Hopefully, the jurors will agree: On Michael Cohen's testimony: "The Trump defense is that everyone in the Trump organization was a criminal and a liar and a crook, except for the boss, who was not." -D Frum #TFG#Justice#RuleOfLaw#GOPConspirators
Despite Trudi Warner's case for contempt of court (for holding a placard reminding a jury of its ability to acquit on moral grounds in a climate protest case) being thrown out by the UK High Court because it was 'fanciful', the Tory Solicitor General Robert Courts has decided to appeal the decision.
Three climate activists have been found guilty under the new law that seeks to repress protests that interfere with key national infrastructure.
With the jury instructed to ignore the defendants' reasoning behind their actions its perhaps unsurprising they were found guilty... all a bit ironic given the unseasonal heat in the court room.
Sentencing is to come & will show how serious an impact the law may have... but its not going to be good!
Having wrongly imprisoned Andrew Malkinson (and only releasing him after nearly two decades), for having the audacity to prove the justice system wrong, the state (and justice system) seems to be going out of its way to make his life difficult.
Read his account & you get the feeling that that state has a vindictive interest in punishing its victim(s) for bringing the justice system into ill-repute.
Reform is needed of this unjust 'compensation' system.
Nadhim Zahawi's lawyer has been referred to Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal by the Solicitors Regulation Authority over the use of legal means (the SLAPP) to try to silence Dan Neidle who was looking into Zahawi's tax affairs - Neildle you recall resisted the pressure & was vindicated when Zahawi was sacked.
While the SRA has investigated a number of SLAPPs, this is the first case which has then resulted in referral to the SDT.
'AI can do wonderful things. But civil rights can’t exist in a world of hidden calculations. Just as with a lawyer or doctor, we must have AI that acts in our self-interest. AI needs a constitution — or more accurately, we need a constitution that defines access to artificial intelligence acting solely on our behalf as a civil right'!
We need an constitution for AI not an AI manifesto!
"Top NYT Editor Offers Stunning Defense of Coverage of Trump."
"The failure to clearly describe Trump's plan to cancel prosecutions of himself & other elements of his legal strategy as threats to the system itself, that is, as efforts to put himself above the law."
GOP leaders do #TFG's bidding. The #RuleOfLaw will disappear if Biden isn't reelected:
#MAGAMike announced that Congress, on behalf of TFG, is going to use every power available to him/colleagues to nullify America’s court system.
“Trump has done nothing wrong here & he continues to be the target of endless lawfare -has to stop. & you’re gonna see Congress address this in every possible way that we can, bc we need accountability -all these cases need to be dropped..." https://hartmannreport.com/p/why-america-needs-to-know-about-trump
As Kenan Malik concludes, the Imprisonment for Public Protection 'regime provides a morbid illustration of how the moralising of social problems can lead politicians to leverage cruelty as a social good'!
Malik argues (correctly to my mind) that the IPP punishment logic was (and is) indicative of how our political class see moral failings not social situations as the driver of behaviour... a morality that they see themselves as guardians of!
The evidence of the callousness & mendacity of the various parties who persecuted & destroyed the lives of sub-postmasters gets more extensive by the week... these people should be prosecuted & locked-up for what they have done....
Its a picture of how the institutions of power in this country have a complete contempt for those who they think are obstructing them.
The SEC must be allowed to hold the corrupt trading firms responsible:
After 14 yrs of debate, the SEC is in the final stages of bringing a powerful new surveillance tool fully online. WS is attempting to kill it.
The Consolidated Audit Trail is a database that's set to revolutionize how the agency monitors trading activity & spots potential misconduct. By its May 31 IDU compliance deadline, it'll collect almost all US trading data.
Who in their right mind would now conclude any agreement with the London Govt?
Despite an agreement (from 2020) that the UK would accept returned asylum seekers, (now facilitated by legislation designating the UK a 'safe country') Ireland wants to repatriate some, only Rishi Sunak is refusing.
Quite apart from the morality & (in)humanity of the Tories migrant policies (which is bad enough), now he's also further trashing our reputation for keeping to agreements.
The jury provides hope for #justice. And state charges can't be pardoned by #TFG:
"To juries under solemn oath, evidence matters *use common sense to deliver convictions when prosecutors present evidence proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt -seen it In cases involving every Trump-related criminal defendant. In Manafort’s prosecution, a juror left her MAGA hat in her car along with her pol preferences-voted to convict Manafort bc evidence was overwhelming."
Actually I did enjoy the #maastrichtdebate2024 - though I have enjoyed listening to some more than to others. The European #Federalists were present, not just as the proclaimed enemy of ID, the European Pillar of #SocialRights could have been more present and the #ruleoflaw part sharper. For a longer thread follow @jon and the hashtag #maastrichtdebate
Amazing that, even at his age, Alito can stand on his head to read the law.
"One particularly notable hypothetical came from Alito, who raised the prospect that an outgoing president who loses a closely contested race but fears indictment upon leaving office might try to remain in power, creating 'a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy. ' ”
#Alito seems to assume the prosecution of #Tfg (or any former president) will be corrupt and political, but doesn’t deal with the real (and probable) situation that actual crimes were committed that require invoking the #ruleoflaw .
I don’t think that the right wing members of the U.S. Supreme Court in general have pushed Michael Dreeben nearly as hard as I thought they would. (So far.) That may bode well for the U.S. Or it may not.
#MichaelDreeben is one of the brightest legal minds in the US. He would have made a great #scotus justice and thankfully is on the right side of the #ruleoflaw. I have not seen a single sitting justice lay a glove on him yet.
Well, that didn't take long.... less than a day after the US FTC moved to ban non-compete contracts, a business coalition led by US Chambers of Commerce has launched a legal challenge to the ban....
So for those who have argued that these non-compete clauses are not really enforceable, the argument that business still like them as a scare tactic seems to hold true - they want to be able to still deploy them (accepting that the legal aspects are different in the USA & UK)
> The blanket suspension of student protesters casts “serious doubt on the University’s respect for the rule-of-law values that we teach,” 54 law professors wrote.
As @davidallengreen forcefully argues the Rule of Law is as dependent on our assumptions about it as its actual enforcement;
we expect the law to be upheld even if mostly we just conduct ourselves as if it would be, in extremis, with little experience of it actually being upheld.
The ongoing crisis in the County Court system, which is seeing the enforcement fail for myriad reasons, will thus, in the long term poison the well of our belief in the law!