SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir High Court’s judgment in Case WP(C) 669/2021 titled Zahoor Ahmad Bhat vs. Govt of J&K and Ors, regarding the re-registration of vehicles from outside Jammu & Kashmir, has been implemented by the Transport Department. As a result, the contempt petition (CCP (D) 16/2021) filed against the Department officials for non-compliance with the judgment has been closed.
According to Shahnawaz Bukhari, RTO Kashmir, this issue was raised two years ago, and more than 99% of cases are pending where a seller outside the UT transfers a car to a buyer in Kashmir, and Section 50 of the MV Act is applicable. In the case of Zahoor Ahmad Bhat, who owned a car in Delhi and changed his residence to Kashmir, section 49 of the MVA is applicable, and a case has also been filed in the Supreme Court of India in this regard.
Bukhari explained that the department is taking 9% token charges proportionate to the remaining life of the car. If someone sells the car after 11 years of its life, the department would charge proportionately to the remaining life of the vehicle. He added that owners could claim a proportionate refund from the previous state/UT, so there is no question of double tax.
He further added that the department’s intention was to provide relief to the 99% of car owners entangled in this issue. The Division Bench of the High Court, comprising Chief Justice N. Kotiswar Singh and Justice Moksha Qazmi, issued the order closing the contempt proceedings on May 3, 2023, at the petitioner’s request. The Transport Department’s compliance with the court’s judgment dated April 29, 2021, in the petitioner’s case was noted, leading to the closure of the contempt proceedings.
The closure of the proceedings will put an end to the long-drawn legal battle and provide much-needed relief, especially to those who purchased cars for commercial purposes.
Patna: While the BJP leaders are advocating a Yogi Adityanath style of governance in Bihar, state Law Minister Shamim Ahmed has said that first it needs to close all the courts and then think of governance like Uttar Pradesh has at present.
“When BJP is in power, Bihar is having Mangal Raj and when it goes out of power, Jungle Raj comes in Bihar. Go to Uttar Pradesh and experience the governance there. If you want Uttar Pradesh like governance in Bihar, first it needs to close all the courts,” Ahmed said while interacting with media persons in Motihari.
“If all the decisions have to be taken by the chief minister, what is the need for courts,” he said.
“We have Nitish Kumar style of governance in Bihar. I admit that the crime graph has increased in Bihar but that is only due to population growth. Our DGP has taken an initiative to deploy two SHOs in one police station to check the crime graph in Bihar,” Ahmed said.
Shamim Ahmed went to Motihari to console the family members of the person who lost his life during indiscriminate firing on May 1. During the firing, four persons were also injured and are currently admitted in a hospital in Motihari.
The deceased was identified as Prince Kumar who came to Motihari to his sister’s house to attend a marriage on May 1. He was having a soft drink when three assailants opened fire on the Deva gang members who were also present at that tea stall. Prince was caught in the firing and died on the spot while Deva Kumar, Raja Kumar alias Virat, Meraj and Yash Prakash were injured in the attack.
Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka has recommended that three more Special Courts for National Investigation Agency (NIA) cases be established in three revenue divisions of Karnataka, within the next six months.
“We hereby recommend the State Government to constitute/establish three Special Courts for trial of NIA cases in Mysore Division, Belagavi Division and Kalburgi Division within a period of six months from the date of receipt of copy of the order,” the Division Bench of B Veerappa and Justice Venkatesh Naik T said in their judgment dismissing the appeals filed by 41 accused in the Hubballi riots case.
It would “ensure speedy trial and disposal of the NIA cases” in order to make justice accessible to the needy and “to fulfil the scope and object of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act”, the bench said.
A Special Court had rejected the bail pleas of the accused after which they approached the HC in two separate petitions.
In its common order on the two petitions, the HC said in its April 20 judgment, “On re-appreciation of the entire material on record, we answer the point raised in these criminal appeals in the negative holding that the appellants/accused have not made out a case to interfere with the impugned order passed by the Special Court rejecting their applications for regular bail in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case.”
While dealing with the bail petitions, the HC also noted that very old NIA cases had also been pending.
“As of today, for the entire State, the Government has established only one Special Court at Bangalore to deal with the cases under National Investigation Agency Act, 2008. By careful perusal of the statistical data, it is clearly depicted that NIA cases which are more than 8 to 9 years old are pending,” it said.
The Court said it was high time that new courts were established.
“If the newly proposed Special Courts are not constituted/established, one Special Court in the entire State would be overburdened and will lead to inordinate delay in trial and disposal of NIA cases, which is against the Constitutional mandate as contemplated under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India,” it said.
In Karnataka, Bengaluru Division consists of nine districts; Mysore Division consists eight districts, Belagavi Division consists seven districts and Kalburgi Division consists of six districts, the HC noted.
