague. And he's specifically been prosecuting war crimes from the wars and genocides in former Yugoslavia in the 80s and 90s. That specifically gives me a lot of confidence because - as someone whose family is from the region - I think it's a really strong demonstration of his abilities. It means he has a lot of experience prosecuting high-level government and army officials, in a complicated, multi-year, multi-war conflict, where there were way more sides and factions than we have, along with way less documentary evidence (bc 90s), and a lot of history of political corruption and coverups. I find that really reassuring, especially the "experience prosecuting high-level government and army officials" thing in a situation with, shall we say, extremely contested and variable national leadership, during the course of multiple civil wars

"Schwendiman compared it to prosecuting Kosovo’s equivalent of Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton. “If you indict these people, you’re saying, ‘The founding fathers of Kosovo have committed atrocities, and I’m ready to prove it, in an independent court, with independent judges and rules that apply to everyone.’” And that was Kosovo's founding president. So yeah, I think Jack Smith can handle Trump. Source

Okay now to the points you might have actually heard of lol

The Georgia case is a state level case, which means that no matter what, Trump can't pardon himself in that case

The Georgia case is also charging Trump under the RICO act - aka the rackeeting act, usually used to prosecute organized crime. And convictions under the Georgia RICO Act come with MANDATORY jail time

I think the evidence here is pretty compelling, see: the congressional Jan 6 hearings

There is a pretty high chance that, in a massively unusual step, filming will be allowed inside the trial/hearings. This is HUGE, especially because Trump supporters would actually be watching it too (unlike, generally, the congressional hearings), and that evidence all laid out looks really goddamn bad

Also, if yesterday's fraud trial testimony is any indication, Trump is likely to end up yelling and screaming at the judge, etc. in the trial, which is going to look wildly unprofessional

The federal trial will be taking place in Washington DC, where it should be very doable to get a jury that isn't stuffed with Trump cronies (unlike, say, if the case was brought in Florida)

Trump has attempted witness tampering on a lot of occasions, and tried to poison the jury pool, and he got caught so now he's under a gag order that restricts what he can say re: both of those.

Important note: Jack Smith has brought the narrower of two possible cases against Trump. He's filed against Trump with several conspiracy charges, including "conspiracy against rights," which was historically created to prosecute the KKK for racial terrorism

However, Jack Smith did not actually charge Trump with inciting an insurrection. There are a lot of possible reasons for this, but it mostly boils down to the fact that "inciting an insurrection" is significantly less objectively provable, in this case, esp since "insurrection" isn't actually defined in the relevant law

So, Jack Smith has traded a broader case (the one including insurrection charges) for a case that is much simpler and quicker to argue, and that he's sure he can prove

Jack Smith absolutely knows that he has an effective deadline of November 2024 (aka the next election, because a Republican president would shut down the investigation immediately), and he's planning accordingly

Look. Federal prosecutors - and the prosecutors in Georgia and the other NY case, for bribery of porn star Stormy Daniels - would not be bringing these charges if they did not feel sure they would win. Democracy aside, if any of them lose their cases? That is almost guaranteed to end their careers. So they have a very vested self-interest in only taking on what they are absolutely sure they can prove

The judge in the federal Jan 6 trial is the judge who has given the harshest sentences against any of the Jan 6 rioters, and she is the only judge to have sentenced rioters to more time than the prosecutors asked for

Jan 6 charges against Trump, explainer Sources: x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x

A Very Hot Take: It might not be a bad thing that Trump is still allowed to run

So, this is my personal take on the situation - I acknowledge that it's a very hot take on the Left, and that I might well be wrong about this. I might be totally misreading the field here. But I genuinely do think that Trump being the Republican candidate for president could be a good thing, and in fact I'll genuinely worry significantly more if Trump isn't the Republican nominee for president.

The why all basically comes down to this: I think Trump will be easier to defeat in the 2024 general election.

Again, look, I may totally be misreading this, and that would be really bad, but here are my thoughts:

Trump is super popular with the far right base - but that same strength makes him a huge liability in the general election. You CAN'T WIN a presidential election without the support of independents and moderates (including "moderates"). This is a really common problem for Republican candidates, actually: the more they move to the right to win the core Republican base, the more they risk hurting their chances in the general election

Independents and moderate Republicans - again, who Trump needs to win with to get the presidency - are significantly more likely to care about, you know, all the stealing classified documents and committing treason things

I can't think of anything that will guarantee people on the left get their asses to the polls better than "Vote or Trump is president again." A lot of the time, with someone who hasn't been president before, voters can lie to themselves and go "Oh it won't be that bad once he's in office," esp among moderates. But now we have proof that isn't the case!

Look, I don't know if Trump is getting dementia or what, but his faculties really do appear to be declining. They'll likely be significantly worse in another year - his speeches are already way worse than there were in 2016. He just can't track what he's saying well enough anymore. This makes it harder for him to make his case to the electorate

He's also the only actual Repub candidate that's about the same age as Biden - which will do a lot to stop the Right from using Biden's age as an effective weapon to get a Repub in office

Honestly, my biggest worry is that DeSantis will be the Republican nominee. I am way more scared of Biden vs. DeSantis than Biden vs. Trump.

Reasons I would absolutely rather Biden face Trump than DeSantis include: DeSantis is way younger and he has way less baggage. Because he hasn't been president yet, voters can do that self-delusion thing that he won't be that bad - that he'll be better than Trump - and that unlike Trump's, his plans will work. People on the left and in the center often don't know who he is yet, and there's not such a huge current of electoral energy to get them to the polls. And most of all - unlike Trump, DeSantis is actually smart. And as part of that, he is capable of a deep and absolutely premeditated cruelty that Trump just doesn't have the attention span or the patience for. Biggest example: actually literally kidnapping undocumented immigrants and sending them to Martha's Vineyard, and all the awfulness that went along with that, including the part where he started a goddamned trend.

Nikki Haley I'm less worried about because her core support base - conservatives - is also the country's core support base for misogyny. I hate to be glad about misogyny, but it genuinely would make it harder for her to turn out ultraconservative votes, especially evangelicals.

Sources: x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x

So, yeah, all told I don't actually have "Trump still gets to run for president" super high on the list of things I'm worried/mad about.

Also worth saying that we don't want just being indicted (aka charged with a crime) to disqualify people from running for office, because then all Republicans (or anyone) would have to do to disqualify an opposing candidate is find literally any excuse to charge them with something

But back to your original question! I genuinely DO think he'll face legal consequences, and I genuinely DO think he'll probably face jail time. Which obviously I am rooting for very hard

[saddayfordemocracy]

Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny (4 June 1976 – 16 February 2024)

Mr Navalny was a Russian opposition leader, lawyer, anti-corruption activist, and political prisoner.

He organised anti-government demonstrations and ran for office to advocate reforms against corruption in Russia and against Dictator Vladimir Putin and his government.

