Criminal solicitors to walk out for third time over legal aid cuts

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Category: Law & Justice

Created on Tuesday, 25 March 2014 00:00

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Criminal solicitors to walk out for third time over legal aid cuts

Lawyers and probation staff will take action against £215m cut in legal aid budget, fee cuts of up to 30% and privatisation

Owen Bowcott

Criminal solicitors across England and Wales are to stage a two-day walkout at the end of the month to coincide with a strike by probation workers.

The lawyers' escalation of their industrial action, in protest at deep cuts to criminal legal aid fees, is aimed at intensifying pressure on the justice secretary, Chris Grayling.

{sidebar id=10 align=right}Both the solicitors, who are also launching an indefinite work-to-rule, and probation staff will take action on Monday 31 March and Tuesday 1 April, which is, coincidentally, Grayling's birthday.

This latest walkout, the third since the beginning of January, is not being co-ordinated with barristers from the Criminal Bar Association. It is expected, nonetheless, to lead to widespread disruption of criminal cases in magistrates and crown courts.

Solicitors have been careful to avoid describing the action as a strike because that would raise complex questions over their contractual obligations to the Legal Aid Agency.

Fees for solicitors working in magistrates and crown courts and in police stations are being reduced by 17.5%, staggered over a year. Half the cut has already been imposed. In some cases, fee cuts are as high as 30%.

The decision to launch a third round of direct action was taken at a meeting of 500 defence solicitors in Manchester on Wednesday.

The National Association of Probation Officers (Napo) announced earlier this month that it would stage a 24-hour stoppage from midday on Monday 31 March.

Probation officers, who work closely with solicitors in court, particularly when convicted defendants are sentenced, are opposed to the justice secretary's plans to outsource 70% of the service to private firms and voluntary groups.

Nicola Hill, president of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors' Association, said: "We are standing by the probation service as they too face a dangerous overhaul and a risky, non-evidence-based, privatised rehabilitation agenda.

"Throughout the criminal justice system we are seeing justice eroded. The Ministry of Justice and the courts have benefited from the goodwill of defence solicitors for many years.

"Legal aid lawyers have been oiling the wheels of a creaking justice system for too long. We're no longer prepared or able to do this. That's why we'll be working to rule, sticking to the letter of criminal procedure.

"This won't be to the detriment of clients, but will demonstrate to the MoJ that we've been taken advantage of for too long. Our hand has been forced."

Bill Waddington, chair of the Criminal Law Solicitors' Association, commented: "Yesterday's decision is an indication of the anger and frustration about what the government is doing.

"The fact that some 500 lawyers holding more than 700 legal aid contracts took the trouble to drop everything at very short notice, to make their views heard, shows we are at the end of our tether and not prepared to put up with this any longer.

"We've been trying to persuade the MoJ for 12 months that the approach is both wrong and damaging . They don't wish to hear what we have to say or, if they do hear it, they're not listening.

"The work-to-rule is the start of our campaign to ensure that the CPS complies with every requirement and, if they don't, there'll be more delays and additional costs. We intend to withdraw every act of goodwill, which at the moment we provide by the bucket-load to keep the system from collapsing. That will now stop."

The MoJ is cutting £215m out of the annual criminal legal aid budget. It maintains that the UK's legal aid budget is about £2bn a year, making it "one of the most expensive legal aid systems in the world", and says it "would remain very generous even after reform".

Grayling said last month: "This government is dealing with an unprecedented financial challenge and I have no choice but to look for the savings ... I cannot exempt legal aid but that doesn't mean I don't understand how challenging these reductions will be. I have spoken at length with solicitors and barristers about these reforms and listened closely to their views. The final package does mean fee reductions but it also includes a series of measures to ease their effect on lawyers."

He added that the government would not "seek further savings from criminal legal aid".