The HC also listed the number of cases pending in the existing Special Court. It found that one case was nine years old, two cases each were eight and seven years old, six cases were five years old, three cases six years old, eight cases two years old and five cases one year old.
“It is high time for the State Government to fulfill the scope and object of the UA(P) Act and ensure speedy trial and disposal by constituting/establishing three more Special Courts for trial of NIA cases in other revenue Divisions of Karnataka,” the HC said.
The HC was hearing the appeal of 41 accused in the Hubballi riots on the night of April 16, 2022.
A complaint had been filed against a person for his Whatsapp status showing a saffron flag on a masjid.
Hundreds of people gathered in front of the Hubballi rural police station demanding action. They allegedly, with the “intention of committing the murder” of the police personnel, “assaulted with clubs, pelted stones and threw chappals on the police and caused injuries, destroyed the vehicles of police and public and government properties.”
The police booked several people for the riots, and later the case was handed over to the NIA. The bail petitions of the accused were rejected by the Special Court on December 26, 2022 after which they approached the HC.
Rejecting their plea, the HC said, “Though several contentions urged by the learned counsel for the appellants for granting bail and the learned SPP for rejecting the bail, the fact remains that the accused have not made out any prima facie case to grant bail.”
If there were a silver lining in her son being convicted of high treason, it was that Yelena Gordon would have a rare chance to see him.
But when she tried to enter the courtroom, she was told it was already full. But those packed in weren’t press or his supporters, since the hearing was closed.
“I recognized just one face there, the rest were all strangers,” she later recounted, exasperated, outside the Moscow City Court. “I felt like I had woken up in a Kafka novel.”
Eventually, after copious cajoling, Gordon was able to stand beside Vladimir Kara-Murza, a glass wall between her and her son, as the sentence was delivered.
Kara-Murza was handed 25 years in prison, a sky-high figure previously reserved for major homicide cases, and the highest sentence for an opposition politician to date.
The bulk — 18 years — was given on account of treason, for speeches he gave last year in the United States, Finland and Portugal.
For a man who had lobbied the West for anti-Russia sanctions such as on the Magnitsky Act against human rights abusers — long before Russia invaded Ukraine — those speeches were wholly unremarkable.
But the prosecution cast Kara-Murza’s words as an existential threat to Russia’s safety.
“This is the enemy and he should be punished,” prosecutor Boris Loktionov stated during the trial, according to Kara-Murza’s lawyer.
The judge, whose own name features on the Magnitsky list as a human rights abuser, agreed. And so did Russia’s Foreign Ministry, saying: “Traitors and betrayers, hailed by the West, will get what they deserve.”
Redefining the enemy
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, hundreds of Russians have received fines or jail sentences of several years under new military censorship laws.
But never before has the nuclear charge of treason been used to convict someone for public statements containing publicly available information.
A screen set up in a hall at Moscow City Court shows the verdict in the case against Vladimir Kara-Murza | Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images
The verdict came a day after an appeal hearing at the same court for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich who, in a move unseen since the end of the Cold War, is being charged with spying “for the American side.”
Taken together, the two cases set a historic precedent for modern Russia, broadening and formalizing its hunt for internal enemies.
“The state, the [Kremlin], has decided to sharply expand the ‘list of targets’ for charges of treason and espionage,” Andrei Soldatov, an expert in Russia’s security services, told POLITICO.
Up until now, the worst the foreign press corps feared was having their accreditation revoked by Russia’s Foreign Ministry. This is now changing.
For Kremlin critics, the gloves have of course been off for far longer — before his jailing, Kara-Murza survived two poisonings. He had been a close ally of Boris Nemtsov, who was murdered in 2015 within sight of the Kremlin.
But such reprisals were reserved for only a handful of prominent dissidents, and enacted by anonymous hitmen and undercover agents.
After Putin last week signed into law extending the punishment for treason from 20 years to life, anyone could be eliminated from public life with the stamp of legitimacy from a judge in robes.
“Broach the topic of political repression over a coffee with a foreigner, and that could already be considered treason,” Oleg Orlov, chair of the disbanded rights group Memorial, said outside the courthouse.
Like many, he saw a parallel with Soviet times, when tens of thousands of “enemies of the state” were accused of spying for foreign governments and sent to far-flung labor camps or simply executed, and foreigners were by definition suspect.
Treason as catch-all
Instead of the usual Investigative Committee, treason cases fall under the remit of Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, making them uniquely secretive.
In court, hearings are held behind closed doors — sheltered from the public and press — and defense lawyers are all but gagged.
But they used to be relatively rare: Between 2009 and 2013, a total of 25 people were tried for espionage or treason, according to Russian court statistics. After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, that number fluctuated from a handful to a maximum of 17.
Former defense journalist Ivan Safronov in court, April 2022 | Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images
Involving academics, Crimean Tatars and military accused of passing on sensitive information to foreign parties, they generally drew little attention.