Mr Navalny was founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). He was recognised by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience, and was awarded the Sakharov Prize for his work on human rights.

Through his social media channels, Mr Navalny and his team published material about corruption in Russia, organised political demonstrations and promoted his campaigns. In a 2011 radio interview, he described Russia's ruling party, United Russia, as a "party of crooks and thieves", which became a popular epithet.

Mr Navalny and the FBK have published investigations detailing alleged corruption by high-ranking Russian officials and their associates. He twice received a suspended sentence for embezzlement, in 2013 and 2014. Both criminal cases were widely considered politically motivated and intended to bar him from running in future elections. He ran in the 2013 Moscow mayoral election and came in second with 27% of the vote but was barred from running in the 2018 presidential election.

In August 2020, Mr Navalny was hospitalised in serious condition after being poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent. He was medically evacuated to Berlin and discharged a month later. He accused Putin of being responsible for his poisoning, and an investigation implicated agents from the Federal Security Service.

In January 2021, Mr Navalny returned to Russia and was immediately detained on accusations of violating parole conditions while he was hospitalised in Germany. Following his arrest, mass protests were held across Russia. In February 2021, his suspended sentence was replaced with a prison sentence of over 2+1⁄2 years' detention, and his organisations were later designated as extremist and liquidated.

In March 2022, Mr Navalny was sentenced to an additional nine years in prison after being found guilty of embezzlement and contempt of court in a new trial described as a sham by Amnesty International; his appeal was rejected and in June, he was transferred to a high-security prison.

In August 2023, Mr Navalny was sentenced to an additional 19 years in prison on extremism charges.

In December 2023, Navalny went missing from prison for almost three weeks. He re-emerged in an Arctic Circle corrective colony in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

On 16 February 2024, the Russian prison service reported that Mr Navalny had died at the age of 47. His death sparked protests, both in Russia and in various other countries. Accusations against the Russian authorities in connection with his death have been made by many Western governments and international organisations.

Rest in Power !

Lyudmila Navalnaya, the mother of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, attends a funeral service and a farewell ceremony for her son at the Soothe My Sorrows church in Moscow, Russia, March 1.

People attach a banner to a tree near the Borisovskoye cemetery after the funeral of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, in Moscow, Russia, March 1. A slogan on the banner refers to Russian President Vladimir Putin and reads: "Putin killed him but didn't break (his spirit)"

People walk towards the Borisovskoye cemetery during the funeral of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny in Moscow, Russia, March 1, 2024. A placard reads: "We remember, we love, we won't forget". 

People walk towards Soothe My Sorrows church in Moscow, Russia and Borisovskoye cemetery during the funeral of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny in Moscow, Russia, March 1.

Courtesy: REUTERS/Stringer

[simshousewindsor]

By Cameron Dorly | Published by SNN

EASTON, Windenburg (SNN) - - The Supreme Court announced the retirement of The Lord Dathren of Allameda (President) today. Justices are required to retire on becoming 75 years old, or may be removed on the address of both Houses of Parliament; Lord Dathren's is the former, turning 75 on 4 November.

Educated at St Leo's School, Windenburg, Dathren read history at New College, Stafford, and obtained the degree of LLM (Master of Laws) from the University of Britechester Law School in 1977. He was called to the bar at Middle Simple in 1977 and elected a Bencher in 1981.

He was appointed King's Counsel in 1983, a deputy judge of the High Court from 1984 to 1985, and judge of the High Court of Justice (Chansimery Division) in 1987.

On 20 December 1988, it was announced that Dathren would replace the late Lord Murray of McBride as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. He was sworn in on 6 February 1989.

He received his customary knighthood from King Edward II in February 1989.

Dathren was appointed Deputy President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in May 1993, succeeding Lord Muncen on his retirement. He was sworn into the new position on 6 June 1993.

On 24 July 1998, King George I declared his intention to appoint him President of the Supreme Court and to raise him to the peerage. He succeeded Baroness Jordan of Richland as President on 11 January 1999 on her retirement and on the same day was created a life peer as Baron Dathren of Allameda, of Sumter Park in the Easton Borough of Bromley. He was sworn in as president on 13 January and introduced to the House of Lords on 16 January 1999.

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council voted on Tuesday evening to designate Baron Dathren “President Emeritus,” as the longtime Justice prepares to step away from the top brass of the courts. “Baron Dathren will go down as one of the greatest legislative leaders in Windenburg history,” said committee leader Hakeem Jennings.

When vacancies arise for Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, an independent selection commission is formed. It is composed of the President of the Supreme Court (the chair), another senior UK judge (not a Supreme Court Justice), and a member of the Judicial Appointments Commission of Windenburg and Brindleton Bay, and the Judicial Appointments Board for Windenburg. By law, at least one of these must be a non-lawyer. This was last done in 2022 when The Right Hon Lady Keisha Unders was appointed.

There is a similar but separate commission to appoint the next President of the Supreme Court, which is chaired by one of the non-lawyer members and features another Supreme Court Justice in the place of the President.

The President and Deputy President of the Supreme Court are appointed to those roles rather than being the most senior by tenure in office.

Dathren's retirement opened up the need for a new Justice, and President.

In a clearly pre-planned move, both commissions released joint statements signaling Dathren's retirement was not a surprise. The commission to appoint a new President selected Deputy President, Lady Ruth Allen Ginsburg, to fill the soon-to-be vacancy. They then selected Lord Arthur Roberts to be the next Deputy President. Both selections were approved by the Lord Chancellor, sent to the Prime Minister last week and, yesterday, approved by the Queen.

The Independent Selection Commission met over the past three weeks and selected Sir Lloyd Stephens to fill to upcoming Justice vacancy. They notified the Lord Chancellor of its choice who then approved the commission's selection. The Prime Minister recommend Stephens to the Queen for appointment last week, which was also approved yesterday.

Welcoming the announcement, current President of the Supreme Court, The Right Hon The Lord Charles Dathren of Allameda said:

"Although he arrives as I depart, I am delighted to welcome Lord Justice Stephens as a Justice to the Supreme Court. He will bring exceptional experience and ability to the Court following a distinguished career as a barrister and Judge. His experience in employment law, tax, public law and criminal law will be highly valuable to the Supreme Court and will further strengthen us as a Sims world-leading Court."

So, who is the (soon-to-be) new Associate Justice?

Sir Lloyd Stephens, styled The Hon. Mr Lloyd Stephens, is a judge of the High Court of Justice of the Courts of Windenburg and Brindleton Bay. He was counsel to the Leverton Inquiry.

He was educated at King's College School, a private fee paying school for boys in Brambledon in South West Easton. He won an Open Scholarship to New College, Stafford, where he obtained a first in jurisprudence.

Lloyd was called to the Bar at Middle Simple in 1985. From 1999 to 2001 he was one of the Junior Counsel to the Crown (Common Law). He was appointed King's Counsel in 2001. He was a recorder from 2002 to 2014 and was approved to sit as a deputy High Court judge.

