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French court restores far-right candidate's ties to father
Court Watch |
2016/11/16 10:37
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French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen thought she had cut the political cord with her controversial father by expelling him from the far-right party he founded, but a court ruled Thursday Jean-Marie Le Pen still is the National Front's honorary president.
While campaigning in next spring's presidential election, Marine Le Pen has worked to smooth her image and distance herself from her father's extremist views and anti-Semitic comments. Kicking him out of the party was part of her strategy.
The civil court outside that heard Jean-Marie Le Pen's reinstatement claim upheld the National Front's decision last year to expel him as a rank-and-file member. But the court also ruled that the 88-year-old firebrand can remain the party's honorary president.
As a result, the court ordered the National Front to summon the elder Le Pen to any high-level party meetings and to give him voting rights as an ex-officio member of all the party's governing bodies.
"No statutory provisions specify that the honorary president must be a member of the National Front," the judges said.
The court sentenced the party to pay Jean-Marie Le Pen 23,000 euros ($24,500) in damages and lawyers' fee.
"This can be called a success," his lawyer, Frederic Joachim, told reporters after the ruling was returned.
Joachim had asked the court for 2 million euros ($2.1 million) in damages because "it's a political life they tried to destroy at home and to cast scorn on abroad."
The party's lawyers didn't immediately comment on the ruling, which both sides can appeal.
The National Front ousted the party patriarch for a series of comments, including referring to Nazi gas chambers as a "detail" of World War II history.
Le Pen contends his comments were protected by freedom of expression, though he has been sentenced repeatedly in France for inciting racial hatred and denying crimes against humanity. |
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UK court brings Brexit plans screeching to halt
Court Watch |
2016/11/04 15:51
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Britain's High Court brought government plans for leaving the European Union screeching to a halt Thursday, ruling that the prime minister can't trigger the U.K.'s exit from the bloc without parliamentary approval.
The government said it would go to the Supreme Court to challenge the ruling, which if upheld could prevent it starting exit talks by March 31 as planned.
The pound, which has lost about a fifth of its value since the June 23 decision to leave the EU, shot back up on the verdict, rising 1.1 percent to $1.2430.
Britons voted by a margin of 52 to 48 percent to exit the EU, a process known as "Brexit." Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will invoke Article 50 of the EU treaty, launching two years of exit negotiations, by the end of March.
Several claimants, including a hairdresser and a financial entrepreneur, challenged May's right to trigger Brexit, in a case with major constitutional implications that hinges on the balance of power between Parliament and the government. They argued that leaving the EU will remove rights, including free movement within the bloc, and that can't be done without Parliament's approval.
Three senior judges agreed, ruling that "the government does not have the power under the Crown's prerogative to give notice pursuant to Article 50 for the U.K. to withdraw from the European Union."
The judges backed the claimants' argument that "the Crown could not change domestic law and nullify rights under the law unless Parliament had conferred upon the Crown authority to do so."
The British government immediately said it would appeal the judgment. It said in a statement that Britons voted to leave the bloc in a referendum approved by an Act of Parliament, "and the government is determined to respect the result of the referendum."
The Supreme Court has set aside time to hear the appeal before the end of the year. The case is considered the most important constitutional matter in a generation. |
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Supreme Court won't hear challenge to FBI fitness test
Court Watch |
2016/11/03 15:51
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The Supreme Court won't hear a dispute over whether a physical fitness test for FBI special agents is biased against men.
The justices on Monday turned down an appeal from an Illinois man who failed the test after completing 29 out of 30 untimed pushups.
Jay Bauer said it's unfair that female trainees have to do only 14 pushups as part of the fitness test that includes situps, a 300-meter sprint and 1.5-mile run.
A federal judge ruled that the test discriminates on the basis of sex. But a federal appeals court sided with the FBI, saying it used "gender-normed" standards that require the same level of fitness for all trainees.
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Kansas high court justices defend handling of capital cases
Court Watch |
2016/11/02 15:52
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Four Kansas Supreme Court justices facing a campaign to oust them in the Nov. 8 election say the court has decided capital murder cases on legal and constitutional issues while avoiding politics and emotion.
Past high court rulings overturning death sentences are at the center of the effort to remove Chief Justice Lawton Nuss and Justices Carol Beier, Dan Biles and Marla Luckert. They face statewide yes-or-no votes on whether they stay on the court for another six years.
The court's critics are particularly upset about July 2014 rulings overturning death sentences for Jonathan and Reginald Carr. The two brothers had faced lethal injection for shooting four people in December 2000 after forcing them to perform sex acts and robbing them. Among other things, the court concluded that fairness required the brothers to be sentenced separately.
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Solar Advocates Ask Florida High Court to Invalidate Measure
Court Watch |
2016/11/02 15:51
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Solar advocates are asking Florida's high court to invalidate Amendment 1, a ballot measure they argue is misleading, and throw out votes cast for it.
The legal challenge was filed Wednesday with the Florida Supreme Court.
It comes after a leading proponent of Amendment 1 was recorded saying that the measure was written to appear pro-solar, even though it could end up restricting solar growth in Florida by raising costs.
Solar advocates are asking the court to revisit a previous ruling which found that Amendment 1's language was not misleading.
Sarah Bascom, spokeswoman for a utility-funded group that supports the amendment, called the legal challenge "political grandstanding" and said the amendment will protect consumers.
Amendment 1 seeks to change the state constitution to say consumers shouldn't "subsidize" solar growth. |
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Supreme Court gives new chance to 5 Arizona inmates
Court Watch |
2016/11/01 15:52
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The Supreme Court is ordering Arizona judges to reconsider life sentences with no chance of parole for five inmates who were convicted of murder for crimes they committed before they turned 18.
The court on Monday said the state judges did not pay sufficient attention to high court rulings that held that life sentences for young killers should be imposed only rarely.
The state courts ruled in all five Arizona cases before the Supreme Court's most recent ruling on juvenile sentences in January.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented from Monday's order. |
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Cook County, Illinois, lawyer who posed as judge charged
Court Watch |
2016/10/24 01:39
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impersonating a judge when she was a court staff attorney early this year, prosecutors announced Friday.
Rhonda Crawford, 45, is accused of donning a robe in Cook County traffic court on Aug. 11, months after she won the Democratic primary for a judgeship. She is charged with misdemeanor false impersonation and felony official misconduct, which carries a maximum five-year prison term.
Crawford was a shoo-in to win the Nov. 8 until news that she briefly played a judge drew ridicule and condemnation among those who practice law in Cook County, one of the nation's largest judicial districts with its some 400 judges.
In announcing the charges, County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said judges are "at the heart of our criminal justice system."
"Crawford's conduct in this case was offensive to the integrity of our system and cannot be excused or ignored as a mere lapse in judgment," Alvarez said in statement from her office.
Crawford, who became an attorney in 2003, appeared at an initial hearing Friday, when a judge set a personal recognizance bond at $10,000. A message left for her lawyer, Victor Henderson, wasn't returned. He has previously described the incident as, at worst, "a minor infraction."
Crawford told reporters last month she had been shadowing judges to observe how they work when Judge Valarie E. Turner asked in a spur-of-the-moment offer if she wanted to sit on the bench. Crawford did for about five minutes and didn't think anyone believed she was a real judge.
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