Tag: confrontation

Differences between govt, judiciary can’t be construed as confrontation: Rijiju

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Chennai: Asserting that differences were inevitable in a democracy, Union Minister for Law and Justice Kiran Rijiju said differences between government and judiciary cannot be construed as confrontation. He denied any clash between the government and the judiciary.
The Union Law minister was speaking after inaugurating the chief judicial magistrate court at Myladuthurai. Chief Justice of India, D.Y. Chandrachud and Acting Chief Justice of Madras High Court, Justice T Raja, were present on the occasion.
While pointing out at some media reports on differences between the government and judiciary, Rijju said that in a democracy differences were bound to be there and added that these are due to difference in outlook but stated that conflicting positions should not be there.
He said, “This does not mean confrontation between government and the Supreme Court or legislature and judiciary. This is not confrontation but only differences which are inevitable in the largest democracy in the world.”
The Union Law minister said that the central government would support the judiciary to be independent and added that the bench and the bar are the two sides of the same coin.
He said that one cannot work without the other and added that courts should have proper decorum and conducive atmosphere. Rijjiju said that the country is not ruled by a dictatorial king and added that the differences of opinion cannot be construed as a crisis in Indian democracy.
The minister said that the two bodies can criticise each other but in national interest all should be one. The minister lauded the courts in Tamil Nadu for their excellent performance during pandemic and delivering judgments. He said that the judicial infrastructure in Tamil Nadu was much better than many other states.
The minister said that during the previous year, Rs 9000 crore was allocated for the district courts and other courts in the state of Tamil Nadu and added that his department was pushing hard for the utilisation of the funds so that more funds could be sought.

He said that the government was for the Indian judiciary to completely go paperless in the coming days. The minister said that in the coming days due to technological advancement everything could be synchronised and the judge need not postpone the cases for want of evidence. He said that works are under progress and added that a major solution for pendency of cases was in the near future.
The minister also said that the executive and judiciary should work together to clear the pendency of cases. Rijjiju said, “In India, each judge is hearing 50 to 60 cases a day and if I had to deal with so many cases, mental pressure would be tremendous.”
He said that due to the heavy influx of cases, there were criticisms that judges were not able to deliver justice and added that this was not true.
The minister pointed out that even as cases were disposed of faster, the number of cases that were coming up for hearing was higher. He said that the only solution was to strengthen the Indian judiciary and to have better infrastructure and better mechanism.
He called upon all the courts to use Tamil language in all court proceedings in the state and added that with the use of technological advancements, Tamil which was a classical language can one day be even used in Supreme Court of India.
The minister also said that his ministry was developing a common core vocabulary where Indian languages will have certain common usages, that are purely technical in nature. He said that this was to ensure that common people receive orders in their respective languages.
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#Differences #govt #judiciary #construed #confrontation #Rijiju
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 25, 2023
Border issue very complicated; but neither side want war, confrontation: Chinese envoy

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New Delhi: China and India will have to face the “difficulties” arising out of the border situation but none of the two countries want war or confrontation, Charge D’affaires at the Chinese embassy Ma Jia said on Wednesday.
Addressing a media briefing here, Ma described the situation along the border areas as “very complicated” and said it was not easy to reach an agreement which was the reason the two countries were holding discussions through the established Working Mechanism for Consultation and Cooperation and the senior commander-level meetings.
She said the situation with regard to the Ukraine issue had “intensified” since the consensus at the G20 Summit at Bali and it was now “more difficult to reach the accommodation”.
Her remarks come against the backdrop of a joint statement issued following a meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping indicating that the two sides will oppose the use of multilateral platforms to take up “irrelevant issues”.
China is yet to name its Ambassador to India after Sun Weidong completed his tenure in October last year. Senior diplomat Ma has been in-charge of the mission in New Delhi.
Earlier, in her suo moto remarks, Ma has said the current situation on the border was stable and China and India were in maintaining communication through the established channels – Working Mechanism for Consultation and Cooperation and the senior commander level meetings.
“There are difficulties, I have just said that. But, we have to face it. We are also confident that China and India do not want war. Neither of us want a war. Neither of us want confrontation along the border areas,” the top Chinese diplomat in India said, giving her assessment of the border situation.
She said the border issue has lived through the history of many years and it was not easy to reach an agreement.

