|
|
|
Pakistan leader moves to disband parliament, his jailed nemesis seeks release
Lawyer World News |
2023/08/07 12:43
|
Pakistan’s prime minister said Wednesday he is moving toward dissolving parliament, starting a possible countdown to a general election, as his chief political rival fought to overturn a corruption conviction that landed him in a high-security prison over the weekend.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told lawmakers that he would seek approval from Pakistan’s president to disband the national assembly as its five-year term ends. With such an approval, a formality, a general election would typically have to be held within 90 days.
This year there’s a twist, though. A delay until the spring is possible if Pakistan’s election commission opts for redistricting ahead of an election, based on the results of a recent census.
The uncertainty over the election date coincides with the legal and political drama surrounding Sharif’s predecessor, Imran Khan. The 70-year-old popular opposition leader was convicted by an Islamabad court over the weekend of concealing assets and was immediately sentenced to three years in prison.
Khan has appealed the conviction which effectively removes him from the election campaign, at a time when his party seemed to be doing well in the polls.
The Islamabad High Court, where his appeal is being heard, said Wednesday that it wants to hear from the government and Pakistan’s election commission before making a decision on whether to overturn the conviction and order Khan’s release.
The commission last year disqualified Khan from holding public office for five years, accusing him of unlawfully selling state gifts and concealing assets as premier. Khan was notified of his disqualification again on Tuesday following his sentencing. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Texas is using disaster declarations to install buoys and razor wire
Lawyer World News |
2023/07/25 12:23
|
Wrecking ball-sized buoys on the Rio Grande. Razor wire strung across private property without permission. Bulldozers changing the very terrain of America’s southern border.
For more than two years, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has escalated measures to keep migrants from entering the U.S., pushing legal boundaries with a go-it-alone bravado along the state’s 1,200-mile (1,930-kilometer) border with Mexico. Now blowback over the tactics is widening, including from within Texas.
A state trooper’s account of officers denying migrants water in 100-degree Fahrenheit (37.7 Celsius) temperatures and razor wire leaving asylum-seekers bloodied has prompted renewed criticism. The Mexican government, some Texas residents along the border and the Biden administration are pushing back. On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department sued Abbott over the buoy barrier that it says raises humanitarian and environmental concerns, asking a federal court to require Texas to dismantle it.
bbott, who cruised to a third term in November while promising tougher border crackdowns, has used disaster declarations as the legal bedrock for some measures.
Critics call that a warped view. “There are so many ways that what Texas is doing right now is just flagrantly illegal,” said David Donatti, an attorney for the Texas American Civil Liberties Union.
Abbott did not respond to requests for comment. He has repeatedly attacked President Joe Biden’s border policies, tweeting Friday that they “encourage migrants to risk their lives crossing illegally through the Rio Grande, instead of safely and legally over a bridge.”
The Biden administration has said illegal border crossings have declined significantly since new immigration rules took effect in May. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Judge weighs Missouri GOP dispute over estimated cost of allowing abortions
Lawyer World News |
2023/06/20 11:10
|
Two top Republican state officials argued Wednesday over how much it would cost Missouri to restore the right to abortion, with the state attorney general insisting that the figure should account for lost revenue that wouldn’t be collected from people who otherwise would be born.
The issue came up during a trial over a proposed ballot measure that would let voters decide in 2024 whether to amend the state constitution to guarantee abortion rights.
Abortions were almost completely banned in Missouri following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. There are exceptions for medical emergencies, but not for cases of rape or incest.
Supporters are trying to put a proposed amendment before voters next year that would protect abortion rights and pregnant women, as well as access to birth control.
But the effort stalled in April because of a spat between Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick and newly appointed Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who argues that the cost could be far greater than what his Republican peer estimated.
ACLU of Missouri lawyer Tony Rothert told Beetem on Wednesday that his clients at the abortion rights campaign are stuck in limbo because the two officeholders are at an impasse, and that the campaign can’t begin collecting voter signatures without an official fiscal note.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Delaware Senate confirms two Supreme Court nominees
Lawyer World News |
2023/05/04 17:37
|
The state Senate has confirmed Gov. John Carney’s two nominees for the Delaware Supreme Court, including a lawyer tapped by Carney for the high court after he was arrested for drunken driving.
