Free Republic

Yesterday (Wednesday), the High Court of Justice rejected a petition filed by the Regavim Movement to compel the military commander and the Civil Administration to repeal Jordanian Law #40 which prohibits the sale of land in Judea and Samaria to Jews – a law still in force due to Israel’s decision not to extend its law or sovereignty to territory liberated in 1967. .....

Doctors can stop providing life-support treatment to a five-year-old Strood girl is in a vegetative state, a High Court judge has ruled. Specialists treating Pippa Knight at the Evelina Children’s Hospital in London said life-support treatment should end. Hospital bosses had asked Mr Justice Poole to rule that ending treatment, and allowing Pippa to die, would be lawful and in her best interests. Pippa’s mother, Paula Parfitt, 41, of Strood, Kent, disagreed. Ms Parfitt wanted Pippa, who is brain damaged, to be placed on a portable ventilator and allowed home. Mr Justice Poole, who heard evidence at a trial in...

On Tuesday, Britain’s High Court defended young children from the transgender movement’s rush to give kids experimental drugs that put them on a path to chemical castration. The court laid out a framework for considering whether minors under age 18 might be able to give informed consent to receive experimental so-called “puberty-blocking” drugs intended to treat gender dysphoria (the persistent condition of identifying with a gender opposite one’s biological sex). In a groundbreaking ruling that should set the standard for such complex issues, Dame Victoria Sharp concluded that puberty-blockers are experimental, that their effects are not “reversible” as transgender activists...

Israeli security forces began the destruction of Jewish homes the Netiv Ha'avot neighborhood of Elazar in Samaria, an IDF source reported. Security forces are working to complete the demolition while ensuring security, law, and order. According to the IDF, the demolitions are being done "as per the request of the political echelon." Gush Etzion Regional Council Head Shlomo Ne'eman said, "It's very said that we have reached this moment. We've lost control and we've lost sovereignty. People tell us that this is 'the rule of law' but really, i's a loss of control and the destruction of law. Not only...

The Turnbull Government has lost its one-seat majority after the High Court ruled Barnaby Joyce's election invalid because of his New Zealand citizenship. Mr Joyce will now face a by-election. The court also found former Greens senators Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters were not validly elected, along with One Nation's Malcolm Roberts and the National Party's Fiona Nash.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court decisions in a half-dozen cases dealing with immigration over the next two months could reveal how the justices might evaluate Trump administration actions on immigration, especially stepped up deportations. Some of those cases could be decided as early as Monday, when the court is meeting to issue opinions in cases that were argued over the past six months. The outcomes could indicate whether the justices are retreating from long-standing decisions that give the president and Congress great discretion in dealing with immigration, and what role administration policies, including the proposed ban on visits to the...

As residents of Beit El and supporters of the community rallied Sunday night, demanding that the government follow through on its plan to ensure that the Draynoff Houses in the community are left standing, the High Court yet again sought to put a halt to plans to prevent the demolition of the homes. The court issued an injunction against any construction work that would result from the removal of objections to the project by a planning council. Supporters had hoped that the change could lead to a new legal status for the buildings. Previously, the High Court had ordered the...

The High Court on Wednesday kiboshed government plans to demolish the homes of terrorists. One of the few methods security forces in Israel have to discourage Arabs from joining the ranks of terrorists – demolishing the homes of those involved in terrorism – was taken off the table as the result of a lawsuit by an Arab rights group. The government must now respond to the restraining order the Court issued on home demolitions if it wants to continue using the sanction. According to security officials, the prospect that their family's home will be demolished has discouraged potential terrorists from...

Despite growing controversy over the use of anonymous pharmacies for lethal injections, the U.S. Supreme Court has thus far declined to block any executions based on 11th-hour appeals challenging the drug connections. That includes the case of Michael Taylor, a convicted rapist and murderer who was put to death at 12:10 a.m. Wednesday in Missouri after a furious legal battle that stretched well into the night. It's worth nothing, however, that three high court justices wanted to block Taylor's execution and cited the words of an appeals judge who said so little was known about the source of the deadly...

Australia’s highest court has struck down a landmark law allowing the country’s first gay marriages, shattering the dreams of more than two dozen same-sex newlyweds whose marriages will now be annulled less than a week after their weddings. The federal government had challenged the validity of the Australian Capital Territory’s law that had allowed gay marriages in the nation’s capital and its surrounding area, starting last Saturday. […] The High Court unanimously ruled that the ACT’s law could not operate concurrently with the federal Marriage Act, which was amended in 2004 to define marriage as between a man and a...

