Israeli inquiry clears officers of wrongdoing in Bedouin teacher killing

Rights group says Ministry of Justice's exoneration in the 2017 case is part of a 'policy of whitewashing' Israeli violence against Palestinians

Mourners pray during the funeral of Yaqoub Abu al-Qiyan, killed by Israeli police forces on 18 January 2017 (AFP)

 

Tuesday 1 May 2018 

Israeli police officers who shot and killed a Palestinian citizen of Israel during a demolition raid in a Bedouin village were cleared of any criminal act, the Israeli justice ministry said on Tuesday.

Yaqoub Abu al-Qiyan, 50, was killed on 18 January 2017 while driving his vehicle as police staged a pre-dawn raid on the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran to demolish several homes built without Israeli government permission.

Police claimed at the time that Abu al-Qiyan was shot as he deliberately drove towards officers, hitting and killing a policeman.

However, eyewitnesses have said that Abu al-Qiyan did not constitute a threat when he was shot.

Videos of the event - including aerial footage shot by Israeli police - showed Abu al-Qiyan driving slowly in the area before shots were fired in his direction, after which his vehicle accelerated in the direction of the police officers.

An autopsy on Abu al-Qiyan showed that a first bullet hit his right leg, causing him to lose control of his car, while a second bullet hit him in the chest, causing severe internal bleeding.

Abu al-Qiyan was not given medical treatment, and bled to death at the scene after 20 minutes.

The Israeli State Attorney Office’s decision to close its investigation attests to the policy of whitewashing and its perception of the lives of Arab citizens of Israel as unequal to those of Jewish citizen

- Adalah

A police statement shortly after the event described Abu al-Qiyan as a "terrorist from the Islamic Movement", and suggested he may have had ties to the Islamist State group.

Tuesday's ministry statement said that there was no certainty that the impact that killed a policeman was deliberate, but also cleared police of criminal behaviour.

"There was no reasonable suspicion of criminal offences committed by the policemen involved in the incident," said the statement from the justice ministry, which is responsible for investigating suspicions of police misconduct.

"It was decided not to continue the inquiry into the incident."

It said that the police use of firearms was reasonable in light of their belief that their lives were in danger.

But it added there were "some issues" that the department referred back to the national police chief and the head of the police disciplinary department for them to consider if there was need for disciplinary action.

The statement said the Shin Bet internal security agency had examined the scene immediately after the deaths and had subsequently abandoned its investigation, saying it was unable to determine whether there had been a "terror attack".

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said on Tuesday that police “welcomed the decision made by the State Attorney’s Office”, adding that the ministry of justice investigation was “unfortunate” as it had “cut short” an internal police investigation into the case.

However, legal rights organisation Adalah said in a statement that it would file an appeal against the ministry’s decision.

“The Israeli State Attorney Office’s decision to close its investigation attests to the policy of whitewashing and its perception of the lives of Arab citizens of Israel as unequal to those of Jewish citizens,” the group said.

Abu al-Qiyan's nephew Raed also demanded a broader investigation.

"Who planned it, who took part, who gave the orders, who opened fire, who left him to bleed for 30 minutes and prevented medics from reaching him," he told Israeli public radio, citing what he said were the post-mortem findings.

He said that his late uncle had been a respected teacher and had represented Israel as a delegate to international conferences on education, science and technology.

Israeli authorities rarely indict members of the country’s armed forces who kill Palestinians. When charged for such deaths, sentences are often short - creating what Israeli human rights NGO Yesh Din has called a context of "near impunity".

Less than a week prior, Israel police officer Ben Deri was sentenced to nine months in prison as part of a plea deal for the 2014 killing of Palestinian teenager Nadim Nuwara - prompting rights groups to accuse the Israeli justice system of “whitewashing” state violence against Palestinians.

Palestinian citizens of Israel - including some 300,000 Bedouins - are descendants of Palestinians who remained after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, and now make up around 20 percent of Israel’s population.

