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Law - new material (53)

01 May 2005

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Why I gave up legal aid, Zoe Stevens. Legal Action June 2005, p. 6. The author, who has worked as an immigration solicitor and is now working for Bail for Immigration Detainees, explains her decision to give up practice as an immigration solicitor.

Briefing paper on US military commissions. Human Rights Watch, 26.7.05, pp11. Briefing on Hamden-v-Rumsfeld at the US Federal Appeals Court, which overturned a 2004 District Court ruling that resulted in the suspension of the military commissions at the US "gulag" at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. With 15 Guantanamo prisoners deemed "eligible" by Bush to stand trial by military commission Human Rights Watch has raised "serious due process concerns" that will be likely to: a. deprive defendants of independent judicial oversight; b. improperly subject to military trial persons apprehended far from any battle; c. violate the 1949 Geneva Convention; d. deny defence counsel from mounting an effective defence; e. prevent defendants from seeing all the evidence against them; f. impose no obligation for the government to disclose exculpatory information; g. place review of important interlocutory questions with the charging authority; h. fail to guarantee that evidence obtained through torture shall not be used; i. allow the imposition of "gagging" orders defence counsel; j. deprive defence counsel of the normal protections from improper "command influence"; k. restrict the defendant's right to choose legal counsel, and l. provide lower due process standards for non-citizens than for US citizens. http://hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/military-commissions.org

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