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Andy Burnham signals he will scrap plans to curb jury trials

The Guardian – World

4d ago

Andy Burnham signals he will scrap plans to curb jury trials

Summary

Prime minister says he has concerns about one of most significant proposals from Keir Starmer’s government Andy Burnham has indicated he will scrap plans to curtail jury trials in England and Wales, abandoning one of the most significant overhauls from Keir Starmer’s government. The prime minister said he had concerns about the proposals and that his instinct was to keep juries at the heart of the justice system. Speaking at a community centre in Sheffield on Friday, Burnham said he was reluctant to do away with jury trials due to his experience campaigning for justice over the Hillsborough disaster. “I have my concerns about the plan to restrict a jury trial, partly from my personal experience, particularly in Hillsborough,” he said. “So I want to really look in detail at that proposal, and my instincts are that we need to find ways of not reducing access to jury trial.” Burnham’s intervention is the strongest signal yet that the former justice secretary David Lammy’s proposals, which amounted to a historic departure in the judicial system, will be dropped. The prime minister has previously raised concerns about the struggle of Hillsborough victims to secure justice for what he has called “the greatest miscarriage of justice of our times”. Lammy announced in December that defendants who were likely to receive a sentence of three years or less would no longer get a jury trial. He said the proposals could clear the backlog of nearly 80,000 trials clogging up the court system within a decade. However, the plans were met with a fierce backlash from legal bodies and some Labour MPs including Karl Turner, who was suspended over his criticisms of Lammy and Starmer. On Friday, Burnham said he had asked the chief whip, Anneliese Midgley, to speak to Turner about being readmitted to the parliamentary Labour party. Diane Abbott, another Labour MP who had the whip suspended under Starmer, was allowed back into the parliamentary Labour party on Thursday. Ministers argued the move was necessary to halve the number of jury trials from 15,000 a year and to tackle the backlog of court cases that built up during the Covid pandemic.

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Prime minister says he has ‘concerns’ about one of most significant overhauls of Keir Starmer’s government UK politics live – latest updates Andy Burnham has indicated he will scrap plans to curtail jury trials in England and Wales, abandoning one of the most significant overhauls of Keir Starmer’s government. The prime minister said he had “concerns” about the proposals and that his “instincts” were to keep juries at the heart of the justice system. Continue reading...

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US federal judge blocks New York’s ban on ICE officers wearing masks

Judge puts hold on mask ban while allowing state law prohibiting cooperation between police and ICE (immigration enforcement agency) to stand A New York law banning US Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) agents from wearing face coverings and requiring that they wear visible identification has been put on hold by a federal judge. But a state law prohibiting cooperation between local police departments and ICE has been allowed to stand. The mask ruling comes after federal judges have blocked similar laws in California, Virginia and Pennsylvania that sought to ban federal immigration agents from covering their faces. US district judge Mae D’Agostino of the federal court in Albany, New York , wrote that while the state “appears to be well-intentioned in its pursuit of transparent policing”, her decision was made on constitutional arguments rather than “transparency or preferable policy decisions”. D’Agostino said that New York officials “may be correct that federal immigration officers wearing masks and not displaying viable identification creates certain dangerous situations that the face covering and identification acts remedy”. The preliminary ruling means local police officers are blocked from arresting ICE agents for covering their faces in public settings. “The United States has demonstrated a likelihood that it will succeed on its claim that [New York’s] face covering and identification acts directly regulate federal officers in violation of the supremacy clause,” D’Agostino wrote. “Whether federal law enforcement agencies have chosen to carry out such operations in a sufficiently transparent manner is an important question. But that question is not for this court to answer at the present time.” New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul , a Democrat, signed the restrictions known as the “New York mask law” in late May in response to federal immigration enforcement tactics during Donald Trump’s second presidency. James Percival, a general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS (Dept. of Homeland Security)) that oversees immigration enforcement agencies, reacted to D’Agostino’s ruling by saying on X that Democratic-led states “continue to stack losses as they try to pass unconstitutional bans on ICE officers wearing masks”. Hochul and New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, said the ruling allowing the 287(g) ban to remain in effect shows the law “is legal and will keep our communities safe”. “Local law enforcement should be focused on local matters, and New York taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for any collaboration with ICE,” they said in a joint statement. “While the court enjoined enforcement of New York’s mask ban, we stand firm in our belief that masked agents do not make New York safer.” The statement alluded to the New York government’s ability to appeal D’Agostino’s ruling, saying: “Our offices are reviewing all legal options at this time.” ICE cooperation has become a campaign issue in Hochul’s bid for re-election in November. She is facing Bruce Blakeman, a Nassau county executive, who supports ICE tactics and opposes the prohibition of cooperation with the agency.

Immigration2h ago

Jordan convenes emergency meeting over Israel’s potential to ‘trigger religious conflict’

Country convenes emergency meeting of ministers from Arab and Islamic world, fearing such a move could ‘trigger a religious conflict’ Jordan is convening an emergency meeting of foreign ministers from the Arab and Islamic world over what it says is an “imminent” threat of an Israeli takeover of the most important religious site in Jerusalem, with the potential to “trigger a religious conflict”. The meeting on Wednesday – and the Jordanian warning – follow an escalating pattern of government-backed incursions by Jewish religious extremists on the compound around the al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock, in violation of a status quo treaty overseen by Jordan’s Hashemite monarchy, by which only Muslims can pray at the site. On 23 July, more than 2,000 Israelis from the religious right – mostly settlers led by the national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir – stormed the area , known to Jews as the Temple Mount. They prayed and performed rituals all around the compound in what Jordanian officials said was the worst violation in modern history. Amman has also been alarmed at a recent recruitment drive for religious Jews for a special Temple Mount police unit, and is braced for more direct challenges to traditional Jordanian custodianship by extremist Israeli leaders in the major Jewish holidays in September. This year, those holidays will come amid an intense election campaign, in which the far-right coalition of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will be fighting for survival. “This is a constant threat, a dangerous threat that we’re trying to counter in every tool that we have possible,” Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, told the Guardian. “We warn that tampering with the status quo … could trigger a religious conflict that will reverberate beyond Palestine and Jordan into the whole Muslim world.” Safadi, who will host Wednesday’s emergency meeting, bringing together his counterparts from Arab League countries, as well as Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan, said it was “something that the whole international community should be aware of. Jerusalem is a tinderbox. “We’re trying to explain the danger. We’re protesting legally. For Jordan, the worst-case scenario is an attempt at the mass deportation of Palestinians from the West Bank , which would destabilise the country in several ways, including economic costs, the political impact of an influx of an angry, dispossessed population, and threats to the country’s delicate demographic balance. “Our position that this is a red line that we will not allow to be crossed. The Israeli government’s provocative actions in Jerusalem and the West Bank and over water raise the political cost to the monarchy of maintaining normal relations with its western neighbour. “Anti-normalisation sentiment here has grown even larger than before due to the Zionist state’s plans of annexation of the West Bank, the denial of Jordan’s share in the water agreement and also the daily challenges to the custodianship at the al-Aqsa mosque,” said Dima Tahboub, a member of parliament and spokesperson for Jordan’s Islamist Umma party. “Every day there is penetration by settlers into the al-Aqsa mosque and at the same time, [Palestinian] Jerusalemites are prevented from entering the mosque.” Tahboub’s party is Jordan’s biggest political bloc, known as the Islamic Action Front (IAF) until earlier this year when it was ordered to adopt a less ideological name.

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Andy Burnham signals he will scrap plans to curb jury trials

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