According to Adalah, more than 65 Israeli laws discriminate between Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel - "from citizenship rights to the right to political participation, land and housing rights, education rights, cultural and language rights, religious rights, and due process rights during detention".

Umm al-Hiran is one of 35 villages in the Negev that remain unrecognised by the state of Israel, which means the residents, all Israeli citizens, have never been granted building permits, basic services or infrastructure.

The villagers have been living under the threat of expulsion from the land since 2016, when the Israeli Supreme Court delivered its final demolition ruling against the village so that a Jewish-only town could be built on the site.

Dozens killed in Nigeria suicide bomb attack

Twin attack at mosque and market in north-east city of Mubi bears hallmarks of Islamist insurgents Boko Haram

Site of a previous attack by Boko Haram militants in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri on 27 April. Photograph: Stringer/Reuters

Agence France-Presse in Kano-Tue 1 May 2018 19.19 BST

Suicide bombers have killed dozens of people at a mosque and a market in north-east Nigeria, in a twin attack bearing the hallmarks of Islamist insurgents Boko Haram.

The blasts happened at about 1:20pm (1220 GMT) in Mubi, a city 125 miles (200km) from the Adamawa state capital, Yola.

Adamawa state police spokesman Othman Abubakar said: “For now [the death toll] is 24,” but other sources gave far higher figures. Rescue worker Sani Kakale said: “In my presence, 42 dead bodies were taken to hospital and 68 injured.” A source at Mubi General hospital told AFP they had received 37 bodies and dozens of injured, many of them critically.

Suspicion immediately fell on Boko Haram, the jihadist group whose quest to establish a hardline Islamic state in north-east Nigeria has left at least 20,000 dead since 2009.

Mubi has been repeatedly targeted in attacks blamed on Boko Haram since it was briefly overrun by the militants in late 2014.

Nigeria’s government and military have long maintained that the Islamic State group affiliate is a spent force and on the verge of defeat. But there has been no let-up in attacks in the country’s north-east.

Last Thursday, at least four people were killed when suicide bombers and fighters attempted to storm the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, raising fresh questions about security.

The Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari has been in the US this week and met his US counterpart, Donald Trump, who pledged more support in the fight against Boko Haram.

In Mubi, local volunteer Habu Saleh, who was involved in the rescue effort, described the situation as “chaos all over the place”.

“We have evacuated dozens of dead and injured people to the hospital and the rescue operation is still ongoing,” he said.

Health workers from the hospital mobilised to attend to the victims, despite being on strike over pay and conditions.

Mubi resident Abdullahi Labaran said the first bomber mingled with worshippers who had gathered for prayers at the mosque at the edge of the market. He detonated his explosives “five minutes before the prayer started”, he added.

The second bomber blew himself up among the crowds of worshippers, traders and shoppers who fled the mosque towards a nearby market.

The 7 most intriguing questions Robert Mueller wants to ask Trump

With questions circling about President Trump giving an interview in one of his legal cases, his manner in past depositions hints at how he may behave. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

By Aaron Blake May 1 at 8:00 AM

Now we know what special counsel Robert S. Mueller III wants to ask President Trump (at least in part).

The New York Times reported Monday evening questions the special counsel's team has previewed with Trump's lawyers as they negotiate whether the president will sit for an interview. And although many of them are unsurprising — going over key events in the investigations of obstruction and Russian collusion in the 2016 campaign and what Trump knew about them — some hint at points of emphasis, previously unknown angles and mysterious subplots.

Below are seven questions that caught my eye.

1. “What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?”

That middle phrase is the one that sticks out: “including by Paul Manafort.” Why specify him and only him?

Until a few weeks ago, Manafort wasn't widely considered a key figure in the collusion investigation. 