Supreme Court President Asher Grunis issued a temporary order Wednesday forbidding the IDF from continuing the demolition of homes at the Jewish community of Maaleh Rechavam in the Etzion Bloc. The order forbidding eviction and demolition activities will stand "until another decision is given." Meanwhile, dozens of nationalist activists demonstrated at the entrance to the Knesset building, to protest demolitions carried out at the community Wednesday morning. A large police force arrived at the spot. Seven protesters were arrested. Special Yassam police and Border Police were among the forces that sealed off approaches to Maaleh Rechavam in the morning, to...

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Sunday to allow MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad) to run for Knesset, overturning a decision from the Elections Committee barring Zoabi due to her support for terrorism. Zoabi's party, Balad, had threatened an Arab boycott of the elections if the decision were upheld. Her opponents cited several incidents in which she showed support for terrorism, including her participation in an attempt to forcibly break the naval blockade on Hamas that included an attack on IDF soldiers, and her meeting with senior Hamas terrorists. The Elections Committee banned Zoabi under a clause requiring candidates and parties not...

Iran's judiciary has rejected a request by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit Tehran's Evin prison, its spokesman said on Sunday. "As we are faced with special circumstances and the country's priorities are the economy and people's living conditions, all authorities should focus on solving key issues... visiting a prison is extraneous," chief prosecutor Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie told ISNA news agency. "More than seven years of his presidency have passed, and no request was made during that time," he said. Mohseni Ejeie, who also acts as the judiciary's spokesman, suggested that Ahmadinejad's sudden interest in Evin was linked to "a...

Protesters showed their support of the Regulation Law in a demonstration near the Supreme Court shortly before a vote on the bill. Dozens of youths and young adults blocked the road near the court house in Jerusalem before the Knesset plenum was scheduled to decide on the measure, which would retroactively legalize Beit El's Ulpana neighborhood. The so-called Regulation Bill requires anyone claiming ownership of land upon which homes are being built to file a challenge and prove ownership within four years of the start of construction upon the property. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who arranged for the five apartment...

The Cabinet Sunday approved a nearby temporary housing site for residents of Migron, over whose heads hangs an expulsion order. Nationalist Knesset Members in the coalition have insisted that Migron must remain in its current location, and the High Court has rejected a government petition to defer the scheduled expulsion beyond a July 15 deadline. The unanimous vote by the Cabinet approved a temporary housing site on Givat HaYekev in Kochav Yaakov, located in central Samaria. This was part of an agreement negotiated between the residents and the government as a site for the town if the present location is...

In a disappointing decision for nationalists, the High Court Sunday threw out a compromise deal between the government and the residents of Migron, and set a new deadline for the eviction of the residents. The three judge panel is headed by Supreme Court President Asher Grunis, and includes judges Miriam Naor and Salim Jubran. They gave the government until August 1 to evict the residents. "Now the petitioners are entitled to enjoy the fruits of the verdict," the judges wrote. "They have the right to see the ongoing disruption of their rights end. The public interest in enforcement of the...

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Thursday opposed the dilution of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) by the Delhi High Court, which decriminalised sexual acts, in private, between consenting adults of the same sex and urged the Supreme Court to reverse the landmark ruling. The UPA government told the Supreme Court that the HC had erred because a vast section of the Indian society still considered homosexuality immoral. The Delhi High Court on July 2, 2009, had delivered a historic judgement to amend a 149-year-old law - Section 377 of the IPC - and decriminalise private consensual sex...

Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch said, Tuesday, that she was sorry about the great distress caused to incoming justice Noam Solberg during the selection process because he is a resident of the Gush Etzion bloc of Judean Jewish communities. Speaking at the swearing-in ceremony for Solberg and justice Tzvi Silbertal, she said that, contrary to reports in the media that Silbertal was a close member of her circle, "It should be that way, I would be happy if he will be in the future. But I know Justice Silbertal..."

Under licence, for self defence MADURAI: Revenue authorities or police officials cannot refuse to issue arms licence by citing the likelihood of law and order problem as all citizens of the country are entitled to possess weapons, under licence, for self-defence unless their antecedents or propensities do not entitle them for the privilege, the Madras High Court has ruled. Justice D. Hariparanthaman passed the ruling while allowing a writ petition filed by an agriculturist who was denied licence by the Commissioner of Revenue Administration as well as the Theni District Revenue Officer in 2005 and 2004 respectively to possess a...

California's three-strikes law, which imposes mandatory 25-year minimums on three-time offenders, even if their crimes are nonviolent. "There are a lot of second-strikers who get their sentence doubled just because they've had another strike. So, instead of a burglary being five years, automatically it's 10," Specter said. Severe overcrowding in state prisons has resulted in extreme suffering and death, a deprivation of the (American) rights violate the Constitution and the 1995 federal Prison Litigation Reform Act, as well.