The jailing of Ivan Safronov — a former defense journalist accused of sharing state secrets with a Czech acquaintance — formed an important exception in 2020. It triggered a massive outcry among his peers and cast a spotlight on the treason law. Apparently, even sharing information gleaned from public sources could result in a conviction.
Combined with an amendment introduced after anti-Kremlin protests in 2012 that labeled any help to a “foreign organization which aimed to undermine Russian security” as treason, it turned the law into a powder keg.
In February 2022, that was set alight.
Angered by the war but too afraid to protest publicly, some Russians sought to support Ukraine in less visible ways such as through donations to aid organizations.
The response was swift: Only three days after Putin announced his special military operation, Russia’s General Prosecutor’s Office warned it would check “every case of financial or other help” for signs of treason.
Thousands of Russians were plunged into a legal abyss. “I transferred 100 rubles to a Ukrainian NGO. Is this the end?” read a Q&A card shared on social media by the legal aid group Pervy Otdel.
“The current situation is such that this [treason] article will likely be applied more broadly,” warned Senator Andrei Klimov, head of the defense committee of the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament.
Inventing traitors
Last summer, the law was revised once more to define defectors as traitors as well.
Ivan Pavlov, who oversees Pervy Otdel from exile after being forced to flee Russia for defending Safronov, estimates some 70 treason cases have already been launched since the start of the war — twice the maximum in pre-war years. And the tempo seems to be picking up.
Regional media headlines reporting arrests for treason are becoming almost commonplace. Sometimes they include high-octane video footage of FSB teams storming people’s homes and securing supposed confessions on camera.
Yet from what can be gleaned about the cases from media leaks, their evidence is shaky.
Instead of the usual Investigative Committee, treason cases fall under the remit of Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, making them uniquely secretive | Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images
In December last year, 21-year-old Savely Frolov became the first to be charged with conspiring to defect. Among the reported incriminating evidence is that he attempted to cross into neighboring Georgia with a pair of camouflage trousers in the trunk of his car.
In early April this year, a married couple was arrested in the industrial city of Nizhny Tagil for supposedly collaborating with Ukrainian intelligence. The two worked at a nearby defense plant, but acquaintances cited by independent Russian media Holod deny they had access to secret information.
“It is a reaction to the war: There’s a demand from up top for traitors. And if they can’t find real ones, they’ll make them up, invent them,” said Pavlov.
Although official statistics are only published with a two-year lag time, he has little doubt a flood of guilty verdicts is coming.
“The first and last time a treason suspect was acquitted in Russia was in 1999.”
No sign of slowing
If precedent is anything to go by, Gershkovich will likely eventually be subject to a prisoner swap.
That is what happened with Brittney Griner, a U.S. basketball star jailed for drug smuggling when she entered Russia carrying hashish vape cartridges.
And it is also what happened with the last foreign journalist detained, in 1986 when the American Nicholas Daniloff was supposedly caught “red-handed” spying, like Gershkovich.
Back then, several others were released with him — among them Yury Orlov, a human rights activist sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp for “anti-Soviet activity.”
Some now harbor hope that a deal involving Gershkovich could also help Kara-Murza, who is well-known in Washington circles and suffers from severe health problems.
For ordinary Russians, any glimmers of hope that the traitor push will slow down are even less tangible.
Those POLITICO spoke to say a Soviet-era mass campaign against traitors is unlikely, if only because the Kremlin has a fine line to walk: arrest too many traitors and it risks shattering the image that Russians unanimously support the war.
Some harbor hope that a deal involving Gershkovich could also help Kara-Murza, who is well-known in Washington circles | Maxim Shipenkov/EPA-EFE
And in the era of modern technology, there are easier ways to convey a message to a large audience. “If Stalin had had a television channel, there would’ve likely not been a need for mass repression,” reflected Pavlov.
Yet the repressive state apparatus does seem to have a momentum of its own, as those involved in investigating and prosecuting treason and espionage cases are rewarded with bonuses and promotions.
In a first, the treason case against Kara-Murza was led by the Investigative Committee, opening the door for the FSB to massively increase its work capacity by offloading work on others, says Soldatov.
“If the FSB can’t handle it, the Investigative Committee will jump in.”
In the public sphere, patriotic officials at all levels are clamoring for an even harder line, going so far as to volunteer the names of apparently unpatriotic political rivals and celebrities to be investigated.
There have been calls for “traitors” to be stripped of their citizenship and to reintroduce the death penalty.
And in a telling sign, Kara-Murza’s veteran lawyer Vadim Prokhorov has fled Russia, fearing he might be targeted next.
Аs Orlov, the dissident who was part of the 1986 swap and who went on to become an early critic of Putin, wrote in the early days of Putin’s reign in 2004: “Russia is flying back in time.”
Nearly two decades on, the question in Moscow nowadays is a simple one: how far back?
