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Kenya's High Court orders government's TV shutdown to end
Court Watch |
2018/02/01 18:20
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Kenya's High Court on Thursday ordered the government to end its shutdown of the country's top three TV stations after they tried to broadcast images of the opposition leader's mock inauguration, a ceremony considered treasonous.
Journalists and human rights groups have raised an outcry over the shutdown of live transmissions that began Tuesday. Some journalists told The Associated Press they spent the night in their newsroom to avoid arrest.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga on Tuesday declared himself "the people's president" in protest of President Uhuru Kenyatta's election win last year, in a ceremony attended by tens of thousands of supporters in the capital, Nairobi. Odinga claims the vote was rigged and that electoral reforms in the East African nation have not been made.
The government responded to Odinga's "swearing-in" by declaring the opposition movement a criminal organization and investigating "conspirators" in Tuesday's ceremony. An opposition lawmaker who stood beside Odinga and wore judicial dress was arrested Wednesday and taken to court, where police fired tear gas at his supporters. It was not clear what charges the lawmaker, T.J. Kajwang, faced.
Kenya's interior minister, Fred Matiangi, on Wednesday said the TV stations and some radio stations would remain shut down while being investigated for their alleged role in what he called an attempt to "subvert and overthrow" Kenyatta's government. Matiangi claimed that the media's complicity in the mock inauguration would have led to the deaths of thousands of Kenyans.
But on Thursday, High Court Judge Chacha Mwita directed the government to restore the transmission for the Kenya Television Network, Citizen Television and Nation Television News and not to interfere with the stations until a case challenging their shutdown is heard. |
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Top Pakistani court orders arrest of escaped police officer
Court Watch |
2018/01/28 15:17
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Pakistan's Supreme Court gave police three days to arrest an absconding officer who is involved in killing an aspiring model in a 'fake shootout', a lawyer said Saturday.
Attorney Nazeer Mehsud says suspended police officer Rao Anwar did not appear at a hearing Saturday. Chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar ordered his arrest and asked the Sindh police chief to summon him before him.
Anwar is accused killing of an aspiring social media model, Naqeebullah Mehsud, in a controversial shootout earlier this month. Anwar had maintained that Mehsud was a militant belonging to the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan group, without providing evidence to support the claim. He went into hiding when an investigation found Mehsud to be innocent and said the shootout was staged.
Sanaullah Abbasi, a senior police officer, earlier told The Associated Press that Naqeebullah Mehsud was not linked to militants as claimed by Anwar.
Anwar gained prominence in recent years for several shootouts with alleged terrorists in which neither him nor any of his team members were hurt. Mehsud, from Waziristan and a father of three, was the latest victim of Anwar's last shootout.
Mehsud's death triggered violent protests in his eastern Karachi and a protest sit-in by Mehsud tribe's is still ongoing. "My son Naqeeb was innocent, he was righteous. Rao Anwar is a tyrant who killed my son," said Muhammad Ahmed Mehsud, Mehsud's father, adding that he was overwhelmed by the support he received for his son. |
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Pennsylvania GOP take gerrymandering case to US high court
Court Watch |
2018/01/28 01:18
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Pennsylvania's top Republican lawmakers asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to stop an order by the state's highest court in a gerrymandering case brought by Democrats that threw out the boundaries of its 18 congressional districts and ordered them redrawn within three weeks.
Republicans who control Pennsylvania's Legislature wrote that state Supreme Court justices unconstitutionally usurped the authority of lawmakers to create congressional districts and they asked the nation's high court to put the decision on hold while it considers their claims.
The 22-page argument acknowledged that "judicial activism" by a state supreme court is ordinarily beyond the U.S. Supreme Court's purview. But, it said, "the question of what does and does not constitute a 'legislative function' under the Elections Clause is a question of federal, not state, law, and this Court is the arbiter of that distinction."
Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency appeals from Pennsylvania, could ask the registered Democratic voters on the other side of the case to respond. Alito could act on his own, though the full court generally gets involved in cases involving elections. An order could come in a matter of days, although there is no deadline for the justices to act.
Pennsylvania's congressional districts are criticized as among the nation's most gerrymandered. Its case is happening amid a national tide of gerrymandering cases from various states, including some already under consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Election law scholars call the Republicans' request for the U.S. Supreme Court's intervention a long shot.
They say they know of no other state court decision throwing out a congressional map because of partisan gerrymandering, and the nation's high court has never struck down an electoral map as a partisan gerrymander. |
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Court: Yes, there is doctor-patient confidentiality
Court Watch |
2018/01/13 14:40
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Connecticut's highest court has ruled on an issue that most people may think is already settled, saying doctors have a duty to keep patients' medical records confidential and can be sued if they don't.
The Supreme Court's 6-0 decision Thursday overturned a lower court judge who said Connecticut had yet to recognize doctor-patient confidentiality.
The high court's ruling reinstated a lawsuit by former New Canaan resident Emily Byrne against the Avery Center for Obstetrics & Gynecology in Westport.
Byrne, who now lives in Montpelier, Vermont, alleged the doctor's office sent her medical file to a court without her permission — allowing the father of her child to look at it and use the information to harass her.
The Avery Center argued there is no duty for doctors to keep patients' information confidential. |
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Women taking their right to go topless to state's high court
Court Watch |
2018/01/12 14:40
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In a case that pits freedom of expression and equality against public decency, three women are challenging a New Hampshire city ordinance prohibiting public nudity and taking it to the state's highest court.
Heidi Lilley, Kia Sinclair and Ginger Pierro were ticketed in 2016 in Laconia after they went topless at Weirs Beach over Memorial Day weekend. Pierro was doing yoga, while the other two were sunbathing.
Some beachgoers complained and a police officer asked them to cover up. When they refused, they were arrested. A legal motion to dismiss a case against the women was denied so they have appealed it to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, which is expected to hear the case Feb. 1. The women want to the court to dismiss their conviction by invalidating the city's ordinance.
The three women argue there's no state law forbidding female toplessness and that the ordinance is discriminatory since men are allowed to go shirtless. They also contend their constitutional rights to freedom of expression were violated.
"The law in the state of New Hampshire is that it is legal for a woman to go topless so we're trying to get the town of Laconia to recognize and to stay with the state," Lilley said. "The town ordinance, in our opinion, is not constitutional. We're hoping the Supreme Court will see that."
The women are part of the Free the Nipple movement, a global campaign that argues it should be acceptable for women to bare their nipples in public, since men can. Supporters of the campaign also are taking their causes to courts with mixed success.
A U.S. District Court judge ruled in October that a public indecency ordinance in Missouri didn't violate the state constitution by allowing men, but not women, to show their nipples. But in February, a U.S. District Court judge blocked the city of Fort Collins, Colorado, from enforcing a law against women going topless, arguing it was based on gender discrimination. The city is appealing.''
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