Carney’s nominations of Abigail LeGrow and N. Christopher Griffiths were confirmed Wednesday with no support from Senate Republicans. Despite Griffiths’ DUI arrest in January, GOP lawmakers were primarily outraged that, for the first time in decades, there will be no resident of Kent County on the state’s highest court.
“The governor of this great state threw us under the bus,” said Sen. Eric Buckson, a Kent County Republican.
Senate Minority Whip Brian Pettyjohn of Georgetown described Carney’s decision to forego nominating a justice from central Delaware as “insulting.”
Last week, members of the Democrat-controlled House unanimously passed a bipartisan bill mandating that the five-member Supreme Court include at least one justice from central Kent County, one from southern Sussex County, and two from northern New Castle County. The state Senate declined to take up the bill before voting on Carney’s nominees. Two Dover-area Democratic senators who cosponsored the bill, Trey Paradee and Kyra Hoffner, voted Wednesday to confirm Carney’s picks.
“Judge LeGrow and Chris have the experience, knowledge, and commitment to public service necessary to serve on the Supreme Court,” Carney said in a statement issued after they were confirmed.
Before the Senate vote, Pettyjohn questioned Griffiths during a Senate Executive Committee hearing about the traffic stop that led to his arrest, but Griffiths offered few details.
“The bottom line is this, I had too much to drink, and I should not have drove,” said Griffiths, who said he complied with the trooper who stopped him.
Griffiths, who will be the first black man to serve on the Supreme Court, also indicated that he feared that the trooper, whom he nevertheless described as “a complete gentleman,” might physically abuse him because of his race.
“I’m a black man driving around in lower Delaware at a mostly white beach, and I want to go home to my family,” Griffiths said. “There’s a lot of things in the national news that are burned in our minds and our hearts, and I wanted that officer to know “we’re on the same team.’”
“I have images in my brain from the biases I bring to that situation of, man, I want to make sure I go home tonight. I want to make sure there’s not a knee in my back but that I go home alive,” Griffiths added.
Griffiths pleaded guilty in March to reckless driving that was alcohol-related, an offense he compared to “a simple traffic ticket.” He was fined and ordered to complete an education course for those charged with driving under the influence.
LeGrow and Griffiths replace Tamika R. Montgomery-Reeves, who now sits on a federal appeals court, and Justice James T. Vaughn Jr., a Kent County resident who retired effective this week.
LeGrow has served as Superior Court judge since February 2016. She previously served as a Master in Chancery on the Delaware Court of Chancery. LeGrow received her law degree from the Pennsylvania State University. Griffiths has been a partner at the Wilmington law firm of Connolly Gallagher, which also employs Democratic state Sen. Kyle Evans Gay. He previously was a wealth manager for Wilmington Trust Company and the Vanguard Group. Griffiths, who received his law degree from Villanova University, is the son of Norman Griffiths, a retired DuPont attorney who served 20 years on the Wilmington City Council. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Justices to consider case involving fishing boat monitor pay
Lawyer World News |
2023/05/01 18:06
|
The U.S. Supreme Court will take up the subject of who pays for workers who gather valuable data aboard commercial fishing boats.
Justices announced Monday that they will take the case, which stems from a lawsuit by a group of fishermen who want to stop the federal government from making them pay for the workers. The workers are tasked with collecting data on board fishing vessels to help inform rules and regulations.
The fishermen involved in the lawsuit harvest Atlantic herring, which is a major fishery off the East Coast that supplies both food and bait. Lead plaintiff Loper Bright Enterprises of New Jersey and other fishing groups have said federal rules unfairly require them to pay hundreds of dollars per day to contractors.
“Our way of life is in the hands of these justices, and we hope they will keep our families and our community in mind as they weigh their decision,” said Bill Bright, a New Jersey fisherman and plaintiff in the case.
The high court announced its decision to take the case via an order list that made no comment on the merits of the lawsuit. The fishermen previously lost in lower court rulings. Their lawsuit over fishing monitors is part of a long-standing fight between commercial fishing groups and the federal government over who pays for data collection and regulatory compliance.
Fishermen have argued that Congress never gave federal regulators authority to require the expense of paying for monitors.
Fisheries in the U.S. are regulated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A representative for NOAA declined to comment on the case. The agency does not typically comment on pending litigation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Legal News World RSS Feed