He was mostly seen as someone who might flip on Trump because of the dozens of criminal charges he faces. But a court filing last month revealed that Mueller had sought authorization to expand his inquiry into allegations that Manafort “committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials.” And another filing shortly before that described a Manafort business associate, Konstantin Kilimnik, as having ongoing ties to Russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign. (It has previously been asserted that Kilimnik had ties to Russian intelligence, but not necessarily during the campaign.)

Manafort is hardly the only person linked to possible collusion. Others include Donald Trump Jr., longtime informal adviser Roger Stone and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior aide. The fact that Manafort is explicitly mentioned, when combined with these two recent filings, can't help but raise eyebrows.

2. “How was the decision made to fire Mr. Flynn on Feb. 13, 2017?”

This sounds routine, but it could mean that Mueller is interested in a tweet sent from Trump's account in December that said Trump fired former national security adviser Michael Flynn “because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI.”

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!

1:14 PM - Dec 2, 2017

• 113K
• 99.7K people are talking about this

That was important because shortly after firing Flynn, Trump approached then-FBI Director James B. Comey about seeking leniency for Flynn, according to Comey. That plea would be more problematic from an obstruction of justice standpoint if Trump knew Flynn had lied to the FBI and was in legal jeopardy because of it. It would suggest Trump wanted to help Flynn to protect himself.

Trump's legal team quickly went into cleanup mode. Then-attorney John Dowd said that he was responsible for the sloppily worded tweet and that Trump was only generally aware of Flynn's conversations with the FBI. Mueller wants to know Trump's version of how that went down.

3. “What did you think and do in reaction to the news that the special counsel was speaking to Mr. Rogers, Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Coats?”

This is a real mystery. The Washington Post reported last year that Trump asked Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats if he could intervene to get Comey to back off Flynn, with then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo present at the meeting. (The other official mentioned here is National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers.) But this isn't that.

Lots of questions on the Times's list are very general and clearly refer to things that have been reported publicly, but this seems to refer to a specific episode about which we don't really know anything. Exactly what it is is anybody's guess.

Robert Mueller, left, on June 19, 2013, and President Trump on December 15, 2017 (Saul Loeb and Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

4. “Did you discuss whether Mr. Sessions would protect you, and reference past attorneys general?”

Trump is big on loyalty, he has expressed frustration with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and he has spoken glowingly how Barack Obama's attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., “totally protected” Obama. But whether he has tied all those things together is another thing.

This suggests that Mueller wants to know whether Trump has directly asked Sessions for protection. We don't know, of course, whether that's because someone told Mueller that Trump did, or just because Mueller thinks it's logical that he may have.

5. “What did you think and what did you do in reaction to the news of the appointment of the special counsel?”

Another mystery is why Mueller's own appointment is in the questions he wants to ask Trump. You'd expect Mueller to be interested in Trump's efforts to fire him — and other questions deal with that — but this one is a head-scratcher.

Again, is there a specific event Mueller is aware of that he wants to ask Trump about? Or is this just a general inquiry?

6. “What discussions did you have regarding terminating the special counsel, and what did you do when that consideration was reported in January 2018?”

The second part is the key. Trump seemed to publicly deny that he tried to fire Mueller, calling it “fake news.” This may suggest that Mueller is interested in whether Trump misled the American public about his own actions, or could allude to something else Trump did that we, again, don't yet know about.

As I wrote at the time, misleading public denials were cited in special counsel Kenneth Starr's report on President Bill Clinton, even as the president wasn't under oath.

7. “During a 2013 trip to Russia, what communication and relationships did you have with the Agalarovs and Russian government officials?”

Trump boasted in 2015 that he met with high-level Russian business executives, including Aras Agalarov, and government officials during his 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant. “I was with the top-level people, both oligarchs and generals and top-of-the-government people,” he told radio host Hugh Hewitt. “I can't go further than that, but I will tell you I met the top people.”

It seems Mueller wants him to go further than that.

