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India's top court lifts temple's ban on women who menstruate
Legal Blog News |
2018/10/01 15:45
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India's Supreme Court on Friday lifted a temple's ban on women of menstruating age, holding that equality is supreme irrespective of age and gender.
The historic Sabarimala temple had barred women age 10 to 50 from entering the temple that is one of the largest Hindu pilgrimage centers in the world.
Some religious figures consider menstruating women to be impure. But the court ruled 4-1 the practice of excluding women cannot be regarded as an essential religious practice.
The temple argued the celibate nature of Sabarimala temple's presiding deity Lord Ayyappa was protected by India's Constitution.
The top court's verdict is part a string of recent rulings that recognize more rights of women, challenging deeply conservative Indian society. On Thursday, it scrapped a law which did not allow wives to bring criminal charges against adulterous husbands.
Chief Justice Dipak Misra in part of Friday's judgment said devotion could not be discriminatory and patriarchal notion could not trump equality in devotion.
"Religion cannot be the cover to deny women right to worship. To treat women as children of lesser God is to blink at constitutional morality," he said.
Rahul Eswaran, an attorney for the temple, said the temple management would seek a review of the court's decision. It noted girls and women of other ages were allowed in the temple without restrictions.
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Arizona court to review ruling on car-rental tax surchar
Legal Blog News |
2018/09/30 15:44
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The Arizona Supreme Court will review a lower court’s ruling that a car-rental tax surcharge imposed in Maricopa County to pay for building a football stadium and other sports and recreational facilities is legal.
The high court announced Tuesday that it would review the Court of Appeals’ March ruling that a constitutional provision on use of transportation money wasn’t intended to cover every tax or fee related in any way to vehicles.
Car-rental companies’ attorneys had argued that the constitutional provision meant the surcharge revenue can be used only to build and maintain roads.
Court of Appeals Judge Diane Johnsen wrote that the provision is triggered by a vehicle’s operation on a public roadway.
Attorney Shawn Aiken responded by saying the tax provision relates to the operation of a car. |
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Stand-ins to decide who sits on West Virginia Supreme Court
Legal Blog News |
2018/09/25 15:43
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A group of judicial stand-ins representing West Virginia's Supreme Court was hearing challenges Monday to GOP Gov. Jim Justice's appointments of two Republican politicians to replace two departed justices.
Democrats have called the impeachments that imploded the state's highest court an unprecedented power grab by the West Virginia GOP. One of the petitions being heard on Monday says the choice of U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins and ex-House speaker Tim Armstead violates "the clear will of the voters" who elected Democrats to their spots on the bench.
Justice appointed Jenkins and Armstead — who resigned as speaker of the House of Delegates in anticipation of his move to the court — to serve until a Nov. 6 special election in which both men are candidates.
Also on the November ballot is attorney William Schwartz, whose petition seeks to stop Jenkins and Armstead from temporarily serving on the court. His petition also accuses Jenkins of being ineligible because he hasn't actively practiced law recently. The state constitution requires justices to be admitted to practice law for at least 10 years prior to their election.
Jenkins and Schwartz are seeking to serve the remainder of retired Justice Robin Davis' term through 2024, while Armstead hopes to finish the term of retired Justice Menis Ketchum through 2020. Both Davis and Ketchum were elected as Democrats.
Ketchum resigned before the Republican-led House voted to impeach the remaining four justices. Davis then resigned in time to trigger an election for the remainder of her term. The others await Senate impeachment trials next month, including Allen Loughry, who is suspended, and Margaret Workman and Beth Walker, who recused themselves from hearing these petitions. Temporary Chief Justice Paul T. Farrell then appointed four circuit judges to hear the challenges.
According to Schwartz's petition, Jenkins voluntarily placed his West Virginia law license on inactive status in 2014 after he was elected to the U.S. House. But Jenkins said he's been admitted to practice law in the state for more than three decades. According to the bylaws of the State Bar, an inactive status means members are admitted to practice law but aren't taking clients or providing legal counseling. |
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3 hurt in court shooting leave hospital; gunman identified
Legal Blog News |
2018/09/21 15:15
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The wife of a gunman killed after he opened fire at a Pennsylvania municipal building Wednesday said in a social media post that she was OK but did not say whether she had been injured in the shooting.
Crystal Dowdell, 39, posted on her Facebook account that she was fine late Wednesday and that police had taken her phone as evidence. Pennsylvania state police confirmed Thursday that Patrick Dowdell, 61, was the deceased gunman.
Dowdell entered the Masontown Borough building about 60 miles south of Pittsburgh after 2 p.m. Wednesday with a handgun drawn and began firing into the crowded complex’s lobby. He wounded a police officer, who was treated and released for injuries to his hand, before wounding three civilians.
Authorities would not say whether any of the victims were Dowdell’s intended target or related to the domestic violence charges he was scheduled to appear in court to face Wednesday.
The three were taken to Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, West Virginia. A spokeswoman said Thursday the two men, ages 35 and 47, and a 39-year-old woman were all released Wednesday night. |
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Chicago, surfer group oppose US Steel settlement in court
Legal Blog News |
2018/09/15 12:49
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The city of Chicago and a surfing organization have told a judge that a proposed federal settlement over U.S. Steel's repeated chemical spills into Lake Michigan is inadequate.
The Chicago Law Department and the Surfrider Foundation urged the federal judge Thursday to impose tougher penalties on the steelmaker for last year's hexavalent chromium discharges from its Midwest Plant in Portage, Indiana, into the region's primary source of drinking water, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The nearly $900,000 in fines and penalties proposed by the federal government fall short when compared with the ecological damage caused by the carcinogenic discharges, according to court documents filed by the city of Chicago and the nonprofit foundation. The settlement also requires the steelmaker to test for hexavalent chromium daily, create a preventative maintenance program and upgrade all pollution monitoring.
"The government's inadequate oversight ... demonstrates the need for Surfrider to remain vigilant," said Mark Templeton, the group's attorney.
The University of Chicago's Abrams Environmental Law Clinic discovered last year that the manufacturing and finishing plant had violated chromium limits in its federal water pollution permit at least four times since 2013. The plant's chromium discharges are limited to 30 pounds a day, while hexavalent chromium is limited to about half a pound a day.
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