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India’s Supreme Court strikes down law that punished gay sex
Court Watch |
2018/09/07 15:17
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India’s Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a colonial-era law that made gay sex punishable by up to 10 years in prison, a landmark victory for gay rights that one judge said would “pave the way for a better future.”
The 1861 law, a relic of Victorian England that hung on long after the end of British colonialism, was a weapon used to discriminate against India’s gay community, the judges ruled in a unanimous decision.
“Constitutional morality cannot be martyred at the altar of social morality,” Chief Justice Dipak Misra said, reading the verdict. “Social morality cannot be used to violate the fundamental rights of even a single individual.”
As the news spread, the streets outside the courthouse erupted in cheers as opponents of the law danced and waved flags.
“We feel as equal citizens now,” said activist Shashi Bhushan. “What happens in our bedroom is left to us.”
In its ruling, the court said sexual orientation was a “biological phenomenon” and that discrimination on that basis violated fundamental rights.
“We cannot change history but can pave a way for a better future,” said Justice D.Y. Chandrachud.
The law known as Section 377 held that intercourse between members of the same sex was against the order of nature. The five petitioners who challenged the law said it was discriminatory and led to gays living in fear of harassment and persecution.
Jessica Stern, the executive director of the New York-based rights group OutRight Action International, said the original law had reverberated far beyond India, including in countries where gay people still struggle for acceptance.
“The sodomy law that became the model everywhere, from Uganda to Singapore to the U.K. itself, premiered in India, becoming the confusing and dehumanizing standard replicated around the world,” she said in a statement, saying “today’s historic outcome will reverberate across India and the world.”
The court’s ruling struck down the law’s sections on consensual gay sex, but let stand segments that deal with such issues as bestiality. |
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Court: Cities can't prosecute people for sleeping on streets
Court Watch |
2018/09/05 23:16
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to cruel and unusual punishment, which is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court said Tuesday.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with six homeless people from Boise, Idaho, who sued the city in 2009 over a local ordinance that banned sleeping in public spaces. The ruling could affect several other cities across the U.S. West that have similar laws.
It comes as many places across the West Coast are struggling with homelessness brought on by rising housing costs and income inequality.
When the Boise lawsuit was filed, attorneys for the homeless residents said as many as 4,500 people didn't have a place to sleep in Idaho's capital city and homeless shelters only had about 700 available beds or mats. The case bounced back and forth in the courts for years, and Boise modified its rules in 2014 to say homeless people couldn't be prosecuted for sleeping outside when shelters were full.
But that didn't solve the problem, the attorneys said, because Boise's shelters limit the number of days that homeless residents can stay. Two of the city's three shelters also require some form of religious participation for some programs, making those shelters unsuitable for people with different beliefs, the homeless residents said.
The three-judge panel for the 9th Circuit found that the shelter rules meant homeless people would still be at risk of prosecution even on days when beds were open. The judges also said the religious programming woven into some shelter programs was a problem.
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German court rules in broadcaster Nazi camp spat with Poland
Court Watch |
2018/08/21 01:06
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A German court has ruled that public broadcaster ZDF can’t be forced to post a specifically worded apology demanded by a Polish court for erroneously calling two World War II Nazi camps “Polish death camps.”
ZDF used that wording in reference to the Majdanek and Auschwitz death camps in advertising a 2013 documentary. After the Polish Embassy in Berlin objected, it changed the text to “German death camps on Polish territory.”
A Polish citizen who was a former inmate of Auschwitz and the Flossenbuerg concentration camp then launched a legal battle with ZDF, which twice apologized to him for the initial error and later published an apology.
In 2016, the plaintiff secured a ruling from a court in Krakow, Poland, ordering ZDF to post on its website for one month an apology stating that the original wording was “an incorrect formulation that distorts the history of the Polish people.” The broadcaster did publish the text from Dec. 2016 to Jan. 2017, but the plaintiff considered its compliance unsatisfactory and sought to have the Polish ruling legally enforced.
Lower German courts ruled that the verdict can be enforced in Germany. But the Federal Court of Justice said that it disagreed because the required formulation would violate the broadcaster’s right to freedom of opinion.
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Court document details moments before fatal police shooting
Court Watch |
2018/08/15 17:49
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Investigators say a man fired gunshots into a bedroom wall and pointed a gun at his roommate before he was fatally shot by St. Paul police.
A search warrant filed Tuesday by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension contains details about the moments leading up to the fatal police shooting on Aug. 5.