Trump Cards: who’s who in the Mueller investigation – all you need to know

1 May 2018

An enormous cast of people have been linked to the Trump/Russia story. These are the names you need to know, as the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller picks up pace.

Donald Trump was elected 45th President of the United States in November 2016, after winning more electoral college votes than the favourite, Hillary Clinton.

Four months before the vote, the FBI had launched an investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

But the new president sacked the FBI’s director James Comey in May 2017, before the investigation was complete.

Then, around a week later, the US Department of Justice appointed Robert Mueller as Special Counsel and tasked him with investigating “any links and/or co-ordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump”.

The stakes are high: veterans of Watergate, which brought down Richard Nixon, say collusion with Russia, if proven, would be an even bigger scandal.

An enormous cast of people have been linked to the Trump/Russia story. These are the names you need to know.

General Michael Flynn

Michael Flynn

The former US Army Lieutenant General resigned as Trump’s National Security Advisor after just 24 days because he lied about his contact with Russia’s ambassador to the US, Sergei Kislyak.

According to court documents, Kislyak contacted Flynn on December 28, 2016. Barack Obama was still president and had just ordered sanctions against Russia for interfering with the election.

Flynn was in communication between the Russian embassy and members of the Trump transition team. After consulting with Trump’s team, he asked the Russians not to escalate tensions ahead of the presidential handover. Soon afterwards, Moscow announced it would not retaliate against Obama’s sanctions.

When questioned by the FBI, Flynn lied about the nature of his conversations with Kislyak. He later pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements and agreed to co-operate with the Mueller investigation.

Read More

Optimism About Korea Will Kill Us All

The first step towards peace is lowering your expectations.

A man walks past a newspaper featuring a front page story about the summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, on a sidewalk in Seoul on Apr. 28. (Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images) 

BY JEFFREY LEWIS

 | APRIL 30, 2018, 3:47 PM

Last week’s inter-Korean summit, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s declaration that he would “close” his nuclear test site by May, were greeted widely with celebration. But contrary to the hoopla, we have now arrived at an especially dangerous moment in Washington’s relationship with Pyongyang. We are on the verge of letting our hopes get in the way of our survival.

Consider the now widespread view that North Korea’s test site is unusable or that the mountain that contains it has collapsed. This was always garbage reporting. You can download the two academic papers that are said to have originally made these claims — they say nothing of the kind. What the papers do is prove that, after North Korea’s big nuclear test in September 2017, the cavity created by the explosion collapsed in on itself. We already knew that probably happened (although it is cool to see it demonstrated through seismology).

But the collapsing of the cavity and shrinking of the mountain do not mean the tunnels leading to it collapsed, let alone that the mountain itself had done so. And, of course, there are two other nuclear test complexes underneath entirely different mountains at the site. Kim was quoted as making this point himself: “Some said we will dismantle unusable facilities, but there are two more larger tunnels [in addition to] the original one and these are very in good condition as you will get to know that when coming and seeing them.” But commentators in the West, hoping for a diplomatic breakthrough (whether for political or more idealistic reasons), still heard what they wanted to hear about the condition of North Korea’s program.

The whole episode reminds me of something that happened a decade ago — when North Korea agreed to demolish the cooling tower at its Yongbyon gas-graphite reactor. The demolition of the cooling tower, accomplished with great fanfare, was not, in fact, a part of the original agreement that the Bush administration had reached with North Korea. But the Bush administration went back and asked North Korea to do it because it wanted “a striking visual, broadcast around the globe, that would offer tangible evidence that North Korea was retreating from its nuclear ambitions.” In other words, it was a PR stunt — and people fell for it.

