Showing posts with label court. Show all posts
Showing posts with label court. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Respect women's right to wear veil in court
A great article & a good piece of advice from a competent person with years of experience in the legal sphere.
However, a majority of people in the West will start saying that how a court can pass a judgement when the witness is hidden behind a piece of cloth. Heck, in Canada, the current government of Mr. Harper & Co. have already brought a piece of legislation in the parliament, to ban veil in citizenship oath ceremonies, just so the judges can see that everyone is actually reading the oath. What's next? Keeping tabs on all immigrants, to see if they do really love their country & are loyal to it (sort of like North Korea).
If loyalty is to be measured by actually reading the oath, then what about all those rich Canadian business elites who stash their billions in offshore havens, & avoid paying taxes like the plague, but still use all the amenities of being a Canadian citizen. Are they loyal Canadians? Anyway, I digress.
So, on one end, public complains that people who have years of relevant experiences (to the given subject) & competencies should make such calls. When one makes such a call, then they decry why he/she is saying such things. So, the public will be happy as long as the person, saying something important in public sphere, merely confirm their biases. Anything other than that is a blight on that person's competencies.
One other common comment, which really rile me up, in such situation is said by the common public, is why don't these immigrants go back to their own countries, if they wanted to keep following their native country's cultures & norms. Good question.
My answer is no immigrant want to leave their beloved country & start a whole new life in another country, especially, since, their adopted country don't even accept them as full citizens. Developed countries stop interfering, politically & militarily, in developing countries' affairs & let them sink or swim. A majority of immigrants will stop migrating themselves.
After all, UN was made to end international wars & bring peace around the world. Well, the world history of the past 60 years has shown something else ... there are now more displaced people than ever & human suffering around the world has only increased in the past 60 years.
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Judges must show respect to women who choose to keep their faces covered due to their religious beliefs, the UK’s most senior judge has said.
Lord Neuberger said judges must have “an understanding of different cultural & social habits” in their bid to show fairness to those involved in trials.
Addressing the Criminal Justice Alliance, the supreme court president said: “It is necessary to have some understanding as to how people from different cultural, social, religious or other backgrounds think & behave & how they expect others to behave.
“Well-known examples include how some religions consider it inappropriate to take the oath, how some people consider it rude to look other people in the eye, how some women find it inappropriate to appear in public with their face uncovered, & how some people deem it inappropriate to confront others or to be confronted - for instance with an outright denial.”
In 2014 Judge Peter Murphy upheld a ruling allowing Muslim woman Rebekah Dawson to stand trial wearing a full-face veil.
The 22-year-old waived her right to give evidence in her defence, however, after it was ruled that she would have to remove the niqab, which made only her eyes visible, if she took the stand.
She later admitted witness intimidation after denying the charge during a seven-day trial.
In a lengthy speech entitled “Fairness in the courts: the best we can do”, Neuberger accepted that judges tended to come from privileged backgrounds & warned of the dangers of this. “A white male public school judge presiding in a trial of an unemployed traveller from eastern Europe accused of assaulting or robbing a white female public school woman will, I hope, always be unbiased,” he said.
“However he should always think to himself what his subconscious may be thinking or how it may be causing him to act; & he should always remember how things may look to the defendant, & indeed to the jury & to the public generally.”
Neuberger said judges & lawyers should always keep in mind how “intimidating” the court process could be for those involved in trials, including “the parties, their families, the victims, the witnesses & the jurors”.
Speaking in the context of legal aid cuts, he said ensuring all parties involved in a case understood the goings-on in a court had become more important because “people are having to choose between representing themselves or not getting justice at all”.
However, a majority of people in the West will start saying that how a court can pass a judgement when the witness is hidden behind a piece of cloth. Heck, in Canada, the current government of Mr. Harper & Co. have already brought a piece of legislation in the parliament, to ban veil in citizenship oath ceremonies, just so the judges can see that everyone is actually reading the oath. What's next? Keeping tabs on all immigrants, to see if they do really love their country & are loyal to it (sort of like North Korea).
If loyalty is to be measured by actually reading the oath, then what about all those rich Canadian business elites who stash their billions in offshore havens, & avoid paying taxes like the plague, but still use all the amenities of being a Canadian citizen. Are they loyal Canadians? Anyway, I digress.
So, on one end, public complains that people who have years of relevant experiences (to the given subject) & competencies should make such calls. When one makes such a call, then they decry why he/she is saying such things. So, the public will be happy as long as the person, saying something important in public sphere, merely confirm their biases. Anything other than that is a blight on that person's competencies.