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin should be tried in The Hague for war crimes, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during a surprise visit to the Netherlands.
“We all want to see a different Vladimir here in The Hague,” Zelenskyy said. “The one who deserves to be sentenced for these criminal actions right here, in the capital of international law.”
The Ukrainian president spoke in The Hague, where he traveled unexpectedly Thursday. He is expected to meet Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo later in the day.
In March, the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an international arrest warrant against Putin over the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow has previously said it did not recognize the court’s authority, but the warrant means that the ICC’s 123 member countries are required to arrest Putin if he ever sets foot on their territory, and transfer him to The Hague.
The warrant’s existence has already caused a stir in South Africa, where the Russian president could attend the next BRICS summit in August.
Last week, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the country should leave the ICC — but his office backtracked a few hours later, stressing South Africa remained part of the court.
In spite of numerous reports that Russian forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine — including a recent U.N. investigation which said that Russia’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children amounted to a war crime — the Kremlin has denied it committed any crimes.
In his speech Thursday, Zelenskyy said Russian forces had committed more than 6,000 war crimes in April alone, killing 207 Ukrainian civilians.
The Ukrainian president renewed his call to create a Nüremberg-style, “full-fledged” tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression and deliver “a full justice” — and lasting peace.
“The sustainability of peace arises from the complete justice towards the aggressor,” Zelenskyy said.
Speaking shortly before Zelenskyy, Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said the Netherlands was “ready and willing” to host that court, as well as registers of the damages caused by Russia’s invasion, echoing similar statements he made in December.
“Illegal wars cannot be unpunished,” Hoekstra said. “We will do everything in our power to ensure that Russia is held to account.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
KYIV — From the glass cage in a Kyiv courtroom, Roman Dudin professed his innocence loudly.
And he fumed at the unusual decision to prevent a handful of journalists from asking him questions during a break in the hearing.
The former Kharkiv security chief is facing charges of treason and deserting his post, allegations he and his supporters deny vehemently.
“Why can’t I talk with the press?” he bellowed. As he shook his close-cropped head in frustration, his lawyers, a handful of local reporters and supporters chorused his question. At a previous hearing Dudin had been allowed during a break to answer questions from journalists, in keeping with general Ukrainian courtroom practice, but according to his lawyers and local reporters, the presence of POLITICO appeared to unnerve authorities.
Suspiciously, too, the judge returned and to the courtroom’s surprise announced an unexpected adjournment, offering no reason. A commotion ensued as she left and further recriminations followed when court guards again blocked journalists from talking with Dudin.
***
Ukraine’s hunt for traitors, double agents and collaborators is quickening.
Nearly every day another case is publicized by authorities of alleged treason by senior members of the security and law-enforcement agencies, prosecutors, state industry employees, mayors and other elected officials.
Few Ukrainians — nor Western intelligence officials, for that matter — doubt that large numbers of top-level double agents and sympathizers eased the way for Russia’s invasion, especially in southern Ukraine, where they were able to seize control of the city of Kherson with hardly any resistance.
And Ukrainian authorities say they’re only getting started in their spy hunt for individuals who betrayed the country and are still undermining Ukraine’s security and defense.
Because of historic ties with Russia, the Security Service of Ukraine and other security agencies, as well as the country’s arms and energy industries, are known to be rife with spies. Since the 2013-14 Maidan uprising, which saw the ouster of Viktor Yanukovych, Moscow’s satrap in Ukraine, episodic sweeps and purges have been mounted.
As conflict rages the purges have become more urgent. And possibly more political as government criticism mounts from opposition politicians and civil society leaders. They are becoming publicly more censorious, accusing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his tight-knit team of using the war to consolidate as much power as possible.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said authorities were investigating more than 650 cases of suspected treason and aiding and abetting Russia by officials | Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
Last summer, Zelenskyy fired several high-level officials, including his top two law enforcement officials, prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova and security chief Ivan Bakanov, both old friends of his. In a national address, he said authorities were investigating more than 650 cases of suspected treason and aiding and abetting Russia by officials, including 60 who remained in territories seized by Russia and are “working against our state.”
“Such a great number of crimes against the foundations of national security and the connections established between Ukrainian law enforcement officials and Russian special services pose very serious questions,” he said.
***
But while there’s considerable evidence of treason and collaboration, there’s growing unease in Ukraine that not all the cases and accusations are legitimate.
Some suspect the spy hunt is now merging with a political witch hunt. They fear that the search may be increasingly linked to politicking or personal grudges or bids to conceal corruption and wrongdoing. But also to distract from mounting questions about government ineptitude in the run-up to the invasion by a revanchist and resentful Russia.
Among the cases prompting concern when it comes to possible concealment of corruption is the one against 40-year-old Roman Dudin. “There’s something wrong with this case,” Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, a former Ukrainian deputy prime minister and now opposition lawmaker, told POLITICO.