There was just one problem. Although North Korea never rebuilt the cooling tower, that didn’t stop it from it secretly restarting Yongbyon — it simply connected the reactor to a nondescript and very boring pump house it had constructed under everyone’s noses. (This was the same sort of pump house, incidentally, that North Korea helped Syria build at its secret nuclear reactor near Al Kibar.) But without the visual of Yongbyon’s cooling tower, almost no one noticed what North Korea was doing with the reactor.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeffrey Lewis is director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program for the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Kim’s promise to close the nuclear test site doesn’t really mean much in practice, certainly not much more than the demolition of the cooling tower. The site is a few support buildings surrounded by mountains with massive tunnel complexes dug horizontally into them. Simply closing the site wouldn’t be anything like the disabling of South Africa’s nuclear test site, whose vertical shafts were filled with debris. Instead, it would be more like the closure of Degelen Mountain at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan, which the United States helped seal after the Soviets had abandoned it. Scavengers eventually just popped open the seals, forcing the United States to reseal them and then add surveillance measures. North Korea can seal up the tunnels, but it could always unseal them later. And we should keep an eye out for the proverbial pump house. After all, it’s not like North Korea is short on mountains or labor to dig new tunnels.

This is not to say that I am not delighted that North Korea has announced an end to nuclear explosive testing and the closure of its test site. This is a very good thing. But we must be clear about what’s happening and what it means. North Korea isn’t giving up a test site because it collapsed. North Korea agreed to stop testing because Kim is getting what he wants. The third inter-Korean summit was not premised on Kim Jong Un offering to disarm. He has never, ever made a concrete promise to abandon his nuclear weapons program. If you read the joint statement closely, what South and North Korea have done is to take disarmament off the table as a concrete outcome and substitute a vague aspiration that at some point nuclear weapons will no longer be necessary.

Until that time, Kim is willing to agree to a much more modest series of steps — a moratorium on launches of intermediate- and intercontinental-range ballistic missiles, as well as an end to nuclear testing. Those are good things. We should appreciate them as genuine improvements to U.S. security, not something to tide the United States over until North Korea turns over missiles and nuclear warheads.

Kim is working toward winning a de facto recognition of North Korea as a nuclear power in exchange for his agreement to respect certain limits — an end to certain missile tests and nuclear explosions, an agreement not to export nuclear technology to other states, and perhaps a pledge by North Korea not to use nuclear weapons. To accept this would represent a complete and total retreat from decades of U.S. policy — a retreat that I believe is overdue and the inevitable consequence of North Korea’s development of ICBMs and thermonuclear weapons. We have to learn to accept North Korea as it is. And what North Korea is, is nuclear-armed.

But because it represents a retreat, we’re not acknowledging it honestly. If Trump were to say this clearly, then I would support the old racist windbag in this pursuit. But instead, Trump and others are presenting this process as a route that leads to North Korea’s disarmament — even though Kim has said nothing that deviates from statements that every North Korean leader has made. And in our collective self-delusion, we have a surprising cheerleader: national security advisor John Bolton.

TRENDING

It is worth asking why Bolton is busy giving interviews in which he raises hopes for a complete elimination of North Korea’s nuclear weapons that can occur in a matter of months. He has repeatedly called for a “Libya style” deal — one in which the United States simply shows up and collects the weapons and supporting infrastructure. And South Korean officials are also saying that Trump won’t meet with Kim without “a specific timeline for complete denuclearization: as soon as possible and no later than the end of Mr. Trump’s current term, in early 2021.”

This is madness. There is no reason to think that Kim has any intention of agreeing to such a thing. (Starting with the fact that he has never offered to part with North Korea’s “powerful treasured sword,” as it calls its nuclear arsenal.) And there is no reason to think that Bolton, given all the things he has written and said over the years about North Korea, believes it either. Bolton isn’t suddenly naive. He’s working an angle. And that angle is almost certainly misaligning the president’s expectations. Bolton won’t try to kill diplomacy by opposing it. Rather he’ll kill it by making the perfect the enemy of the good. By raising the prospects of a Libya-style surrender, the much more modest settlement offered by Kim looks sad by comparison.