Source: The Guardian UK

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G7 countries snub Putin and refuse to attend planned G8 summit in Russia

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Category: Current Issues

Created on Monday, 24 March 2014 00:00

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G7 countries snub Putin and refuse to attend planned G8 summit in Russia

Amid fears of further Russian military moves in Ukraine, G7 meets in The Hague without Russia for the first time since 1998

Julian Borger in The Hague and Nicholas Watt

Western countries and Japan have suspended their 16-year collaboration with Russia in the G8 group in response to the annexation of Crimea and have threatened sweeping sanctions in the event of any Russian military moves in the region.

The move, a clear and deliberate break from the post-Soviet status quo, was intended to underline Russian isolation. Leaders from the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan met in The Hague as the G7 for the first time since Russian was brought into the group in 1998 to seal east-west co-operation and lay the cold war to rest.

{sidebar id=10 align=right}The G7 leaders issued a joint statement, under the title of the Hague Declaration,saying they would not attend a planned G8 summit in Sochi in June but would instead convene without Russia in Brussels. The group's foreign ministers would also boycott a planned G8 meeting in Moscow in April. The declaration said Russia's actions were not consistent with the "shared beliefs and shared responsibilities" that had made the formation of the G8 possible.

As Russian troops appeared to mass on Ukraine's eastern border, the G7 statement hinted at much broader sanctions if Russia made further expansionist moves.

"We remain ready to intensify actions including co-ordinated sectoral sanctions that will have an increasingly significant impact on the Russian economy, if Russia continues to escalate this situation," the statement said.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, shrugged off the loss of G8 membership as being inconsequential. "The G8 is an informal club, with no formal membership, so no one can be expelled from it. If our western partners believe that such format is no longer needed, so be it. We aren't clinging for that format and we won't see a big problem if there are no such meetings for a year, or a year-and-half," said Lavrov after his first meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Deshchytsia, at the margins of the global Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague, Netherlands.

The Ukrainian embassy in The Hague said in its account of the meeting: "Lavrov stressed that Russia has no intention of using military force in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine. The two sides agreed to hold emergency consultations at the level of the ministries of foreign affairs and the ministries of defence of both countries in the case of exacerbation of the situation."

Lavrov said little about the meeting but confirmed he had agreed to maintain contacts with the Kiev government.

Before arriving in The Hague, David Cameron has said that Britain and its Nato allies would help bolster the defences of the alliance's Baltic members, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, who have Russian minorities and which fear destabilisation by Moscow.

Obama also sought to deepen Russian isolation in a meeting in The Hague with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in which he asked that Beijing at least maintain its stance of neutrality in the stand-off and continue to reaffirm its commitment to the rule of international law and non-interference in the affairs of sovereign states.

US officials acknowledged that Xi had given little by way of formal response to the request, but the Chinese leader appeared to go out of his way to emphasise a warm and personal relationship with Barack Obama, heaping praise on the US president's wife and daughters who have just visited China and jokingly conveyed Michelle Obama's greetings to her husband.

The US deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, stressed that the crisis was not a return to the cold war, because this time Moscow stood virtually alone. "The fact is Russia is leading no bloc of countries. There's no ideological entity, like communism, that Russia is leading that has global appeal," Rhodes said. "There's no bloc of nations, like the Warsaw Pact, that they're leading. They're isolated in what they're doing in Ukraine. And I think that's very much the message that we want to send at the G7, with the EU, with Nato over the course of the next several days."

Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague, described the winding up of the G8 as a "huge blow" adding that Obama had made it clear that "it will then be hard to revive that in the immediate future".

Hague insisted that Britain would play a wholehearted part in the tightening of sanctions if the crisis escalated, despite potential economic costs to the UK.

He said tougher sanctions would mean that "many countries bear the cost of that in many ways" but "we have to be prepared to do that".

"Every country would have to do what is necessary if more far-reaching sanctions were applied, accepting that that would affect different economies in different ways," he said. "The United Kingdom is certainly prepared to do that. There is nothing that other countries in Europe have proposed that we have blocked. The United Kingdom is fully prepared to play its full part."

Shortly before his meeting with Lavrov, Deshchytsia, the acting Ukrainian foreign minister, had said his government had been seeking a peaceful settlement to a crisis that was in imminent danger of escalating.