And that’s the view of the handful of supporters who were present for last week’s hearing. “This is a political persecution, and he’s a very good officer, honest and dignified,” said 50-year-old Irina, whose son, now living in Florida, served with Dudin. “He’s a politically independent person and he was investigating corruption involving the Kharkiv mayor and some other powerful politicians, and this is a way of stopping those investigations,” she argued.
Zelenskyy relieved Dudin of his duties last May, saying he “did not work to defend the city from the first days of the full-scale war.” But Dudin curiously wasn’t detained and charged for a further four months and was only arrested in September last year. Dudin’s lead lawyer, Oleksandr Kozhevnikov, says neither Zelenskyy nor his SBU superiors voiced any complaints about his work before he was fired.
“To say the evidence is weak is an understatement — it just does not correspond to reality. He received some awards and recognition for his efforts before and during the war from the defense ministry,” says Kozhevnikov. “When I agreed to consider taking the case, I told Roman if there was any hint of treason, I would drop it immediately — but I’ve found none,” he added.
The State Bureau of Investigation says Dudin “instead of organizing work to counter the enemy … actually engaged in sabotage.” It claims he believed the Russian “offensive would be successful” and hoped Russian authorities would treat him favorably due to his subversion, including “deliberately creating conditions” enabling the invaders to seize weapons and equipment from the security service bases in Kharkiv. In addition, he’s alleged to have left his post without permission, illegally ordered his staff to quit the region and of wrecking a secure communication system for contact with Kyiv.
But documents obtained by POLITICO from relevant Ukrainian agencies seem to undermine the allegations. One testifies no damage was found to the secure communication system; and a document from the defense ministry says Dudin dispersed weapons from the local SBU arsenal to territorial defense forces. “Local battalions are grateful to him for handing out weapons,” says Kozhevnikov.
And his lawyer says Dudin only left Kharkiv because he was ordered to go to Kyiv by superiors to help defend the Ukrainian capital. A geolocated video of Dudin in uniform along with other SBU officers in the center of Kyiv, ironically a stone’s throw from the Pechersk District Court, has been ruled by the judge as inadmissible. The defense has asked the judge to recuse herself because of academic ties with Oleh Tatarov, a deputy head of the presidential administration, but the request has been denied.
According to a 29-page document compiled by the defense lawyers for the eventual trial, Dudin and his subordinates seem to have been frantically active to counter Russia forces as soon as the first shots were fired, capturing 24 saboteurs, identifying 556 collaborators and carrying out reconnaissance on Russian troop movements.
Roman Dudin is facing charges of treason and allegations that he eased the way for Russian invaders | Jamie Dettmer for POLITICO
Timely information transmitted by the SBU helped military and intelligence units to stop an armored Russian column entering the city of Kharkiv, according to defense lawyers.
“The only order he didn’t carry out was to transfer his 25-strong Alpha special forces team to the front lines because they were needed to catch saboteurs,” says Kozhevnikov. “The timing of his removal is suspicious — it was when he was investigating allegations of humanitarian aid being diverted by some powerful politicians.”
***
Even before Dudin’s case there were growing doubts about some of the treason accusations being leveled — including vague allegations against former prosecutor Venediktova and former security chief Bakanov. Both were accused of failing to prevent collaboration by some within their departments. But abruptly in November, Venediktova was appointed Ukraine’s ambassador to Switzerland. And two weeks ago, the State Bureau of Investigation said the agency had found no criminal wrongdoing by Bakanov.
The clearing of both with scant explanation, after their humiliating and highly public sackings, has prompted bemusement. Although some SBU insiders do blame Bakanov for indolence in sweeping for spies ahead of the Russian invasion.
Treason often seems the go-to charge — whether appropriate or not — and used reflexively.
Last month, several Ukrainian servicemen were accused of treason for having inadvertently revealed information during an unauthorized mission, which enabled Russia to target a military airfield.
The servicemen tried without permission to seize a Russian warplane in July after its pilot indicated he wanted to defect. Ham-fisted the mission might have been, but lawyers say it wasn’t treasonable.
Spy hunt or witch hunt? With the word treason easily slipping off tongues these days in Kyiv, defense lawyers at the Pechersk District Court worry the two are merging.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
“There’s nothing new in this statement. The statement is a lot of handwaving,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor and expert on legal ethics at Washington University in St. Louis. “The problem is not with foundational ethics principles. The problem is there’s no accountability for violating the law. And there’s nothing in this statement that suggests the court even understands what the problem is.”
The statement, consisting of three pages of text and two pages of citations, was attached to a short letter that Roberts sent to Durbin declining to appear at a Senate Judiciary hearing on Supreme Court ethics.