He was counsel to the Leverton Inquiry into phone-hacking and media ethics, when he came to public attention due to televising and other reporting.

On 4 June 2017, he was appointed a High Court judge, receiving the customary knighthood in the 2017 Special Honors, and was assigned to the King's Bench Division.

In December 2020 he presided over a challenge made against the Government by Sims of the Earth that the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) document issued July 2020 was unlawful because it should have been reviewed for its impacts on the simvironment.

Stephens will take up appointment as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom on 9 December 2024, taking the judicial courtesy title of Lord Stephens.

New judges appointed to the Supreme Court after its creation do not necessarily receive peerages. Following a Royal Warrant dated 22 September 2008, all Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom not holding a peerage are entitled to the judicial courtesy title of Lord or Lady and retain this style for life.

The palace has not yet released a date as to when the new Justice will meet the Queen.

[lboogie1906]

Judge Captain George Neves Leighton (October 22, 1912 - June 6, 2018) and his twin sister, Georgina, were born in New Bedford, Massachusetts to Cape Verdean immigrants Antonio Neves Leitao and Anna Silva Garcia Leitao. His last name was changed, with his parent’s permission, to Leighton by an elementary school teacher who could not pronounce “Leitao.”

He worked with his father in the cranberry bogs, strawberry patches, and blueberry bushes of Cape Cod. He had not completed high school because he went to work on an oil tanker at the age of 16, and he began taking night classes.

He wrote to Howard University in hopes of being admitted that fall. He received a response letter indicating that matriculation without a high school degree was not possible but as an adult, he could take classes, pay regular tuition and fees, and have his record reviewed for possible matriculation in the future. He graduated from Howard University (Magna Cum Laude). He was admitted to the Phi Beta Kappa Honorary Society, earned a commission in the Army Reserve Officers Training Corp, and a scholarship to Harvard University Law School.

His law school studies were interrupted when he was drafted into the Army. He attained the rank of Captain of Infantry, he left military service and returned to Harvard Law School and graduated with an L.L.B.

Passing the Illinois Bar exam in 1947, he served as the Chairman of the Legal Redress Committee of the Chicago NAACP and was appointed an Illinois Assistant Attorney General for the Chicago area. He co-founded Moore, Ming, and Leighton which became one of the largest predominantly African American law firms in the nation. He served as the President of Chicago’s NAACP and was elected a Cook County Circuit Court judge. He became the first African American to be appointed to the Illinois Appellate Court. President Gerald Ford was nominated to serve as a District Court Judge.

He retired from the Court and joined the law firm of Earl L. Neal & Associates. He mentored several young Chicago lawyers including President Barack Obama.

He and his wife, Virginia Berry Quivers had two children. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #phibetakappa #kappaalphapsi

[scotianostra]

On September 19th 1778, Henry, Lord Brougham, the Scottish Whig statesman and jurist was born in Edinburgh.

Henry Brougham, the eldest son of Henry Brougham and Eleanora Syme Brougham, was born at the top of the West Bow, aged 14 he was enrolled at the University of Edinburgh, Henry Brougham displayed a remarkable talent for learning in a city steeped in the cosmopolitanism of the Scottish Enlightenment

He made his way to London, where he began a long career as a Whig politician and reformer. Trained as a lawyer and called to both the Scottish and English bars, Brougham made a name, as well as a substantial income, in this profession. The legal victory for which he acquired the most recognition was his 1820 defense of Queen Caroline in the House of Lords. Brougham had served as her legal advisor since 1812 and became her attorney general when George IV insisted on a divorce soon after inheriting the throne. After Brougham delivered a speech that lasted for two days, the bill to dissolve the royal marriage passed the Lords with only a handful of votes, which convinced the government to drop the matter and avoid what promised to be a crushing defeat in the Commons. As the public demonstrations celebrating the queen's victory demonstrated, popular opinion was firmly with the queen, and thus also with Brougham.

Commentators at the time recognized that Brougham's rhetorical skills far surpassed his understanding of complex legal issues. His particular talents were perfectly suited for politics. He began his political career in journalism, when in 1802 he helped Sydney Smith, Francis Horner, and Francis Jeffrey establish The Edinburgh Review, a quarterly periodical with a strong Whig bias that soon became a leading platform for political debate. I have posted about The Review and it's founders inprevious posts. Brougham frequently contributed articles, which in the first eight years of the Review's run numbered over one hundred. Brougham entered Parliament for the first time in 1810 as MP for Camelford. Though he lost and regained seats in Parliament over the years, he nevertheless managed to attain high political office by serving as lord chancellor from 1830 to 1834 in the administrations of the prime ministers Charles Grey and Lord Melbourne.

Brougham was routinely associated with the radical wing of the Whig Party, since his positions reflected those of many nineteenth-century reform movements. He was an early supporter of the abolitionists and promoted their efforts to end the slave trade.

Brougham encouraged one of the most significant political shifts of the century by making parliamentary reform a main tenet of his election campaign in Yorkshire in 1830 and then by helping to secure passage of the 1832 Reform Act.

is interest in educational policy took him in several directions. First, in 1820 he proposed a bill promoting publicly funded education; the bill failed, but Brougham remained committed to the cause. Second, in 1826 he founded the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, which published cheaply priced works aimed at the working classes. And third, he was among the active supporters of England's first nonsectarian university, the Unversity of London.

Brougham became Parliament's most consistent champion of law reform, in part because in 1828 he delivered a brilliant six-hour speech that turned law reform into a popular cause. He established the judicial committee of the Privy Council, a central criminal court, and bankruptcy courts, and he also laid the foundation for a county court system.

Brougham had an interest in science as well as politics. He was a fellow of the Royal Society and was credited with designing the brougham, a four-wheeled carriage. He died and was buried at Cannes, where his frequent residence during the last three decades of his life helped make the French Mediterreanean town a destination for British tourists.

[cridhe]

Asylum seekers, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, had been crossing the porous Egypt- Israel border since 2006, braving kidnappings, torture, and rape by Bedouin traffickers, and have been rounded up and deported by the Israeli immigration police since 2012. The deportations were presented as “protecting the Jewish identity of the state” and copper- fastening Israel’s racialized citizenship regime. Thus, in August 2012 Interior Minister Eli Yishai instructed the Population and Immigration Authority to arrest Eritreans and North Sudanese, since the “infiltrator threat is just as severe as the Iranian (nuclear) threat,” insisting that deporting “illegal migrants” upholds the “Zionist dream” and that “until I can deport them I’ll lock them up to make their lives miserable.” Israel has enacted a series of laws aimed at preventing people it contentiously calls “infiltrators” rather than asylum seekers from entering the state. It is worth noting that the term “infiltrators” was used in the 1950s to describe Palestinians attempting to return to the lands they had been expelled from in 1948.