"We wanted to find out what they are thinking about Ukraine and what they are thinking of their plans towards Ukraine," Deshchytsia said. "We want to live peacefully with Russia. We want our nations to coexist and they will coexist. So we wanted to sit down around the table and find a solution, maybe drink vodka. But since we don't know their plans, the possibility for a military intervention is very high taking into consideration the intel information about the deployment of a very big number of Russian troops on the eastern borders of Ukraine."

"We are very much worried about the concentration of troops on our eastern borders but at the same time we are ready to defend our homeland. Our military and civilians living in eastern Ukraine – Ukrainians, Russians other nationalities - are ready to defend their homeland, and our military is also ready to defend Ukraine."

Source: The Guardian UK

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Akufo-Addo Warns Ghana & Nigeria

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Category: DateLines

Created on Tuesday, 25 March 2014 00:00

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Akufo-Addo Warns Ghana & Nigeria

{sidebar id=10 align=right}Nana Akufo-Addo has warned Ghana and Nigeria against their growing dependence on crude oil exports.

Addressing an audience of high profile corporate leaders in Lagos, Nigeria, this afternoon, Nana Akufo-Addo urged the leaders of Africa’s oil producing countries to not lose sight of the dangers that fracking poses to Africa’s future status as a pillar of global energy security.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, has revolutionised the petroleum industry by allowing countries with the technology to access oil and gas resources from shale rock that were before impossible to reach.

In the last couple of years alone in the United States it has significantly boosted domestic oil production and driven down gas prices. It is estimated to have offered gas security to the US and Canada for about 100 years, with the European Union showing keen interest, led by the United Kingdom.

Akufo-Addo’s concern is for Africa’s oil-producing countries to draw up a structural economic transformation plan to meet the challenges that the fast-growing use of fracking in the developed countries is having on Africa’s primary-product dependent economies.

Akufo-Addo told his Lagos audience, “It might seem to you in Nigeria that with your oil you are operating in a larger world market already and do not need the region. It might seem to us in Ghana that with our newly discovered oil we can join the big league on our own. Maybe we should be keeping one eye on the news about the fracking and the real possibility that the dynamics of energy economics might be about to change dramatically. It is the responsibility of innovative leadership to think ahead and be ready for the changes that lie ahead.”

10 years ago, it was envisioned that Africa could account for 25% of all US crude oil imports by 2015, registering a ten-percentage point increase in the process. Already, in the last four years alone, the US had reduced its oil imports by a whopping 44%.

Fracking, according to Akufo-Addo, has added greater urgency to the need for Africa, which produces nearly 20% of global oil, to prioritise the process of diversifying its economies.

Giving the key note address at the annual Innovention Series organised by the leading marketing firm, Verdant Zeal, Nana Akufo-Addo stressed on the need for West African countries to work together under the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to transform their various economies.

“I suggest that Nigeria must provide that leadership. Nigeria must provide the political leadership and passion to translate the ECOWAS dream into reality. You have the numbers, you have the economic muscle and dare I say that you owe it to the region,” he stated.

He said the dream to integrate the economies of West African countries has not been realised because of lack of political leadership, urging the leaders of the various countries, particularly Nigeria, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire to show greater commitment.

“Once the political will is evident, visionary leaders in Medicine, Science, Technology, Industry, Business, Law and all other professions can then work together to make ECOWAS a true regional market. Throughout the ages our traders and celebrated market women in particular have always managed to conduct trading activities throughout the region, but they have done so in spite of the difficulties put in their way by governments and officialdom,” he added.

The seasoned Ghanaian politician and visionary believes “Political leaders must encourage such visionary entrepreneurs to look first to our region and then to build transparent, competitive relationships that can and should accelerate our development.”

“The possibilities”, he said, “are endless. Just a small example: think with me for a moment about the prospects of Ghana selling $2 billion worth of salt to Nigeria and the ripple effects such a simple commodity, which Nigeria now imports from other continents can have on our economies.”

In a speech that received a standing ovation from the corporate gurus gathered at the Lagos Civic Centre, Nana Akufo-Addo urged West Africans to see it as their patriotic duty to think and act regional.