The document says William "Billy" Hughes became angry and fired two or three gunshots into a wall in his apartment before pointing a gun at his roommate's head. The Star Tribune says the roommate fled and called police.
The warrant says relatives told investigators Hughes had been suicidal over a terminal illness that limited his quality of life.
The bureau has said Hughes was shot after police knocked on one of the apartment's doors and he came out another. The agency continues its investigation.
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Court, regulators clash over uranium project in South Dakota
Court Watch |
2018/08/12 16:51
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Federal regulators recently abandoned a proposed survey of Native American cultural resources at a planned uranium mine site in the southwest part South Dakota, just days before a judge decided the survey is required by federal law.
The contradictory actions could further complicate and prolong a regulatory review process that is already nearly a decade old, the Rapid City Journal reported.
Powertech (USA) Inc., a subsidiary of Canada-based Azarga Uranium, wants to develop a mine 13 miles northwest of Edgemont, on the remote southwestern edge of the Black Hills. The project is named "Dewey-Burdock," for two old town sites in the area.
The uranium would be mined by the "in situ" method, which involves drilling dozens of wells across a wide area. A liquid solution is pumped underground to dissolve the uranium and bring it to the surface, so it can be processed for use in nuclear power plants.
Contention over the potential presence of Native American burial sites, artifacts and other cultural resources within the 17-square-mile area of the proposed mine has been ongoing since Powertech applied to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license in 2009. Nevertheless, the commission granted the license in 2014, even as a dispute about the lack of an adequate cultural resources survey was still pending before the commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.
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Supreme Court examines Kentucky's medical review panels
Court Watch |
2018/08/10 16:52
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After Ezra Claycomb was born with severe brain damage and cerebral palsy, his mother considered filing a medical malpractice lawsuit. But in 2017, Kentucky's Republican-controlled legislature passed a law requiring all such lawsuits first be reviewed by a panel of doctors.
The law gave the panel nine months to issue an opinion on whether the lawsuit is frivolous — yet section 14 of Kentucky's Constitution says every person has access to the courts "without ... delay."
Claycomb's parents sued to block the new law, making Kentucky the latest state to have its medical review panels challenged in court.
A circuit judge agreed the law was unconstitutional. But Republican Gov. Matt Bevin appealed that decision to the state Supreme Court, which heard arguments Wednesday.
"This is a modern day version of the poll tax," said attorney J. Guthrie True, who represents Claycomb in a lawsuit he says has class action status to represent all patients. "This has one purpose, and that is to obstruct the courthouse door."
Matthew Kuhn, an attorney for the governor, said the state Constitution's ban on delaying access to the courts only applies to the court system itself. It does not apply to the legislature, which he says has the power to impose rules on the court system. He noted Kentucky has other laws that limit when people can file lawsuits. For example, heirs wanting to sue the executor of an estate must wait at least six months after the executor has been appointed before they can do so. Kuhn says that law has never been challenged.
Kuhn said the medical review process is helpful because it gets the two sides talking before a lawsuit is filed, which could jumpstart settlement discussions. It also makes sure both sides have all the evidence collected before they go to a judge. |
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Child remains found at New Mexico compound, man due in court
Court Watch |
2018/08/09 16:52
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For months, neighbors worried about a squalid compound built along a remote New Mexico plain, saying they brought their concerns to authorities long before sheriff's officials first found 11 hungry children on the lot, and then the remains of a small boy.
Two men and three women also had been living at the compound, and were arrested following a raid Friday that came as officials searched for a missing Georgia boy with severe medical issues.
Medical examiners still must confirm whether the body found at the property in a second search on Monday is that of Abdul-ghani Wahhaj, who was 3 in December when police say his father took him from his mother in Jonesboro, Georgia.
The boy's father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, was among those arrested in the compound raid that has since resulted in the series of startling revelations on the outskirts of Amalia, a tiny town near the Colorado state line marked by scattered homes and sagebrush. Authorities said they found the father armed with multiple firearms, including an assault rifle.
Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was scheduled to appear in court Wednesday on a warrant from Georgia that seeks his extradition to face a charge of abducting his son from that state last December. He had expressed wanting to perform an exorcism on his son, the warrant said.
The group arrived in Amalia in December, with enough money to buy groceries and construction supplies, according to Tyler Anderson, a 41-year-old auto mechanic who lives nearby.
He said Tuesday he helped the newcomers install solar panels after they arrived but eventually stopped visiting. |
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