The attempts to deport asylum seekers to “third countries” in Africa, mostly Rwanda and Uganda, with whom Israel trades in arms and security equipment, followed the deportations of “unauthorized” labor migrants since the early 2000s. In order to ensure their deportability— the threat rather than the act of removal from the nation-state— Israel constructed an electric fence along its border with Egypt, and the “world’s largest detention facilities” able to hold up to 11,000 people, where the “infiltrators” could be detained up to three years without trial— allegedly the longest such detention period in the West. Israel has a uniquely low refugee recognition rate: as shown in a Knesset report, only 200 people had been awarded refugee status in Israel since its establishment in 1948, and between 2009 and 2012, of 14,000 asylum applications, only twenty- two people were recognized as refugees.

David Sheen, who has been documenting the racialization of African migrants and asylum seekers, describes Israel’s success in reducing the number of Africans living in the territory it controls as “ethnic cleansing,” the term Pappe employs to describe the 1948 Nakba. Documenting the unapologetic racialization of African asylum seekers by politicians, Sheen notes Prime Minister Netanyahu’s pre-2015 election boast about limiting the access of African asylum seekers, racialized as “terrorists,” to the Jewish state: “We shut off, completely closed off access to terrorists, to infiltrators to the State of Israel . . . The only state that managed to control its borders.” Once Netanyahu secured reelection, Sheen adds, he appointed to his cabinet three Likud lawmakers who were featured speakers at a May 2012 anti-African rally in Tel Aviv that devolved into a full-on race riot: “For years, Netanyahu has led a team of ministers who demonized Africans in the minds of the Israeli public by associating them with terrorism and fatal diseases.”

In September 2013 the Israeli High Court ruled against the constitutionality of the Anti-Infiltration Law that allowed jailing asylum seekers for three years without trial, refusing to examine their asylum applications and treating them like criminals. However, Sheen writes, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who headed the parliamentary “lobby to return the infiltrators to their countries”— a group dedicated to expelling all African refugees from Israel— introduced a bill that would limit the high court’s power to overturn laws. In 2015, as judges were concluding the deliberations over the Knesset’s third amendment to the Anti- Infiltration Law, Shaked was busy uploading videos to the internet depicting African refugees in a negative light.

Commenting on the Supreme Court as negating Zionist values in her speech before the Israel Bar Association in Tel Aviv, on August 29, 2017, Shaked pitted Zionism against human rights. According to Gideon Levy,

if in 1975, Israel’s UN ambassador Chaim Herzog dramatically tore up a copy of UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, equating Zionism with racism, the justice minister has now admitted the truthfulness of the resolution (which was later revoked) . . . Shaked prefers Zionism to human rights, the ultimate universal justice. She believes that we have a different kind of justice, superior to universal justice. Zionism above all. It’s been said before, in other languages and other nationalist movements.

In November 2017, Israel further escalated its racializing asylum policies announcing its intention to forcibly deport 40,000 African asylum seekers— including 27,500 from Sudan and 7,800 from Eritrea— and to close the Holot detention facility by 2018. Asylum seekers, whose applications Israel does not recognize, were given a choice to either leave Israel voluntarily for Rwanda or Uganda within three months, or suffer indefinite detention in Israel. Israel would pay Rwanda— which it had armed during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi— 5,000 dollars for each asylum seekers it accepts, and would grant 3,500 dollars plus airfare to each African who agrees to leave. Netanyahu referred to the policy as the “increased removal” of the “infiltrators”: “This removal is enabled thanks to an international agreement I achieved, which allows us to remove the 40,000 remaining ‘infiltrators’ without their consent.” Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, who introduced the proposal, said the deportations were necessary to “return peace and quiet” to the country and “ease the suffering of residents in south Tel Aviv and other neighborhoods where the infiltrators reside.”

from 'Traces of Racial Exception: Racializing Israeli Settler Colonialism' by Ronit Lentin

[mariacallous]

When a male client grabbed 32-year-old Hafsa Ahmad from behind inside a crowded courtroom in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, she knew no colleague would stand up for her despite witnessing the assault. Why would the law firm she works for lose a high fee-paying client just to protect her, she thought to herself. She did not say a word and forgot the incident as if it had never happened.

Ahmad’s experience is not a one-off; 35-year-old Nida Usman Chaudhary, an award-winning lawyer and researcher, was catcalled by a male lawyer right outside the Lahore High Court, just when she was exiting the building after hosting a seminar to raise awareness about sexual harassment at the workplace. “It is ironic that this happened moments after I had finished speaking to a room full of lawyers about ways to curb harassment in the courts,” she told Foreign Policy.

In Pakistan, women lawyers who pursue litigation have to develop a thick skin to survive in the profession. Sexual harassment, condescending attitudes of male colleagues—and even some judges—and an overall culture of misogyny discourages them from practicing law and forces some of them to switch career paths.

Pakistan’s Protection Against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act (enacted in 2010) makes it mandatory for government and private institutions to form inquiry committees to hear complaints of harassment, yet this law remains unimplemented in courts and law firms. Harassment, gender discrimination, and lack of internal recourse not only rob women lawyers of opportunities for networking and growth, but also has a lasting effect on Pakistani society.

Given the rampant culture of victim-blaming when it comes to cases of gender-based violence in Pakistan, the absence of a critical mass of women lawyers means victims of these crimes who approach the courts are met with hostility and are often forced to withdraw their complaints after reaching a so-called compromise with the accused.

Complainants who report gender-based violence often face character assassination during cross-examination, with opposing parties trying to question their credibility and blaming them for their own ordeal. It is easier to navigate this misogynistic environment with a woman lawyer on your side. However, without this support, female complainants are usually intimidated into silence. The gender imbalance in the legal profession therefore affects the criminal justice system’s ability to dispense justice.

Earlier this year, the Lahore High Court Bar Association elected its first woman secretary, Sabahat Rizvi, in a victory that women rights groups celebrated as historic. While Rizvi’s win was indeed a breath of fresh air, it is an exception to the norm. The Pakistan Bar Council, the highest elected body of lawyers in the country, hasn’t had a single female member since its formation by the Parliament in 1973. The absence of women in this body, according to Chaudhary, is linked to the way the electoral process works—which is structurally designed to keep men in power.

Members of the Pakistan Bar Council are elected directly by provincial bar councils. Since provincial bar councils have a disturbingly low number of women members to begin with, it’s mostly men picking the Pakistan Bar Council. A study conducted by the Women in Law Initiative found that in recent years, following a 2018 amendment to the law, the eligibility requirements to run in local bar council elections have become increasingly stringent and have resulted in the “gatekeeping” of corridors of power from women and young lawyers.

Only 12 percent of the lawyers in Pakistan who are registered as advocates are women, while in Punjab—the country’s biggest province by population—the percentage of women lawyers is 11 percent. The Punjab Bar Council has just one female member, Rushda Lodhi, who was a runner-up in the council’s last election in 2020. Lodhi was given the seat after a top-ranking male official was disqualified for having a fake law degree.