One other common comment, which really rile me up, in such situation is said by the common public, is why don't these immigrants go back to their own countries, if they wanted to keep following their native country's cultures & norms. Good question.
My answer is no immigrant want to leave their beloved country & start a whole new life in another country, especially, since, their adopted country don't even accept them as full citizens. Developed countries stop interfering, politically & militarily, in developing countries' affairs & let them sink or swim. A majority of immigrants will stop migrating themselves.
After all, UN was made to end international wars & bring peace around the world. Well, the world history of the past 60 years has shown something else ... there are now more displaced people than ever & human suffering around the world has only increased in the past 60 years.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Judges must show respect to women who choose to keep their faces covered due to their religious beliefs, the UK’s most senior judge has said.
Lord Neuberger said judges must have “an understanding of different cultural & social habits” in their bid to show fairness to those involved in trials.
Addressing the Criminal Justice Alliance, the supreme court president said: “It is necessary to have some understanding as to how people from different cultural, social, religious or other backgrounds think & behave & how they expect others to behave.
“Well-known examples include how some religions consider it inappropriate to take the oath, how some people consider it rude to look other people in the eye, how some women find it inappropriate to appear in public with their face uncovered, & how some people deem it inappropriate to confront others or to be confronted - for instance with an outright denial.”
In 2014 Judge Peter Murphy upheld a ruling allowing Muslim woman Rebekah Dawson to stand trial wearing a full-face veil.
The 22-year-old waived her right to give evidence in her defence, however, after it was ruled that she would have to remove the niqab, which made only her eyes visible, if she took the stand.
She later admitted witness intimidation after denying the charge during a seven-day trial.
In a lengthy speech entitled “Fairness in the courts: the best we can do”, Neuberger accepted that judges tended to come from privileged backgrounds & warned of the dangers of this. “A white male public school judge presiding in a trial of an unemployed traveller from eastern Europe accused of assaulting or robbing a white female public school woman will, I hope, always be unbiased,” he said.
“However he should always think to himself what his subconscious may be thinking or how it may be causing him to act; & he should always remember how things may look to the defendant, & indeed to the jury & to the public generally.”
Neuberger said judges & lawyers should always keep in mind how “intimidating” the court process could be for those involved in trials, including “the parties, their families, the victims, the witnesses & the jurors”.
Speaking in the context of legal aid cuts, he said ensuring all parties involved in a case understood the goings-on in a court had become more important because “people are having to choose between representing themselves or not getting justice at all”.
Friday, April 3, 2015
Court presses US gov't to release 2,100 Guantanamo photos
When gov't comes out with a law to invade civilians' privacy, some people say, "you should not worry if you have nothing to hide." Then, the question arises, doesn't the same statement apply to the gov't? US gov't should not worry, if it has nothing to hide.
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A federal court insists it wants the Department of Defense to supplement the 2,100 pictures showing US military abuse of detainees in Iraq & Afghanistan with an individual reason for not making each of them public.
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A federal court insists it wants the Department of Defense to supplement the 2,100 pictures showing US military abuse of detainees in Iraq & Afghanistan with an individual reason for not making each of them public.
Judge Alvin Hellerstein gave a week to the government on Wednesday either to submit a written estimate of how long it might take to comply with the August 2014 ruling & list individual exemptions for the disclosure of the photographs, or to appeal the court’s decision.
The photographs in question depict abuse at US detention facilities in Iraq & Afghanistan following 9/11 attacks. They are believed to be more disturbing than the notorious images of torture & humiliation of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.
The legal battle for making the classified cache of 2,100 abuse photos public has been led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) since 2004. The watchdog initiated the case after it was denied the release of photos under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Hellerstein ruled in 2005 that the government had to make the pictures public. The ruling was supported by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 2008.
However, a bill passed by the US Congress in 2009 made it possible for the Department of Defense to conceal images it deemed dangerous for Americans. That same year, President Obama denied the release of the photographs on the grounds they would “further inflame anti-American opinion & … put our troops in greater danger.”
The bulk concealment of abuse pictures is something judge Hellerstein believes wrong. That’s why he ruled in August 2014 that individual reasons should be given for the non-disclosure of each of the photos.
“I could give you more time to satisfy my ruling...but I am not changing my view,” Hellerstein told the government on Wednesday, as cited by Newsweek.
“Some are harmless” he said of the pictures, while describing others as “highly prejudicial.”
Hellerstein also offered looking through the images with the government, as a way of complying with the court ruling.
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