Category Archives: Legal

Donald Trump, Government, Legal, United States

Federal judge temporary bans Donald Trump’s travel ban

UNITED STATES

A federal judge in Washington has temporarily blocked enforcement of President Trump’s controversial ban on entry to the United States. Airlines have planned to begin to allow passengers from banned countries to board.

Following the ruling, government authorities immediately began communicating with airlines and taking steps that would allow travel by those previously barred from doing so.

At the same time, however, the White House said in a statement that the Justice Department would “at the earliest possible time” file for an emergency stay of the “outrageous” ruling from the judge. Minutes later, it issued a similar statement omitting the word “outrageous.”

“The president’s order is intended to protect the homeland and he has the constitutional authority and responsibility to protect the American people,” the White House said.

The federal judge’s ruling, which was broader than similar ones before it, set up a high-stakes legal confrontation between the new president and the judicial branch over his temporary ban on entry by citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries as well as refugees. In his opinion, U.S. District Judge James L. Robart wrote that “fundamental” to the court’s work was “a vigilant recognition that it is but one of three equal branches of our federal government.”

“The court concludes that the circumstances brought before it today are such that it must intervene to fulfill its constitutional role in our tripart government,” he wrote.

The ruling is temporary, and the ultimate question of whether Trump’s executive order will pass constitutional muster will fall to higher-level courts. Legal analysts have said the ban could be difficult to permanently undo because the president has broad authority to set immigration policy.

Robart granted a request from lawyers for the state of Washington who had asked him to stop the government from acting on critical sections of Trump’s order. Justice and State department officials had revealed earlier that about 60,000 — and possibly as many as 100,000 — visas already have been provisionally revoked as a result of Trump’s order. A U.S. official said that because of the court case, officials would examine the revoking of those visas so that people would be allowed to travel.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson hailed the case as “the first of its kind” and declared that it “shuts down the executive order immediately.” Robart, a judge appointed by George W. Bush, said in his written order that U.S. officials should stop enforcing the key aspects of the ban: the halting of entry by refugees and citizens from certain countries. He did not specifically address the matter of those whose visas already had been revoked.

The Justice Department said in a statement that it was “reviewing the court’s order and will determine its next steps.” A State Department official said the agency was “working closely with the Department of Homeland Security and our legal teams to determine how this affects our operations.”

“We will announce any changes affecting travellers to the United States as soon as that information is available,” the official said.

Immigration lawyers have said that they are still assessing the Washington case but were heartened by it.

“The order makes it clear that all of the main provisions of the executive order cannot be enforced at this time,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “That means that a lot will have to change immediately, and the government will have to make clear how they intend to follow the order with respect to all of the ways in which immigrants here and abroad are being affected at the moment.”

Since it was first rolled out a week ago, Trump’s travel ban has been evolving — both because of legal challenges and as a result of decisions by the administration to walk back aspects of it. Green-card holders from the affected countries, for example, no longer need waivers to get into the United States, as they did when the order took effect. And the Department of Homeland Security have asserted that the order does not apply to dual citizens with passports from countries other than the seven listed.

The numbers of visas revoked, too, demonstrated the far-reaching impact of the order. Families have been split, students unable to pursue their education, and those in the United States unable to leave for fear of not being able to return — and not by the handful, but by the tens of thousands.

During a hearing in a lawsuit by two Yemeni brothers who arrived at Dulles International Airport last weekend and were quickly put on a return flight to Ethiopia because of the new restrictions, a Justice Department lawyer said 100,000 visas had been revoked.

The figure, though, was immediately disputed by the State Department, which said the number of visas revoked was roughly 60,000. A spokesperson had said earlier that the revocations would have no impact on the legal status of people already in the United States, but if those people left the country, their visas would no longer be valid.

About the same time, in Boston, a group of four students enrolled in area colleges, a researcher and the spouse of a permanent resident — all of whom came from countries affected by the ban — flew into the United States.

The group that entered was aboard the same flight from Frankfurt operated by the German airline Lufthansa, which a day earlier had noted on its website a court decision from last weekend that it claimed had “suspended” Trump’s decree on flights to Boston. Lawyers hailed the development as good news.

Among those who made their way back to the United States were two undergraduate Massachusetts Institute of Technology students who had been visiting their families for a winter break; as well as 27-year-old Behnam Partopour, a PhD student from Iran studying chemical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute who had been working on a project in Germany; and Samira Asgari, an Iranian scientist who was headed to Boston to conduct research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Washington and Minnesota had filed a broad legal challenge to Trump’s order, alleging it was “separating families, harming thousands of the States’ residents, damaging the States’ economies, hurting State-based companies, and undermining both States’ sovereign interest in remaining a welcoming place for immigrants and refugees.” Jeffrey P. Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post and a Washington state resident, has spoken out against the ban.

