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French court restores far-right candidate's ties to father
Headline Topics |
2016/11/17 10:33
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French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen thought she had cut the political cord with her controversial father by expelling him from the far-right party he founded, but a court ruled Thursday Jean-Marie Le Pen still is the National Front's honorary president.
While campaigning in next spring's presidential election, Marine Le Pen has worked to smooth her image and distance herself from her father's extremist views and anti-Semitic comments. Kicking him out of the party was part of her strategy.
The civil court outside that heard Jean-Marie Le Pen's reinstatement claim upheld the National Front's decision last year to expel him as a rank-and-file member. But the court also ruled that the 88-year-old firebrand can remain the party's honorary president.
As a result, the court ordered the National Front to summon the elder Le Pen to any high-level party meetings and to give him voting rights as an ex-officio member of all the party's governing bodies.
"No statutory provisions specify that the honorary president must be a member of the National Front," the judges said.
The court sentenced the party to pay Jean-Marie Le Pen 23,000 euros ($24,500) in damages and lawyers' fee.
"This can be called a success," his lawyer, Frederic Joachim, told reporters after the ruling was returned.
Joachim had asked the court for 2 million euros ($2.1 million) in damages because "it's a political life they tried to destroy at home and to cast scorn on abroad."
The party's lawyers didn't immediately comment on the ruling, which both sides can appeal.
The National Front ousted the party patriarch for a series of comments, including referring to Nazi gas chambers as a "detail" of World War II history.
Le Pen contends his comments were protected by freedom of expression, though he has been sentenced repeatedly in France for inciting racial hatred and denying crimes against humanity. |
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Supreme Court stays execution of Alabama inmate
Headline Topics |
2016/11/04 15:50
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday night stayed the execution of an Alabama man convicted of the 1982 shooting death of a woman's husband in a murder-for-hire arrangement.
Five justices voted to stay the execution of Tommy Arthur as the high court considers whether to take up his challenge to Alabama's death penalty procedure. Arthur, 74, was scheduled to be executed Thursday by lethal injection at a south Alabama prison.
"We are greatly relieved by the Supreme Court's decision granting a stay and now hope for the opportunity to present the merits of Mr. Arthur's claims to the Court," Arthur's attorney Suhana Han said in a statement.
This is the seventh time that Arthur, who has waged a lengthy legal battle over his conviction and the constitutionality of the death penalty, has received a reprieve from an execution date, a track record that has frustrated the state attorney general's office and victims' advocacy groups.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote Thursday that he did not think the case merited a stay, but voted to grant it as a courtesy to the four justices who wanted to "more fully consider the suitability of this case for review." The execution stay will expire if the court does not take up Arthur's case.
The attorney general's office had unsuccessfully urged the court to let the execution go forward and expressed disappointment at the decision.
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Former Ohio officer charged with murder due back in court
Network News |
2016/11/04 15:50
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A former college police officer charged with murder in the fatal traffic-stop shooting of a black man is due back in court.
Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Megan Shanahan set a Friday pretrial hearing, ahead of the planned start of jury selection on Oct. 25.
Twenty-six-year-old Ray Tensing faces charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter in the July 2015 shooting of 43-year-old Sam DuBose. The white officer, who has since been fired by the University of Cincinnati, pulled DuBose over near campus for a missing front license plate.
Tensing has pleaded not guilty. His attorney has said that his client feared being dragged under the car as DuBose tried to drive away.
Tensing is free on $1 million bond and hasn't attended earlier pretrial hearings this year. |
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Dutch court: Wilders hate speech trial will go ahead
Lawyer News |
2016/11/03 15:49
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A Dutch court on Friday rejected an appeal by firebrand anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders to throw out his hate speech prosecution before it goes to trial this month.
"Prosecuted for what millions of people believe," Wilders tweeted in his first reaction to the decision. Wilders and his lawyers have branded his prosecution a political witch hunt and did not attend the brief hearing at The Hague District Court.
Clearing the trial to start on Oct. 31, Presiding Judge Hendrik Steenhuis said the court "rejects the defense's objections."
The case against Wilders, who was previously acquitted in 2011 of insulting Islam, centers on comments made before and after Dutch local elections in 2014. At one party meeting he asked supporters whether they wanted more or fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands, drawing them into the chant of "Fewer! Fewer! Fewer!"
"We'll take care of it," he replied.
The trial comes just months before parliamentary elections due in March, which could see Wilders' Freedom Party emerge as the largest party. An Oct. 5 poll of polls had the Freedom Party narrowly behind the Liberal Party of Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who will be seeking his third term at the elections.
The court said Friday that previous cases in European courts have established that politicians must be given a wide-ranging freedom of expression, but at the same time should "avoid public statements that feed intolerance. Where the border lies between the two will be debated in this Dutch trial."
The court also rejected Wilders' argument that he should not be prosecuted now as he had not been prosecuted in the past for similar statements about Moroccans.
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