The late Asma Jilani Jahangir—Pakistan’s most well-known human rights defender and lawyer—managed to make her mark not just in Pakistan but around the world. Jahangir, who tirelessly defended Pakistan’s most marginalized groups, was the recipient of many human rights awards, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. With her sudden passing in 2016, young women lawyers she had mentored felt they had been orphaned. Jahangir’s younger sister, Hina Jilani, also a lawyer, is now carrying forward her legacy.

But what is common among the Jilani sisters, as well as other strong women lawyers like them, is the support from their families alongside their own perseverance. Most women in Pakistan, especially in conservative parts of the country such as in the provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, are not as fortunate.

The 2022 Global Gender Gap Index Report, released by the World Economic Forum, ranked Pakistan 145 out of 156 countries surveyed—beneath Saudi Arabia and Iran— when it came to economic participation and opportunity. The United Nations Women Pakistan notes that women “restricted from taking up positions in the political/public sphere due to systemic challenges arising from patriarchal notions.”

In Pakistan’s patriarchal society, most women have to seek their fathers’ or brothers’ permission to work. Even when conservative families allow their daughters to work, they are asked to stick to so-called gender-suited professions, such as teaching. Since being a lawyer means interacting with men from different walks of life and regularly visiting courts and police stations, women who want to pursue litigation face opposition from their families.

Even if they manage to begin their practice without their family’s support, they have no one to turn to if they face harassment or discrimination in the workplace. Often their only two options are to either quit, or continue struggling silently in a thankless profession where the odds are heavily stacked against them. Most women choose the former.

Maryam Khan, 40, a Lahore-based lawyer who began practicing in 2016, told Foreign Policy she has to “overprepare” her arguments because she knows judges would grill her more than her male colleagues. She remembers representing a leading oil company in a high court where the judge kept asking her if she was the lead counsel in the case. “My name was on the case file. He knew I was the counsel, but he probably did not want to believe that a woman can handle an important case like that,” Khan said.

Several other women lawyers FP spoke to admitted that they experienced a similar condescending tone and line of questioning from judges, who often assume that female lawyers appearing before them are either secretaries of a senior lawyer or clerical aides.

Another form of misogyny that women lawyers face is the assumption that when they win a case, it is because the judge unduly favored them due to their gender, and not because their arguments were convincing. Moreover, women who are well-dressed are not taken seriously and accused of playing the so-called woman card to get a favorable ruling. Young women lawyers also patronizingly get addressed as beta (child) by male counterparts who want to underscore their seniority.

Barrister Fatima Shaheen, 36, now a TV anchor, pursued litigation for six years in Lahore before she realized she could no longer put up with the misogynistic behavior. She recalls an opposing lawyer once jokingly telling her, “If you dress like this, the judge will keep staring at you instead of issuing the order.” These hostilities and an unwelcoming environment force most women to quit practicing, which is why bar lounges, associations, and councils across the country remain a boys’ club.

The rise of religious extremism in Pakistan has had a parallel effect on the legal fraternity and tanked the progress toward fair representation of women lawyers in the field. Since its rise to prominence in 2017, the Sunni extremist group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) has been able to galvanize significant support among the working and middle classes in the country, and especially in the Punjab province. With the TLP’s rise, lawyers with extremist inclinations became more vocal.

In 2016, a 700-member lawyer alliance was formed to voluntarily prosecute individuals accused of blasphemy. The Khatm-e-Nabuwwat (Finality of Prophethood) Lawyers Forum was created in the lead-up to the TLP’s formation, when extremist clerics were holding protests against the execution of Mumtaz Qadri, the self-confessed murderer of former Punjab Gov. Salmaan Taseer. (Qadri killed the governor in 2011 due to his support to a blasphemy-accused Christian woman.)

Aside from the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat Lawyers Forum, there are other smaller groups of lawyers who describe themselves as the “guardian of the Prophet Muhammad’s honor” and share the TLP’s ideology.

In June last year, the Lahore Bar Association invited TLP chief Saad Rizvi, who has been arrested a number of times for violent protests by his group, to address a session about Islamophobia. Last month, two of the most prominent bar associations of the country wrote separate letters echoing TLP’s demands, and advised the police to not let Pakistan’s Ahmadi community, an already persecuted religious minority, observe the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha.

The increased influence of extremist factions, and the absence of proper protection mechanisms for judges and witnesses, mean that lawyers and judges have to tread carefully—further shrinking the space for women lawyers to form networks and effect change in the legal profession.

Article 25 of Pakistan’s Constitution says that there should be no discrimination on the basis of sex, yet the profession that is supposed to be the custodian of this law fails to curb gender-based discrimination within its own ranks. That there are no steps by representative bodies such as the Pakistan Bar Council to address this severe gender imbalance means that the problem is yet to be acknowledged, let alone resolved.

The situation is not too different in other parts of South Asia. According to recent data released by India’s Ministry of Law and Justice, only 15.3 percent of the country’s lawyers are women. In Bangladesh, the figure is 10 percent. Across the subcontinent, the patriarchal mindset that considers certain professions “unsuitable” for women ends up hindering their access to opportunities.

Women have been at the forefront of the struggle against military dictatorships and the restoration of democracy in Pakistan—and without their active participation in the public and private spheres, the country’s democracy will remain weak.

[ivankahasbeentreatedsounfairly]

By Ben Protess and Kate Christobek

The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump was the one criminal case against the former president that actually went to trial. Now that Mr. Trump has reclaimed the presidency, it, too, is in jeopardy.

More than five months after a Manhattan jury convicted Mr. Trump on charges that he falsified records to cover up a sex scandal, Mr. Trump has yet to receive his punishment and is expected to use his electoral victory to delay it again.

Mr. Trump — the first former president to become a felon and the first felon to be elected president — is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 26. His lawyers will probably soon ask the judge overseeing the case to delay it indefinitely.

If the judge grants the request, the 78-year-old defendant might never face consequences for his crimes, or at least not for years. And although he is still fighting three other criminal cases, two are federal and he will soon have the authority to shut them down.

Here’s what we know about the status of Mr. Trump’s New York criminal conviction in the wake of his Election Day victory.

Will he still be sentenced this month?

Mr. Trump’s victory provided him a way to wriggle out of his sentencing — and he might well succeed.

As soon as this week, he is expected to ask the judge, Justice Juan M. Merchan, to grant another delay. He could argue that the sentencing would become a major distraction during the presidential transition, impeding his ability to pick a cabinet and take office. The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted Mr. Trump, will get a chance to respond and then Justice Merchan will decide.

After granting two prior delays, Justice Merchan might once again be amenable to postponing.

And even if he is not, Mr. Trump can appeal his decision and seek an emergency pause of the sentencing. A single appellate court judge could then either grant the request or by denying it give him reason to take the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices he appointed.

Can he get the conviction thrown out?

Mr. Trump has already asked Justice Merchan to throw out his indictment and conviction, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling this summer. In that case, the high court held that a former president was “entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.”