“This statement aims to provide new clarity to the bar and to the public on how the Justices address certain recurring issues, and also seeks to dispel some common misconceptions,” the justices’ pronouncement says. It largely echoes previous commitments the justices have made about financial disclosures and recusal practices, and it says the justices “consult” various non-binding sources when faced with ethical issues.
The push for ethics reform at the Supreme Court is intensifying after recent revelations about Justice Clarence Thomas’ relationship with a Republican megadonor and Justice Neil Gorsuch’s sale of a property to the head of a law firm with business before the court.
Sens. Angus King (I-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced a bill Wednesday that would require the high court to adopt a code of conduct within a year. It’s a bipartisan boost for a court-reform movement that has largely been led by Democrats — though like prior efforts to enact a Supreme Court code of conduct, the bill has little chance of passage.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a longtime critic of the court’s ethics practices, derided the court’s latest attempt to assure Congress and the public that it can largely police itself.
“This new statement of principles has virtually no utility,” he said. “There is still no inbox to file a complaint, no process for fact finding, no way of making ethics determinations, and thus no way of holding justices accountable.”
Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, was a bit less confrontational, but said the high court’s response further demonstrates the need for court-reform legislation.
“I am surprised that the Chief Justice’s recounting of existing legal standards of ethics suggests current law is adequate and ignores the obvious,” Durbin said. “It is time for Congress to accept its responsibility to establish an enforceable code of ethics for the Supreme Court, the only agency of our government without it.”
The Supreme Court seldom comments publicly about its ethics practices.
In 2019, Justice Elena Kagan told a House subcommittee that Roberts was actively considering whether the court should adopt a formal ethics code.
“The chief justice is studying the question of whether to have a code of judicial conduct that’s applicable only to the United States Supreme Court,” Kagan told lawmakers at the time. “That has pros and cons, I’m sure, but it’s something that is being thought very seriously about.”
The court has provided no further update about the adoption of any ethics code since then, and Tuesday’s statement from the court seems to confirm that the effort petered out.
In fact, the new statement closely tracks a 2011 exposition from Roberts on the subject. Writing in his year-end report on the judiciary, he defended the lack of a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court. Like Roberts’ 2011 comments, Tuesday’s statement invokes the court’s “unique” qualities and institutional interests.
Before this week, the last time the justices issued a joint statement about their own ethics practices appears to have been in 1993, when seven justices published a “Statement of Recusal Policy” about cases that might involve attorneys in their families or law firms employing those relatives. The absence of two justices from that declaration appeared to stem not from disagreement but from the fact those jurists didn’t have relatives working as lawyers.
Two years before that, the court issued a resolution in which the justices agreed to abide by regulations on gifts and outside income adopted by the Judicial Conference of the United States, a body created by Congress to write rules for federal courts.
More recently, the court put out a rare joint statement deploring the disclosure to POLITICO of a draft majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. In the statement — issued in January and apparently on behalf of all nine justices — the court called the breach of confidentiality “a grave assault on the judicial process” and an “extraordinary betrayal of trust,” but also said the court had been unable to determine the source of the draft, which was largely identical to the majority opinion the court issued last June ending the federal constitutional right to abortion after nearly a half-century.
The decision overturning Roe and the recent string of ethics controversies — including reports of efforts to lobby justices through meals, vacations and social events — likely have contributed to declining public trust in the court. Only 37% of Americans have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the Supreme Court, according a new poll released Monday by NPR, PBS NewsHour and the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. That’s the lowest number since the poll began asking the question in 2018.
Clark, the legal ethics expert, said the court’s new statement on Tuesday has a face-saving quality to it, but will not accomplish what the justices appear to have intended.
“These folks are politicians. They’re absolutely politicians, so they apparently thought signing their names, all nine of them, to this two-plus-page statement was better than not doing it,” she said. “There’s no reason to think these folks are going to start being accountable until Congress takes some action. They’re going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the post-Watergate accountability world.”
Tuesday’s statement does raise one new issue not contained in previous court statements on ethics: fears for the justices’ safety.
“Judges at all levels face increased threats to personal safety. These threats are magnified with respect to Members of the Supreme Court, given the higher profile of the matters they address,” the justices wrote. “Recent episodes confirm that such dangers are not merely hypothetical. … Matters considered here concerning issues such as travel, accommodations, and disclosure may at times have to take into account security guidance.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said Parliament undisputedly has the legislative power over issues raised in pleas seeking legal sanction for same-sex marriage and pondered over the “interstices” left open for it to exercise its power and till what extent.
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud was faced with several consequential legal questions, such as adoption, succession, intestacy and laws governing pension and gratuity where a once legally-acknowledged spouse is the beneficiary, if it decides to legalise same-sex marriage.
The bench observed that if same-sex marriage is allowed, then the judicial interpretation, keeping in mind the consequential aspects, will not remain confined to the Special Marriage Act, 1954 and personal laws will also come into play.