In the past several days, federal judges in New York, California, Massachusetts and Virginia have issued rulings temporarily blocking aspects of the Trump order — though the orders all seemed to be limited to people who had made their way to U.S. airports, or, in Virginia’s case, to certain people.

The New York and Massachusetts rulings both blocked the government from detaining or deporting anyone from the seven affected countries who could legally enter the U.S., and the Massachusetts ruling added the critical phrase “absent the executive order.” In California, a judge declared that U.S. officials were also prevented from “blocking” people from entering who had a valid visa.

Standard
Britain, Defence, Government, Legal, Military

The Iraq Historic Allegations Team and exploitative abuse

IHAT

ihat

Around 1,500 cases of mistreatment are being investigated by the publicly-funded Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT)

Intro: IHAT’s investigations has not led to a shred of evidence of systematic abuse

RECENT media and press coverage has laid bare the iniquitous practice of British soldiers being persecuted by their own country for doing their job. That is also the uncomfortable conclusion being drawn by critics of the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT). Revelations stemming over a range of apparent abuses and mistakes made has led to a sense of betrayal that has markedly worsened.

Legal activism is being fuelled by a litany of inquiries. These should be ended by the Government who must be assumed to have a duty of care to those soldiers who have served the nation. Frivolous and vexatious claims being pursued by ambulance chasing lawyers to the point of it becoming so routine, often at huge expense to the legal aid bill, should stop.

The scale of payments made by IHAT to Public Interest Lawyers (PIL), a legal firm that lodged more than 2,400 criminal complaints against British troops, has been staggering. PIL shut down over the summer after its legal aid was withdrawn, and in the last few days the firm’s founder, Phil Shiner, conceded to a legal disciplinary hearing that he ‘must be’ struck off after he admitted acting ‘recklessly and without integrity’.

Among IHAT’s expenses, drawing on funds supplied by the Ministry of Defence, some £1.4 million was paid in travel and hotel costs for Iraqi civilians, PIL staff and IHAT investigators travelling to Turkey and Lebanon. A sole Iraqi agent, who worked as a tout for PIL, received more than £110,000 for three years’ work – as well as receiving separate money to cover hotel and travel costs in and out of Iraq. And PIL’s paralegals were paid up to £75 per hour to sit with Iraqi civilians during interviews. A dozen payments, totally nearly £210,000, were even made to the disgraced legal firm after the MoD had reported the organisation to the legal watchdog.

We must look at how this strange situation has arisen. IHAT was set up ostensibly to avoid the British Armed Forces being investigated by the International Criminal Court. PIL sought redress on a mountain of cases, and, it is presumed, payments from IHAT to PIL were made for the alleged abuses to be investigated as fully as possible.

What other police operation in the world behaves in such a way, one in which the alleged victims of abuse and their lawyers are paid to give evidence? IHAT’s independence clearly looks to have been compromised.

While it is surely right that the Government should end many of these insatiable inquiries that has led to legal activism, it must also be right that where individual soldiers have committed crimes that any charges are investigated and the guilty are brought to justice.

IHAT’s investigations has not led to a shred of evidence of systematic abuse. That has not been the case. The abuse being raised by its growing number of critics is the team’s largesse and its deliberate and provocative hounding of veterans.

 

Appendage:

Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT)

. What is it?

The Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat) was set up by the Labour government in 2010 to examine allegations of abuse, including murder and torture, made by hundreds of Iraqi civilians by British armed forces

. How many cases have they examined?

The investigative team, led by a team of retired police officers, has looked at 1,490 cases of abuse, the vast majority brought to the unit’s attention by Public Interest Lawyers, which closed down in the summer after being stripped of legal aid funding over alleged irregularities in connection with a number of Iraqi claims.

. What offences have been alleged?

They range from alleged murder to low-level violence from the start of the military campaign in Iraq, March 2003, through to the major combat operations of April 2003 and the following years spent maintaining security and mentoring and training Iraqi security forces.

. Why has IHAT been criticised?

It has been accused of “betraying” British veterans after revelations that three servicemen, including a decorated major, could become the first troops to be prosecuted over the death of an Iraqi teenager 13 years ago. The decision to consider charges comes despite a 2006 military investigation that cleared the three men of wrongdoing.

. How have veterans responded?

Hilary Meredith, the lawyer acting for the major, who has not been identified, condemned the recommendation to prosecute her client. She said he was awarded two medals for bravery and is now suffering mental and physical health problems.