Manhattan prosecutors have argued that the ruling had “no bearing” on this case, noting that Mr. Trump’s cover-up of the sex scandal was unrelated to his presidency.

Justice Merchan is expected to issue his decision on throwing out the conviction Tuesday.

While the request is a long shot for Mr. Trump, the judge will not have the final say. The former president’s lawyers will undoubtedly ask a New York appeals court to halt the sentencing while they challenge any adverse decision, potentially all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Can Trump pardon himself?

No. The prosecution was brought by state prosecutors, rather than the federal government, and the presidential pardon does not extend to state cases.

If Trump is still sentenced, what punishment could he receive?

Mr. Trump was convicted of Class E felonies, the lowest category of felony in New York, and faces up to four years in prison. Mr. Trump, a first-time felon and a senior citizen, was always unlikely to receive the full punishment.

Still, a New York Times analysis showed that since 2014, over a third of the defendants sentenced in Manhattan to the most serious charge of falsifying business records served time behind bars.

If Mr. Trump was sentenced to jail, it would likely be a matter of weeks or months, not years. The judge could also sentence him to a term of probation. Mr. Trump would then be subject to certain conditions, such as staying out of trouble and not associating with disreputable people, and be required to regularly report to the city’s Probation Department.

But can a president-elect go to jail?

It is longstanding Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot face criminal prosecution. That prohibition would extend to a president being incarcerated, which, the policy notes, “would make it physically impossible for the president to carry out his duties.”

Though New York courts are not automatically bound by that policy, they would almost certainly honor it. And while the policy technically applies only to a sitting president, Mr. Trump’s lawyers would argue that it should extend to a president-elect as well.

If he gets jail time, would he be incarcerated immediately?

It is highly unlikely. Justice Merchan could postpone the sentence until after his second term expires. If for some reason the judge did not, Mr. Trump could ask an appeals court to immediately intervene.

What was he convicted of?

Mr. Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. The charges stem from a $130,000 hush-money payment that Mr. Trump’s fixer, Michael D. Cohen, made to the porn star Stormy Daniels in the days leading up to the 2016 election, suppressing her story of a sexual liaison with Mr. Trump.

Prosecutors argued that Mr. Trump had directed Mr. Cohen to make the payment and then covered it up through reimbursements falsely classified as ordinary legal expenses. Each of the 34 counts corresponds to an invoice, check or ledger related to these repayments.

Who is Justice Merchan?

A veteran Manhattan judge and a former prosecutor, Justice Merchan is known to be tough on white-collar crimes. During the trial, the drama-averse judge was continually attacked by Mr. Trump, who accused him of being “biased” and “corrupt.”

At the request of prosecutors, the judge imposed a gag order prohibiting Mr. Trump from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and jurors. And when Mr. Trump expanded his attacks to Justice Merchan’s daughter, a Democratic strategist, the judge revised his gag order to protect his own family — and those of prosecutors — from Mr. Trump’s vitriol.

Wasn’t the sentencing supposed to be before Election Day?

Mr. Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced July 11. But just days beforehand came the U.S. Supreme Court decision granting him broad immunity for official actions he took as president, prompting him to seek a delay of the sentencing.

Justice Merchan agreed to postpone until September, when he agreed to another delay until Nov. 26, this time to avoid a collision with the election.

Postponing until after Election Day, he wrote at the time, “best advances the interests of justice.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/nyregion/trump-criminal-case-new-york.html

[ejesgistnews]

Popular Ekiti Chief Judge Justice Oyewole Adeyeye Passes Away: Cause of Death Uncovered.  Hon. Justice Oyewole Adeyeye, the Chief Judge of Ekiti State, has sadly passed away, marking a significant loss for the state's judiciary. Justice Adeyeye's death follows a lengthy battle with illness stemming from a serious injury sustained on July 12, 2023. During this unfortunate incident, a section of the wall at the state high court complex collapsed while he was in his office. Read Also: US Election Update: Authorities Raise Alarm Over Increasing Cyber Election Attacks from Russia Justice Adeyeye, born in 1960 in Araromi Ugbesi, Ekiti East Local Government, had a distinguished legal career. He was called to the bar in 1986 and began his professional journey as a state counsel within the civil service of the former Ondo State. His commitment to justice led him to join the Ekiti State Judiciary Service Commission in 1996. He ascended to the position of a judge in the Ekiti State High Court in 2002, where he contributed his expertise to various election petition tribunals. Read Also: Dollar to Naira Exchange Rate Today: Black Market and CBN Rates | November 5, 2024 In response to Justice Adeyeye's passing, the Association of International Female Lawyers (FIDA) in Ekiti State expressed deep condolences to his family. FIDA Chairperson Oyinade Olatunbosun confirmed the news of his demise and pledged to issue a signed statement to commemorate his contributions and legacy. Justice Adeyeye's legacy will undoubtedly be remembered for his dedication to the rule of law and his significant impact on the judiciary in Ekiti State. As the community mourns, tributes continue to pour in, celebrating his life and the profound influence he had on the legal landscape of the state.

[news365timesindia]

[ad_1] Sanjay Singh in the frame. (PC: X.com) In a significant development, the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) has officially withdrawn the Indian team from the upcoming World Wrestling Championships 2024, citing government interference in the functioning of the federation. This decision has been communicated by WFI chief Sanjay Singh in a letter to United World Wrestling (UWW) president Nenad Lalovic. Singh expressed concerns about the persistent interference from the Union Sports Ministry, which has been affecting the federation’s autonomy. The conflict dates back to December 24, 2023, when the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS) de-recognised the WFI. The ministry’s directive barred the WFI from managing its day-to-day operations and instructed the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) to form an ad-hoc committee to oversee the federation’s governance. Despite the IOA dissolving the ad-hoc committee in March 2024, the situation remained tense due to ongoing legal battles and protests from prominent wrestlers. Singh stated: “The MYAS continues to interfere in the autonomy of the WFI. The ministry’s order from December 2023 is being used as a tool to disrupt our functioning.” He highlighted the ongoing court case filed by wrestlers Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Satyawart Kadian. These athletes have been at the forefront of protests against the WFI, demanding that an administrator manages the federation instead of an elected body. In August 2024, based on the ministry’s earlier interference, the Delhi High Court directed the IOA to form another ad-hoc committee, further complicating the situation. Singh emphasised that the WFI had been in the process of organising selection trials for the World Championships in Albania, scheduled from October 28-31, 2024. However, a court order issued on October 4, 2024, restrained the WFI from selecting and sending athletes for international competitions. “Because of the MYAS letter dated December 24, 2023, which has been the base for the court’s order, we are left with no option but to withdraw any entries that were sent for the Seniors World Championships,” Singh noted. He also requested UWW to invoke Article 6.3 of its regulations and take appropriate action. Furthermore, Singh urged the UWW to escalate the matter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ensure that the MYAS does not receive privileges or support from the IOA in future IOC events. In his closing remarks, Singh expressed frustration with the current situation, stating: “It is clear that the four wrestlers are adamant on getting the WFI suspended, no matter what the cost is to all others.” The letter underscores the deepening rift between the WFI and key stakeholders in Indian wrestling, raising concerns about the future of the sport in the country. The post Wrestling Federation of India withdraws team from World Championships, citing government interference appeared first on Sports News Portal | Latest Sports Articles | Revsports. [ad_2] Source link