“When we think of West Africa and Africa before our own countries, we are not just being pan-Africanists, we are being true nationalists because what makes West Africa better will make each of our individual countries better and more prosperous.”

He was accompanied on the trip by business executives, and his aides, including Ellizabeth Ohene, Adwoa Safo, MP, Mustapha Hamid and Eugene Arhin.

Source: Peacefmonline

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Putin defends Russia's actions in Crimea, saying it 'wants to be with Russia'

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Category: Current Issues

Created on Tuesday, 18 March 2014 00:00

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Putin defends Russia's actions in Crimea, saying it 'wants to be with Russia'

President Putin has defended his country's inclusion of Crimea into the Russian Federation, citing a common history. He also hit back at Western critics for what he said was their contradictory use of international laws.

During an address to lawmakers in Moscow on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about Crimeans' decision to join the Russian Federation. The speech hit on a number of topics, from the injustice of Crimea's transfer to Ukraine in 1954, to the peninsula's legal and just declaration of independence, to Western leaders' hypocrisy in their portrayal of how recent events transpired.

"The referendum [in Crimea on March 16] was open and honest," President Putin said.

"[The people of Crimea clearly and convincingly expressed their will [that] they want to be with Russia," he said, adding that recent polls showed that over 90 percent of Russians supported annexation of the Black Sea peninsula.

The official count released by elections officials on Monday showed that 96.77 percent of the ballots cast in Crimea over the weekend voted to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. Ahead of the secession referendum, Western leaders dismissed the vote as illegal and illegitimate. They also accused Russia of orchestrating the political events after its leadership repeatedly refused to recognize the interim government in Kyiv, which favors closer ties with the EU.

Unmoved by such criticism, minutes after the speech, Putin signed a treaty to make the Crimean Republic part of the Russian Federation. This has to be endorsed by Russia's constitutional court as well as Russian and Crimean lawmakers before it can take effect.

Crimea 'an inalienable part of Russia'

The Russian leader focused much of his speech on Russian history as part of his justification for supporting the outcome of the Crimean referendum.

"Russia has become of the biggest divided nations in the world," Putin said, referring the separation of large Russian territories as the Soviet Union broke apart during the 1990s.

Putin argued that Crimea's transfer to Ukraine in 1954 came at a time when nobody imagined that Ukraine would one day separate from Russia, especially considering the long, shared history of all three regions. It was also decided behind closed doors.

"Russia felt it [had been] robbed," the Russian president said.

Crimea followed international precedents

Putin also hit back at criticism of Crimea's move for independence from Ukraine, citing US and United Nations documents from the last five years relating to Kosovo's secession in 2008.

"Common international law does not stipulate any ban on declaring independence, it is all very clear," the Russian president said, citing a US memorandum from April 17, 2009 to the International Criminal Court: "declaration of independence can violate internal law but that does not mean that there is a violation of international law."

The Russian leader also denied that his country had intervened in Ukraine, insisting that the Russian troops in Crimea had not been deployed to the region, but were already stationed there. He also said their numbers did not exceed the 25,000 under an international accord.

"I can't remember one act of [military] intervention [in history that occurred] without one single shot," Putin said.

Ties with Ukraine 'crucial'

He accused Western leaders - who slapped sanctions on Russians on Tuesday in response to the situation in Crimea - of acting irresponsibly by supporting the current government in Kyiv, which he characterized as being led by "anti-semites, russo-phobes, nationalists and neo-nazis."

In contrast to Ukraine, he and his government were committed to supporting the various ethnic groups in Crimea, where the minority Muslim Tartar population was one repressed by the Soviet Union.

That group, which makes up less than 15 percent of the peninsula's inhabitants, has expressed fears about switching allegiance back to Moscow. However, Putin vowed during his speech to work toward rehabilitating their community and protecting their rights.

"We are deeply concerned with what's happening in Ukraine and our concern is understandable. We're not just neighbors, we are one nation. Kyiv is the mother of Russian cities.. .Russia is our common root, our common fundament. We won't be able to live without each other," he said.

kms/pfd (AP, Reuters)

Source: Deutsche Welle

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