“That is why we keep on talking about it. We have to face the problems and we have to talk. I think the intention on both sides is to improve relations. Our two leaders already have consensus on that and I think we can find a way out,” Ma said.
Amid indications that Russia and China will oppose raising of the Ukraine issue on multilateral platforms, the Chinese diplomat said reaching a consensus at the G20 could be difficult if “prominent security issues” were raised at a forum established to deliberate on economic and financial matters.
“As long as you are out of the track and discussing prominent security issues on economic and financial platforms, it is very difficult to reach consensus. In G20, we have this consensus principle. Even if one country does not agree, it is not a consensus,” she said.
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#Border #issue #complicated #side #war #confrontation #Chinese #envoy
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 22, 2023
China’s new foreign minister slams U.S. ‘malicious confrontation’

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“If the United States does not hit the brake, but continues to speed down the wrong path … there will surely be conflict and confrontation and who will bear the catastrophic consequences?” Qin said.
Qin hinted at the potential for nuclear conflict between the two countries by saying that those policies could risk “the future of humanity.” And he implicitly referenced Biden’s comments in his State of the Union speech last month that the United States seeks “competition, not conflict” with China by accusing the U.S. of “not fair competition, but malicious confrontation.”

Journalists prepare for a press conference by Foreign Minister Qin Gang held on the sideline of the annual meeting of China’s National People’s Congress in Beijing on March 7, 2023.
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AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
Qin’s uncompromising tone echoes that of his patron, Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping.
On Monday, Xi accused the U.S. and other Western countries of “all-round containment, encirclement and suppression against us, bringing unprecedentedly severe challenges to our country’s development,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing Chinese state media. That rhetoric also casts doubt on the sustainability of Xi and President Joe Biden’s agreement in their meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in November to try to stem the slide in U.S.-China ties.
Bilateral ties have been battered by the discovery and subsequent destruction of a Chinese spy balloon over the continental U.S. in February. Biden administration warnings last month that the Chinese government is considering providing lethal weaponry to Russia in its war against Ukraine have further roiled relations. And the conclusion of a Department of Energy report published last week that concluded (albeit with low confidence) that a laboratory leak in Wuhan, China, sparked the Covid-19 pandemic has renewed congressional anger toward China’s role in a pandemic that has killed more than a million Americans.
Qin insisted the balloon was a civilian air ship that an “unexpected accident” blew over the continental United States. Biden’s move to destroy the balloon “abused force and dramatized the accident, creating a diplomatic crisis that could have been avoided,” Qin said.
The perennial hot button issue of U.S. support for Taiwan also was front and center in Qin’s press conference.
Qin warned that Beijing will take “all necessary measures” to enforce its claim of sovereignty over the self-governing island. And he floated a bizarre conspiracy theory for the Biden administration’s policy of continuing to provide defense weaponry to the island. “Why does the U.S. keep on professing the maintenance of regional peace and stability while covertly formulating a plan for the destruction of Taiwan?” Qin said, without elaborating.

Qin also touted Beijing’s Ukraine peace proposal unveiled last month as a vehicle “to promote talks for peace.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan have both dismissed the proposal as a distraction that fails to challenge Russia’s aggression. Qin likewise avoided mention of that and instead implicitly blamed the U.S. for the conflict.
“There seems to be an invisible hand, pushing for the protraction and escalation of the conflict and using the Ukraine crisis to serve certain geopolitical agenda,” Qin said, without providing any additional details.
Beijing’s concerns about the Biden’s ability to rally allies and partners to counter what Blinken calls China’s threat to the rules-based international order also emerged in Qin’s remarks. Qin slammed the Indo-Pacific Strategy as a plot “to encircle China.” And he denounced Japan — which announced a dramatic expansion of its military forces in December — of taking part in “a new Cold War to contain China.”
And Qin flexed his familiarity with U.S. political fault lines with comments that appeared to target Donald Trump’s tough language on China at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday.
“If the United States has the ambition to make itself great again … containment and suppression will not make America great, and it will not stop the rejuvenation of China,” Qin said.
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#Chinas #foreign #minister #slams #U.S #malicious #confrontation
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 7, 2023
Judge rejects ‘terrorism’ sentencing enhancement for leader of Jan. 6 tunnel confrontation