[news365times]

[ad_1] Sanjay Singh in the frame. (PC: X.com) In a significant development, the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) has officially withdrawn the Indian team from the upcoming World Wrestling Championships 2024, citing government interference in the functioning of the federation. This decision has been communicated by WFI chief Sanjay Singh in a letter to United World Wrestling (UWW) president Nenad Lalovic. Singh expressed concerns about the persistent interference from the Union Sports Ministry, which has been affecting the federation’s autonomy. The conflict dates back to December 24, 2023, when the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS) de-recognised the WFI. The ministry’s directive barred the WFI from managing its day-to-day operations and instructed the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) to form an ad-hoc committee to oversee the federation’s governance. Despite the IOA dissolving the ad-hoc committee in March 2024, the situation remained tense due to ongoing legal battles and protests from prominent wrestlers. Singh stated: “The MYAS continues to interfere in the autonomy of the WFI. The ministry’s order from December 2023 is being used as a tool to disrupt our functioning.” He highlighted the ongoing court case filed by wrestlers Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Satyawart Kadian. These athletes have been at the forefront of protests against the WFI, demanding that an administrator manages the federation instead of an elected body. In August 2024, based on the ministry’s earlier interference, the Delhi High Court directed the IOA to form another ad-hoc committee, further complicating the situation. Singh emphasised that the WFI had been in the process of organising selection trials for the World Championships in Albania, scheduled from October 28-31, 2024. However, a court order issued on October 4, 2024, restrained the WFI from selecting and sending athletes for international competitions. “Because of the MYAS letter dated December 24, 2023, which has been the base for the court’s order, we are left with no option but to withdraw any entries that were sent for the Seniors World Championships,” Singh noted. He also requested UWW to invoke Article 6.3 of its regulations and take appropriate action. Furthermore, Singh urged the UWW to escalate the matter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ensure that the MYAS does not receive privileges or support from the IOA in future IOC events. In his closing remarks, Singh expressed frustration with the current situation, stating: “It is clear that the four wrestlers are adamant on getting the WFI suspended, no matter what the cost is to all others.” The letter underscores the deepening rift between the WFI and key stakeholders in Indian wrestling, raising concerns about the future of the sport in the country. The post Wrestling Federation of India withdraws team from World Championships, citing government interference appeared first on Sports News Portal | Latest Sports Articles | Revsports. [ad_2] Source link

[dankusner]

Rossini for 5th Court of Appeals, Place 11

We Recommend

Often during our recommendation process we give great weight to judicial candidates who already have experience on the bench.

But in the race for Place 11 of the 5th Court of Appeals, former state District Judge Kim Cooks’ previous service as a Dallas County family court judge gives us pause.

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Voters should elect her opponent, Republican Gino J. Rossini, an experienced appellate lawyer and partner at one of the most respected law firms in Dallas.

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Rossini well understands the 5th Court of Appeals because he’s practiced before it for years.

A graduate of Georgetown University and the University of Texas School of Law, he is a partner and vice chair of the appellate litigation section at Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons and is treasurer of the state bar’s Civil Liberties and Civil Rights section.

The local Committee for a Qualified Judiciary has deemed him qualified for the appeals bench.

In our interview with him, we liked that Rossini said partisan politics has no place in the judicial system:

“I’m on the ballot affiliated with a party, but I don’t consider myself a representative of a party.”

He also notably displayed the even-keeled temperament ideal for appellate justices.

He gave measured, thoughtful answers to our questions and said he would embrace the kind of extensive, roll-up-the-sleeves research and writing involved in being a justice.

He would “issue logical, reasoned opinions” if elected, he told us.

Cooks, a Democrat, soundly defeated sitting Place 11 Justice Cory Carlyle in the March primary.

First elected to the 255th District Court in 2014, Cooks lost reelection to that trial court bench in the 2022 primary.

During her tenure she consistently received less than 50% overall approval ratings in the Dallas Bar Association’s Judicial Evaluation Poll.

Her marks in the poll were the lowest of any of the other family court judges in Dallas County.

In 2018 she received a public warning and order of additional education from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct after teaming up with another Dallas County sitting judge and campaigning for reelection, in violation of the Canon of Ethics.

In 2019, she was removed from a high-profile custody case involving a 7-year-old transgender child after she commented about the case on social media.

And in 2020 she was fined $500 by the Texas Ethics Commission for failing to timely file a personal finance statement, according to commission records.

Currently she serves as a visiting judge in several counties.

The qualified judiciary committee did not deem Cooks a qualified candidate.

In addition, we have concerns about her excessive use of social media which frequently seems self-promoting.

We’re concerned that often judges get elected solely on political affiliation.

But if voters want the best person in Place 11 of the 5th Court, they should choose Rossini.

[lboogie1906]

Dame Sandra Prunella Mason, GCMG, DA, QC (born January 17, 1949) is a Barbadian politician and lawyer who is the eighth and current Governor-General of Barbados since 2018 and the president-elect of Barbados, due to take office on 30 November 2021, when the country, under the direct proposal of Prime Minister Mia Mottley, will abolish its monarchy and become a republic. She was a practicing Attorney-at-Law who has served as a High Court judge in Saint Lucia and a Court of Appeal judge in Barbados. She was the first woman admitted to the Bar in Barbados. She served as chair of the CARICOM commission to evaluate regional integration, was the first magistrate appointed as an Ambassador from Barbados, and was the first woman to serve on the Barbados Court of Appeals. She was the first Bajan appointee to the Commonwealth Secretariat Arbitral Tribunal. In 2017, she was appointed as the 8th Governor-General of Barbados, with a term beginning on 8 January 2018. Simultaneously with her appointment, she was awarded the Dame Grand Cross in the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George. On assumption of the office of Governor-General, she became the Chancellor of the Order of National Heroes, Order of Barbados, and the Order of Freedom. After studying at St. Catherine's Primary School until age nine, she attended Queen's College, then began teaching at the Princess Margaret Secondary School. She went to work at Barclays Bank as a clerk. She enrolled at the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill, where she earned a Bachelor of Law. She was one of the first graduates of the Faculty of Law from UWI, Cave Hill. She obtained a Legal Education Certificate from Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad and Tobago, as the first woman attorney-at-law from Barbados to graduate from the school, and was admitted to the bar, becoming the first woman member of the Barbados Bar Association. She is a Soroptimist and Patron of SI Barbados. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence https://www.instagram.com/p/CnhGSePrQe5/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[sa7abnews]

UK groups submit ICC brief on Netanyahu, Gallant arrest warrants

New Post has been published on https://sa7ab.info/2024/08/11/uk-groups-submit-icc-brief-on-netanyahu-gallant-arrest-warrants/

UK groups submit ICC brief on Netanyahu, Gallant arrest warrants

Two London-based legal groups have submitted an amicus curiae (‘friend of the court’) brief to the International Criminal Court (ICC) asserting that there were no legal obstructions to the issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The filing, announced by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) and the Centre for Human Rights Law (CHRL) at SOAS University of London on Thursday, comes as the court decides whether to approve ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s application in May for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

In late July, the ICC announced it had received 70 amicus curiae applications regarding the possible arrest warrants, some in favour of Israel and some in favour of the warrants being issued.

