By: Hal McNulty

The Weekly Round-up: Putin’s arrest warrant, “Increasingly authoritarian” UK, Murderer sentencing

20 March 2023 by Hal McNulty

In the news

The ICC has issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin for the war crime of the unlawful deportation and transference of children. The Russian commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, has also been issued an arrest warrant. According to Ukrainian government figures, 16,266 children have been deported to Russia since the beginning of the war. Russia is not a member of the ICC and so it is unlikely that the suspects will be arraigned in court, but it will make international travel more difficult and place political pressure on the Russian government. This is the first instance of the court issuing an arrest warrant for the leader of one of the five permanent members of the UN security council.

Donald Trump told supporters on his social network Truth Social that he expects to be arrested on Tuesday and has urged them to stage mass protests. If indicted, Trump would be the first former US president to see criminal charges. The case concerns ‘hush money’ payments made through Trump’s lawyer to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. Once all the evidence has been taken, the grand jury will vote on whether to recommend criminal charges to the Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, who determines what charges he thinks he can prove beyond reasonable doubt, if any, but there is no deadline on this process. Trump promises to continue his campaign for the 2024 presidential nomination even if he is indicted. He also faces upcoming inquiries into his attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 election.

Suella Braverman has said she has been “encouraged” by “constructive” talks with the ECHR about changing the Rule 39 injunction process that blocked the Home Secretary deporting migrants in 2022. The UK Government has requested a higher legal threshold for any such injunction that may be imposed on future deportation flights, and advised the ECHR that the British judiciary has ruled the Rwanda deportation scheme lawful. A government source says changing the injunction is likely to prove a necessary step in getting the scheme “off the ground,” Braverman having vowed to enact it by the summer.

In other news

The Morrisons supermarket chain has been fined £3.5million after an employee died when he fell from the stairs during an epileptic seizure. Matthew Gunn suffered fatal head injuries at a Morrisons shop in Gloucestershire in September 2014. A jury found the company guilty of three health and safety charges. The management staff had been made aware of Gunn’s epilepsy but did not take adequate steps to prevent the danger, failing to move his locker to the ground floor so that he did not have to risk using the stairs. Gunn’s parents described the devastating impact that their son’s death had on their physical and mental health, as well as on their marriage.

CIVICUS Monitor, a global research organisation which rates countries’ democratic and civic values, has downgraded the “increasingly authoritarian” UK in its annual global index of civic freedoms. Because of the government’s introduction of restrictive legislation including those related to protests, the CIVICUS ‘People Power Under Attack 2022’ report downgraded the UK’s rating from “narrowed” to “obstructed,” a category which includes Poland, Hungary and South Africa. Highlighted legislation included the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act and the Public Order Bill (currently going through Parliament), which give the police additional powers to restrict the activities of protesters, and the group also point to the government’s “hostile rhetoric” towards migrants and human rights campaigner groups.

The White House said Joe Biden spoke to Benjamin Netanyahu about his government’s plan to reform Israel’s judicial system. The prime minister has described the overhaul as necessary to rebalance a power structure which prevents legislators from enacting the voting public’s will, while the US president “underscored his belief … that democratic societies are strengthened by genuine checks and balances.” Opponents of the proposed measures have staged a series of large-scale protests in which members of the military elite have participated.

The Ministry of Justice has announced plans to increase sentences for murderers with a history of coercive behaviour or who use excessive violence towards their victims. The proposals come after recommendations from barrister Clare Wade, who criticised the current sentencing guidelines for failing to take into account the history of abuse that precedes many domestic murders. The government also plans to review manslaughter sentencing in ‘rough sex’ cases.

The Weekly Round-up: Shamima Begum, UN resolution against Russia, and new law on Child marriages

27 February 2023 by Hal McNulty

In the news

The UN General Assembly backed a resolution condemning Russia’s actions and calling for an end to the war on Thursday, the eve of the anniversary of the invasion. With 141 supporters, 32 abstentions and seven voting against, the resolution reiterated the UN’s support for Ukraine and called for a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace.” Abstentions included China, India and South Africa, while Russia, North Korea and Syria were among those voting against. General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding but carry great political weight, and the UN Security Council is obstructed from action by Russia’s veto. On the same day in Vienna, a large number of delegates walked out of a parliamentary assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in protest against Austria’s decision to give visas to Russian officials.

Leading supermarkets in the UK have introduced customer limits on purchases of fruits and vegetables. According to the British Retail Consortium, the shortages are expected to last a few weeks until reliance on imports from Spain and north Africa is counteracted by the start of the UK growing season. Tom Bradshaw, one of the leaders of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), has called for the UK to “take command” of its supply chains. Citing Brexit, the Ukraine War, and climate change, the NFU wants the government to use the powers granted it by the Agriculture Act 2020 to address exceptional market conditions.  

The Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Wage) Act comes into force on Monday. Campaigners argued that the previous position of the law, which permitted 16- and 17- year-olds to marry with parental consent, was being exploited to coerce young people into child marriages for religious or cultural reasons. The new law will automatically recognise those married under the age of 18 as victims of forced marriages, carrying a sentence of up to seven years in prison for those responsible. The legislation also applies to non-legally binding ceremonies. This law does not apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where the minimum marriage age will remain 16.

In other news

• Ex-Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein has been sentenced by a Los Angeles court to an additional 16 years in prison for rape. Weinstein was convicted of attacking an actress in a hotel room in February 2013. He denied the charge, telling the court his accuser was “an actress with the ability to turn on her tears” and begged for leniency: “please don’t sentence me to life in prison, I don’t deserve it.” The 70-year-old had already been serving a 23-year sentence in New York for another conviction.  

• Dominic Raab has announced that rules barring transgender women with male genitalia or those who had committed violent or sexual offences from female prisons in England and Wales apply from Monday. The news follows the recent case of Isla Bryson, the transgender woman convicted of two counts of rape who was subsequently remanded to a woman’s prison in Scotland, the media outcry against which prompted the Scottish Prison Service to announce an “urgent review” of transgender inmates.

The Weekly Round-up: Nadhim Zahawi, Windrush reforms, and accommodation for vulnerable children

29 January 2023 by Hal McNulty

In the news

Nadhim Zahawi has been sacked from the Cabinet after making what he calls a “careless and not deliberate” mistake with his taxes. He reportedly paid a 30% penalty fee on top of the money owed to HMRC in connection with his use of an offshore company to hold shares in the polling company YouGov. The Prime Minister had been resisting calls to fire his Minister Without Portfolio, who also serves as Chairman of the Conservative Party, until the independent advisor tasked to investigate the issue made clear that there had been a “serious breach of the ministerial code.” Zahawi’s lawyers had been attempting to obstruct journalists exposing that he was being investigated over his tax affairs with threats of legal action.

Another investigation is being launched by the BBC into the hiring of its current chairman, Richard Sharp. The Tory donor allegedly helped Boris Johnson secure a large loan soon before being recommended by the then prime minister for the job. Sharp has denied he was involved in making the loan, claiming that he had “simply connected” people. The Labour Party has called for a parliamentary investigation into the allegations.