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McFadden’s swept away efforts by prosecutors to apply several enhancements to Judd’s sentence, most notably the so-called “terrorism” enhancement, for what Justice Department lawyers said was his intent to disrupt government functions with force. McFadden discarded their recommendations, noting that Judd didn’t appear to preplan his attack the way terrorists like those in a 2012 attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, did.
Rather, the judge said, Judd was “in some ways there at the behest of the president,” who had just minutes earlier urged his supporters to march on Congress and protest the certification of the election results.
It’s the second time prosecutors have attempted to apply the terrorism enhancement to a Jan. 6 defendant — both times unsuccessfully — during the sentencing process. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ashley Akers emphasized that the government viewed Judd’s crime as “domestic terrorism” worthy of the enhancement, which would add significant time on to Judd’s recommended sentence.
Invoking the terrorism enhancement can add about 15 years in prison to a defendant’s recommended sentence, set the minimum calculation at 17-and-a-half years, and also flip the person charged into the criminal-history category used for serial offenders.
However, prosecutors asked for only a modest adjustment in Judd’s case because the 2 offenses he pled guilty to — assault on a police officer and obstructing an official proceeding — are not on a list Congress has established of crimes of terrorism.
Still, McFadden declined to apply even that adjustment.
The judge noted that in the other case where prosecutors sought the more serious enhancement — against Texas’ Guy Reffitt — prosecutors assembled an extraordinary roster of evidence showing that Reffitt planned his actions on Jan. 6, carried a firearm, was a member of a right wing militia group and threatened a witness afterward. In that case, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Freidrich rejected the enhancement, sentencing Reffitt to 7.25 years in prison.
McFadden used Monday’s sentencing hearing to strike another blow in a long-running critique of the Justice Department, which he has accused of treating Jan. 6 cases more harshly than rioters charged alongside the social justice protests in the summer of 2020. He said DOJ’s charging decisions in some of those cases cast doubt on Attorney General Merrick Garland’s vow for there “not to be one rule for Democrats and another for Republicans. One rule for friends, one rule for foes.”

Prosecutors have rejected the claim, arguing that Jan. 6 and the concerted assault on the transfer of power stands in stark contrast to the summertime 2020 violence — and is often accompanied by far more compelling video evidence of the crimes. They also noted that in some of the 2020 violence — particularly in Portland, Oregon — federal prosecutors opted against charging defendants who were facing even harsher charges at the state level.
McFadden, however, homed in on cases like the New York Police Department attorneys who threw Molotov cocktails in an empty NYPD police cruiser, whose sentence he said was relatively light compared to the steep penalties DOJ is seeking for some Jan. 6 offenders.
Even after McFadden rejected DOJ’s harshest sentencing enhancements, McFadden decided to apply a so-called “downward variance” to Judd’s sentencing, below the recommended sentencing guidelines, which called for a minimum of 37 months incarceration.
McFadden said he agreed with Judd’s contention that the object he threw at police was more akin to a sparkler than a firework that could have caused actual harm to police officers. Though McFadden said he believed Judd did intend to hurt people in the tunnel — noting that Judd himself fled after lobbing the object.
Under a 2005 Supreme Court case, federal judges are free to sentence defendants outside of guidelines, but courts are required to calculate the recommended range before imposing a sentence.
Judd briefly addressed the court, through tears, apologizing to police officers who defended the Capitol and to his family for causing them pain.
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#Judge #rejects #terrorism #sentencing #enhancement #leader #Jan #tunnel #confrontation
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 28, 2023