Among the states, entities and individuals who challenged the court’s jurisdiction were the United States, Germany, Argentina, the Israeli Bar Association and Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham.

The high volume of applications is seen as having delayed the court’s decision.

The United Kingdom considered submitting a brief challenging the court’s jurisdiction, however, the recently-elected Labour government of Prime Minister Kier Starmer dropped the objection.

The ICJP-IHRL submission asserts the court’s authority over the matter, saying that “jurisdiction in the ‘Situation in the State of Palestine’ is settled and clear, and that the matter of jurisdiction of Israeli nationals constitutes a non-issue and is not a barrier to the full exercise of the Court’s jurisdiction”.

The brief states that despite Israel not being a member of the court, the ICC does have jurisdiction over Israeli nationals, citing the court’s previous decision to issue warrants against citizens of Russia – a non-member – over crimes allegedly committed in Crimea and Ukraine.

The brief also addresses concerns about the continued applicability of the provisions of the Oslo Accords and highlights the principle of ‘complementarity’, where the court may exercise its jurisdiction when a national legal system has failed to do so.

Israel rarely prosecutes its own soldiers for alleged abuses committed against Palestinians, with Israeli rights group Yesh Din noting that from 2017 to 2021, just 0.87 percent of complaints against soldiers led to prosecutions, according to the Israeli rights group Yesh Din.

In its war on Gaza since 7 October, Israel has been accused by rights groups of several war crimes, including starving Gaza’s population, intentionally harming civilians, killing journalists and the use of torture and sexual abuse on Palestinian detainees.

ICC prosecutor Khan’s application against the two Israeli leaders is for the war crimes of using starvation as a weapon of war and wilful killing, among other charges.

Khan also applied for a warrant against Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hamas armed wing commander Mohammed al-Deif, who Israel claims to have killed in July.

[xtruss]

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan With His Wife Bushra Bibi Signs Bail Documents at Court in Lahore, Pakistan, on July 17, 2023. Photo: Arif Ali/AFP Via Getty Images

Imran Khan Remains Imprisoned Over His Wife’s Menstrual Cycles. State Department Says That’s “Something For The Pakistani Courts To Decide.”

The Charge of An Illegitimate Marriage Is All That’s Left After A Court Acquitted Khan Over His Handling of A Classified Cypher.

— Ryan Grim & Murtaza Hussain | June 4 2024

After An Arduous Legal Fight, a Pakistani Court on Monday Acquitted Former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Charges Related to his Handling of a Confidential Intelligence Cable, Known within the Pakistani Government as a Cypher.

Khan’s acquittal by the Islamabad High Court is a major victory for the former prime minister and his supporters, coming on the heels of a suspended sentence in a separate corruption case.

The ruling leaves Khan behind bars on precisely one charge: namely, that he and his third wife Bushra Bibi entered into an “un-Islamic marriage,” a crime for which Khan and Bibi are serving seven-year sentences.

The court, both during the hearing and in its ruling, dove into the details of Bibi’s menstrual cycle, ultimately rejecting her claim that three cycles had passed between her divorce and her marriage to Khan. Instead, the court relied on the word of her ex-husband.

Asked by The Intercept at a briefing, State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said the case and its merits were none of the United States’ business.

“We’ve addressed the question of Imran Khan many times,” Miller said. “The legal proceedings against him are something for the Pakistani courts to decide.”

Pressed on whether it was truly the case that Bibi’s menstrual cycles were a matter for the courts, Miller said that perhaps a Pakistani court will toss out this conviction just as they did the cypher case.

The Overturning Of The So-Called Cypher Case Was A Blow To The “Pakistani Corrupt Army General’s Selected and Election Losers’ Government’s Contention” That Khan Was a Traitor to His Country, and bolsters his supporters’ position that the charges against the imprisoned former prime minister are politically motivated.

Khan and his Ex-Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had previously been sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly mishandling the secret document, including Khan’s alleged brandishing a paper copy of it at a political rally.

The cypher has long since been a central piece of drama in Pakistan’s political wrangling. Khan had claimed in several instances, even when still prime minister, that the cypher revealed U.S. involvement in his removal from power in a no-confidence vote in 2022.

Secret Pakistan Cable Documents U.S. Pressure To Remove Imran Khan! “All Will Be Forgiven,” said a U.S. Diplomat, If the No-Confidence Vote Against Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan Succeeds

In 2023, the cypher was provided to The Intercept by a source in the Pakistani military. The document showed that during Khan’s time in office, U.S. State Department officials had threatened the then-Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. about damaged ties between the two countries if Khan remained in power. Shortly after the meeting, a vote of no-confidence in Parliament advanced, a move orchestrated by the powerful Pakistani military that succeeded in removing Khan from office.

Since then, Khan and his supporters have been in an escalating conflict with the military, which has led to widespread crackdowns, killings, and torture, as well as a ban on Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI. Khan himself was imprisoned on an array of charges.

The State Department has remained muted on the crackdown on democracy in Pakistan, including after February elections marred by extensive and brazen fraud.

Despite Khan’s imprisonment and a general ban on his party, candidates associated with PTI did resoundingly well in the vote. Following exit polls that seemed to show PTI-affiliated politicians sailing to victory, official announcements began to pour in that the candidates were losing. Amid allegations of election rigging by the military at the regional level, a coalition of opposition parties took power and was quickly recognized by the U.S.

The charges against Khan have now almost all fallen apart, save for an allegation of legal impropriety in Khan’s marriage to Bibi.

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The court, in its ruling, writes that her ex-husband tried to prevent his then-wife from visiting Khan, saying he “tried to stop her by force and during which hard words and even abuses were also exchanged but of no avail.”

The court, in its ruling, also approvingly reproduced her ex-husband’s antisemitic conspiracy theories, noting that “complainant believes that sister of respondent No.02” — Khan’s wife — “who resides in UAE has strong connection with Jewish Lobby.”

Bibi’s ex-husband, according to the ruling, also complained he was denied his right of “rujuh” — which refers to a husband getting their wife back in the initial period after a divorce. “He pointed out that under the law and ‘Shariah,’ the complainant has a right to have ‘Rujuh’ to his wife,” the ruling says, “but he was deprived of such right by the respondents.”