Retired judge slams Centre, moves SC for Justice KM Joseph's elevation

A retired district Judge from Solapur, Maharashtra, G D Inamdar has filed a PIL in the Supreme Court seeking Uttarakhand Chief Justice K M Joseph's immediate elevation to the apex court.

The PIL filed by the retired district judge has also sought a direction to the Centre to issue warrants of appointment for Justice Joseph with consequential seniority.

He approached the Supreme Court seeking urgent action on the quashing of the "illegal and unconstitutional" move of the Central government by segregating Justice Joseph's name whose name for elevation had been recommended by the apex court collegium.

"The petitioner is aggrieved by the shocking manner in which the Central Government has unilaterally and capriciously segregated and rejected the name of Hon'ble Justice K M Joseph - recommended by the Collegium for appointment as a Judge of this Hon'ble Court, while at the same time accepting the recommendation for elevation of Ms Indu Malhotra, Senior Advocate, as a Judge of this Hon'ble Court," the petition said.

Justice in Syria: 5 ways to prosecute international crime

The conflict in Syria has seen atrocities committed by all sides for six long years. Barbarities are an everyday occurrence.

There are rules governing the conduct of warring parties. The 1949 Geneva Conventions form the core of international humanitarian law. Violating these rules is a war crime. Some atrocities go even beyond this level of criminality. Genocide, for instance, is an international crime in itself, while the systematic killing of political opposition would constitute a crime against humanity.

The existence of these offences counts for little, of course, unless the law is enforced. This raises the question: is there any way of prosecuting any side of the Syrian conflict? These are some options that could help inform the way forward.

1. International Criminal Court investigation

The International Criminal Court (ICC), based in the Hague, is designed to prosecute “the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole”. So perhaps it could act in Syria.

The court operates on a consensual basis, so that (perhaps counterintuitively) states must sign up to it to allow the exercise of ICC jurisdiction. Syria is not a party to the court.

There is a workaround though. The ICC can investigate international crimes in any country if the UN Security Council requests it to do so. This happened to Sudan in 2005 and Libya in 2011. Despite best efforts by lobbying states, the same has not happened in the case of Syria. Both Russia and China blocked a proposed referral in 2014 and there is little sign of them changing their minds.
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Corporate manslaughter: Could it bring justice for London fire victims?

The disaster at Grenfell Tower has been described by David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham, as a case of “corporate manslaughter”. According to English law, companies and organisations can be found guilty of corporate manslaughter as a result of serious management failures, resulting in a gross breach of a duty of care.
Amid calls for arrests, it’s time to consider whether the failings that led to the Grenfell disaster could possibly justify the use of the label “corporate manslaughter” – and what this would mean for victims who seek justice.

Prosecutions for this offence are of a corporate body (defined broadly enough to include public authorities) and not individuals – so we probably won’t see any pictures of executives being led away in handcuffs. That said, directors, board members and others may still be liable to prosecution under health and safety law or general criminal law. The offence also covers contractors and sub-contractors, so long as they owe a duty of care to the victims.

A duty of care is an obligation, whereby an organisation must take reasonable steps to protect a person’s safety. Legally, it is broadly understood as avoiding negligence by not placing people in danger. These duties also exist in relation to workplaces and equipment, as well as to products or services supplied to customers. This suggests that when an entity exercises control over people and spaces it has a responsibility to protect them.

The corporate manslaughter offence uses the same definitions of duty of care as the common law offence of gross negligence manslaughter. This means that the threshold for the offence is high – the way that activities were managed or organised must have fallen seriously far below reasonable standards.
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