. How much has the inquiry cost?

Red Snapper Recruitment is paid nearly £5million a year by the Ministry of Defence to provide staff, including ex-police officers, to the inquiry. The agency is owned by husband and wife Martin and Helen Jerrold; company accounts show the couple were paid a dividend of £318,539 in in the 12 months to May 31, 2014 in the year after the contract was awarded. The firm’s profits have also risen – from 181,980 in May 2013 to £1.1million in May last year.

Standard
Britain, European Union, Government, Legal, Society

The Brexit vote and the Supreme Court

BREXIT

supreme-court2

The government is to appeal against the High Court’s ruling that Article 50 cannot be invoked without Parliament’s support, so that means the case will now be heard in the Supreme Court. The Court comprises 11 senior judges.

Intro: Increasingly, it is not so much Brexit that divides the country as the bitter struggle to prevent it

ON Monday, 5 December, 2016, one of the most important questions of British constitutional history will be examined.

Eleven judges of the Supreme Court will hear the Government appeal against a High Court decision that 17.4 million votes in the EU referendum had no force in law. The High Court ruled that Parliament must be consulted before Article 50 can be triggered and negotiations with the EU begin; the Government believes that the referendum rendered that unnecessary. The Supreme Court will begin four days of hearings and a judgment is expected in January.

The 11 Supreme Court judges are faced with a highly political decision. With no written constitution to guide them, this is not a mere question of law, to be solved like a mathematical equation, with a definite correct or incorrect answer. Yet, this was precisely the spirit in which the High Court tried to approach the case, citing centuries-old precedents and ignoring the fact that the June referendum was an unprecedented historic act.

The free press should make no apology for shining a light on the Supreme Court. It is their job to scrutinise the powerful, and most voters have become aware just how powerful these 11 judges really are. With so little to help them in the law books, the clear risk is that the judges may be influenced by their personal opinions, no matter how assiduously they try to set them aside.

It is not a question of attacking the integrity and intelligence of our judges. But, on political matters, it is no more possible for judges than for anyone else to be perfectly neutral, uninfluenced by their own views or those of the people with whom they share their lives.

With only a simple majority needed for a ruling, it will be disturbing for Brexiteers to note that no fewer than five Supreme Court judges have publicly expressed their views which appear to be sympathetic to the EU, while six have close links with people who have publicly attacked the Leave campaign.

This matter should have been dismissed by the High Court. The last government held an in/out referendum on membership of the EU with the explicit promise that the result would be binding. While it is true that Britain is a representative (as opposed to direct) democracy, the EU vote was a rare exception to our political norms, an exception in which the people were asked to instruct the government what to do. Remainers cannot be motivated by concern for parliamentary sovereignty, because, if they were, they would have opposed the transfer of its powers to Europe since the Seventies. Militants see Parliament as an impediment to Brexit, a way of talking it out or watering it down. The application that has led to the current impasse was based on disgruntled mischief.

It is no fault of the Supreme Court justices that they find themselves in such a position of responsibility. They are only doing their job. And their job is a critical part of our constitution – testing laws and ensuring government actions adhere to them. However, there is no escaping the political nature of this case. The judges are being asked to rule on whether the Brexit-backing voters or Remain-backing MPs should have greater authority.

On numerous issues, the courts have defied Parliament and ministers; amending the ‘bedroom tax’, for example, or by outlawing extended solitary confinement for jihadists on grounds of human rights law. In such instances, they have become judicial activists. Which is all very well, but they cannot then complain when their decisions are questioned and their backgrounds and views analysed publicly.

The Government’s case is a good one and the Supreme Court may well agree. We should hope that the judges will remember the legitimacy of the referendum and its verdict, and not as the Government’s senior legal officer, Attorney General Jeremy Wright, has said that the vote be relegated ‘almost to a footnote’ as the Remain camp would hope for.

Increasingly, it is not so much Brexit that divides the country as the bitter struggle to prevent it. Most Remainers have probably accepted defeat and want to get on with their lives. Businesses need to know what is going to happen next. The world is waiting for EU negotiations to begin. It is in the national, even global, interest to proceed.

If the Supreme Court disagrees and says that Parliament must become involved, so be it. In that instance, it seems likely that Theresa May will smooth a Bill through Parliament to trigger Article 50 and limit any unnecessary delay. Of course, such developments would then attract dissenters who would attempt to dilute and frustrate any bill proceeding.

When governments ask the people what to do, they must follow their instructions. They are duty bound to follow through the mandate that has been raised. That’s the nature of how a democratic society operates.

Standard