“Now, the question which we really therefore have to pose is, if this is a power which is conferred specifically on Parliament, where does the court really exercise its jurisdiction. Which are those interstices which are left open for the court to exercise its powers,” the bench, also comprising Justices S K Kaul, S R Bhat, Hima Kohli and P S Narasimha, said.
Observing that there is no denying that there is a link between the 1954 Act and the personal laws of various religions, the bench said, “Therefore, you cannot confine to the Special Marriage Act and it has to go beyond it.”
On the fourth day of the hearing, senior advocate Saurabh Kirpal, who appeared in the court on behalf of the petitioners, vehemently pleaded for legal validation of same-sex marriage, saying seven per cent of the country’s GDP will be affected if the LGBTQIA++ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, pansexual, two-spirit, asexual and ally) are denied this fundamental right.
He said gay and lesbian people are also like heterosexuals and if their marriage is not registered here, they will leave for another country for better rights, and contended that it will be a “gay brain-drain”.
“There cannot be a situation where the court will say that it cannot give everything so it will give nothing,” Kirpal said.
Referring to the possible impact after validating same-sex marriage, the bench quipped, “Aren’t we taking too many legislative steps here? You are actually bringing in a contemporary (issue) when the intention was something else that time when the Special Marriage Act was enacted.”
It said the absence of a broader legislation covering a wider class of persons like the LGBTQIA community is not a ground to strike down that law.
The bench referred to section 21A of the Special Marriage Act, which provides certain reliefs to Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs or Jains in property and other related issues if they solemnise their marriages under the law, and said it is very specific and if the court has to make some provisions of reading it, it has to be consistent with other provisions.
The bench told senior advocate Menaka Guruswamy, who represented the petitioners, that suppose the top court substitutes the terms man and woman with “spouse” or “person” in section 4 of the Act, which deals with conditions relating to solemnisation of special marriages, the question will be can it “stop at that today”.
“Dr Guruswamy, the point really is that the fact that the canvas which is covered by these petitions also falls or does fall within the domain of Parliament is undisputed,” the CJI said, adding, “You cannot dispute the fact that Parliament has the legislative power over the canvas which is covered by these petitions, which is Entry 5 of the concurrent list,” the bench said.
Guruswamy contended that the Centre cannot come to the court and argue that this a matter for Parliament as when the fundamental rights of an individual are violated, he or she has the right to approach the court.
Referring to the 1997 Vishaka verdict that laid down the guidelines to handle cases of sexual harassment at workplace, the CJI said it was a classic example where the court laid down the framework pending the legislature coming up with a law in this regard.
“The test really is this — how far does the court go,” the bench said.
Referring to the submissions advanced by the petitioners, it said there is no doubt that adoption, succession and intestacy are matters governed by personal laws even today.
“My lords have been that north star, not just for LGBTQ rights, my lords have been the north star in many facets of fundamental rights pre the legislature walking the talk,” Guruswamy said.
She said the petitioners are not asking for anything special and are only asking for a workable interpretation of the Special Marriage Act.
“We are also part of ‘we the people’ and we are citizens of this country. The basic structure (of the Constitution) also belongs to us,” Guruswamy said.
The bench said the petitioners are right in asserting that marriage itself is a bouquet of rights and though they have identified three aspects — gratuity, provident fund and pension — “actually, it does not stop at that at all”.
It gave an example about the entitlement of one spouse upon the death of the other in a motor accident.
“How does the court today, if we have to go into this, avoid getting into other issues which are necessarily intrinsically interlinked to what you are arguing?” it asked.
Guruswamy argued that a declaration on recognising same-sex marriage would be the first step.
“How many times are we to play the follow-up? That is what worries us. Because if we are not to go into it just because it suits certain cases and that is the thorny issue … our job is to look at the workability, not only of what you are showing us illustratively…,” the bench said.
“May I bring to your attention section 21A, which is very specific, and is within the Special Marriage Act. Because if we have to make some provision of reading in under that Act, we have to make it consistent with the other provisions,” Justice Bhat said, adding, “The remit of this is very clear that you will revert to personal laws.”
The bench also said there is no denying that there is a link between the Special Marriage Act and personal laws.
During the day’s hearing, the bench heard the submissions advanced by several senior advocates, including Geeta Luthra, Anand Grover, Jayna Kothari, Guruswamy and Kirpal, who appeared for the petitioners.
The hearing, which would continue on Wednesday, witnessed two judges — Justices Kaul and Bhat — joining the proceedings virtually.
While hearing the arguments on April 20, the apex court had said it may be redefining the “evolving notion of marriage” as the next step after decriminalising consensual homosexual relationship will imply that same-sex people could live in a stable marriage-like relationship.
It had pondered over whether the relationship between a man and a woman is so fundamental to the Special Marriage Act that substituting them with the term “spouses” will amount to redoing the legislation.
Elaborately referring to its 2018 judgment that decriminalised consensual gay sex, the top court had said it led to a situation where two consenting homosexual adults can live in a marriage-like relationship and the next step could be to validate their relationship as marriage.
During the hearing on April 19, the apex court had said the State cannot discriminate against an individual on the basis of sexual characteristics over which the person has no control.
It had asserted that the Centre has no data to back up its claim that the concept of same-sex marriage is “elitist” or “urban”.
On April 18, the bench had made it clear that it will not go into personal laws governing marriages while deciding these pleas and said the very notion of a man and a woman, as referred to in the Special Marriage Act, is not “an absolute based on genitals”.
The Centre, in one of its affidavits filed in the apex court, termed the petitions a reflection of an “urban elitist” view for the purpose of social acceptance and said the recognition of a marriage is essentially a legislative function that the courts should refrain from adjudicating.
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron drew a connection between his country’s pension reform and Europe’s independence from other countries, during a televised address Monday evening.
“We are a people who intend to control and choose our destiny, who do not want to depend on anyone, neither on the forces of speculation, nor on foreign powers, nor on wills other than our own, and we are right,” Macron said during the 15-minute speech.
The French head of state’s TV appearance was the first time he has addressed the nation since he signed his contentious pension reform — which raises the retirement age from 62 to 64 — into law amid a prolonged political and social crisis.
The president’s reference to independence from “foreign powers” echoed controversial comments he made earlier this month in an interview with POLITICO and French daily Les Echos. On his way back from China, the French president created a stir by saying Europe should avoid being the United States’ follower — including on the matter of Taiwan’s security.
“One cannot declare its independence: It is built through ambitions, efforts at the national and European level, in terms of knowledge, research, attractiveness, technology, industry, defense. And it is also financed collectively through work,” Macron said Monday.
European and French independence, he added, is what will “allow us to obtain more justice” and decrease inequalities.
The bill was greenlit by the country’s top constitutional court on Friday, crushing hopes of opposition parties and unions that the reform could still be stopped.
The French president, who faces the prospect of a gridlocked parliament, said his government would focus on labor, law and justice, and “progress” in the coming months, with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne expected to present a more detailed roadmap next week.
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#Macron #doubles #French #independence #pension #reform #crisis
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
MOSCOW — A Russian court on Monday slapped opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza with 25 years in prison for treason and other claimed offenses.
Moscow City Court sentenced Kara-Murza to a penal colony for spreading “fake news” about the army and “cooperation with an undesirable organization,” as Russian President Vladimir Putin steps up his crackdown on dissent and Russian civil society. But the bulk of his sentence had to do with another, third charge: treason, in the first time anyone has been convicted on that count for making public statements containing publicly available information.
On the courthouse steps, British Ambassador Deborah Bronnert called the sentence for Kara-Murza, who holds both Russian and British citizenship, “shocking.” Her U.S. counterpart said the verdict was an attempt “to silence dissent in this country.”
The U.K. summoned the Russian ambassador after the conviction, with Foreign Secretary James Cleverly calling for Kara-Murza’s “immediate release.”
Upon traveling to Russia in April 2022, Kara-Murza was detained for disobeying police orders. From that moment the charges piled up: first for spreading “fake news” about the Russian armed forces, then for his participation in an “undesirable organization,” and last for treason, on account of three public speeches he gave in the U.S., Finland and Portugal. The charges, all of which Kara-Murza denies, were expanded to treason last October.
A close associate of the late opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated near the Kremlin in 2015, Kara-Murza was one of the last remaining prominent Putin critics still alive and walking free. But over the years he has ruffled many feathers as a main advocate for the Magnitsky Act, which long before the war called upon countries to target Russians involved in human rights violations and corruption.
The defense’s attempts to remove the judge — who is also on the Magnitsky list — were dismissed.
Kara-Murza continued to speak out against the Kremlin despite mounting personal risks, including what he described as poisonings by the Russian security services in 2015 and 2017, where he suddenly became ill, falling into a coma before eventually recovering.
Neither journalists nor high-ranking diplomats were allowed into the courtroom to witness the ruling and instead followed the sentencing on a screen.
Kara-Murza was in a glass cage, dressed in jeans and a gray blazer, with his mother and his lawyer standing outside of the cage. He smiled when the sentence was read out.
After the verdict Oleg Orlov, the co-chair of Russia’s oldest human rights group, Memorial, who himself is facing charges for “discrediting the Russian army,” drew a parallel with the Soviet Union, when “people were also jailed for words.” Kara-Murza compared the legal process to Stalin-era trials, in his appearance at court.
Kara-Murza’s lawyer Maria Eismont said the sentence was “a boost to his self esteem, the highest grade he could have gotten for his work as a politician and active citizen,” but added that there were serious concerns about his health.
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#Shocking #Putin #critic #handed #years #prison
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