This is a very cynical — and dangerous — game that Bolton and others are playing. Because what happens once it becomes clear that Kim is not abandoning his nuclear weapons? What does Trump do? Given his personality, what’s most likely is that he’ll lash out, blaming his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, for his role in setting up the fiasco — and turning the keys over to Bolton. Trump has already hinted at that. At a rally the other day, Trump spoke glowingly about his own efforts to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons, before turning dark. “And if I can’t do it,” Trump warned, “it will be a very tough time for a lot of countries and a lot of people.”

That is a mild description for a situation that would expose millions of Koreans, Japanese, and Americans to a heightened risk of nuclear war. If diplomacy fails, it will be a tough time for everyone — everyone except Bolton.

South Korea’s Moon asks UN to verify closure of Kim’s nuclear test site

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attend a banquet on the Peace House at the truce village of Panmunjom inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, South Korea, April 27, 2018. Source: Korea Summit Press Pool/Pool via Reuters

 1st May 2018

SOUTH KOREAN President Moon Jae-in has requested the assistance of the United Nations in verifying North Korea’s planned shutdown of its nuclear test site and efforts for peace on the peninsula, his office announced Tuesday.

As reported by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, Moon delivered his message to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a 30-minute phone conversation, during which he asked the UN to monitor the implementation of the summit deal reached on Friday.

SEE ALSO: North and South Korea met – but what does it really mean?

Moon met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the truce village on the border between these two long battling nations. It was the first time a North Korean leader had set foot in the South since the outbreak of the War in 1950.

The result of the historic summit was the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification of the Korean Peninsula, in which both sides agreed to a “nuclear-free Korean Peninsula” and “solid peace regime” with the aim to officially end the Korean War by the end of this year.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meet in the truce village of Panmunjom inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, South Korea, April 27, 2018. Source: Korea Summit Press Pool/Pool via Reuters

Kim also agreed to close down the infamous Punggye-ri nuclear weapons testing site in Kilju County where the regime has conducted six nuclear tests. He invited South Korean and US journalists and experts to visit and make sure the closure goes ahead as planned.

Plans to turn the heavily armed Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) into a peace belt were also discussed.

SEE ALSO: North Korea aligns clocks with South as propaganda cut off in DMZ

Moon asked the UN to monitor the implementation of the summit deal.

“I would like the UN to issue a declaration to support the Panmunjom Declaration via the General Assembly or the Security Council,” Moon was quoted as telling the UN chief.

Guterres reportedly agreed to the proposal, saying he hopes to help efforts to make peace take root in Korea.

He added he would assign a UN disarmament official to work with Seoul on the matter.

Friday’s summit, where Kim and Moon were seen on live TV smiling and even hugging, was the first meeting between the countries in over a decade.

Independence of Indian judiciary at stake with Govt. breathing down its neck

 

2018-05-01 

The framers of the Indian constitution were wedded to the concept of separation of powers and wanted the judiciary to be independent of the executive. But within two decades of independence, the higher Indian judiciary had come under unprecedented pressure to conform to the political diktats of the government, then dominated by the awe-inspiring Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.   

Indira wanted the Supreme Court to interpret the law and constitution according to her path breaking leftist and populist ideology. She openly sought a “committed judiciary” and appointed judges of her political and ideological hue.   

However, being a never-say-die democracy, India put paid to such gross forms of interference by the second half of the 1970s. But the spread of democracy and the increasing competitiveness of Indian politics inexorably led to the politicization of institutions which were previously apolitical.   

Politicians increasingly felt the need to control more and more institutions, including the judiciary. The latter kept coming under duress from the government from time to time.   

Appointment by Judges’ Collegium 

The system of appointing judges acquired a political dimension which resulted in candidates pandering to the whims of powerful political lobbies. Since appointments were a delicate matter involving the political interests, there were delays, which, in turn, resulted in the creation of a large number of vacancies in the courts.   

The inadequacies of the judicial structure led to corruption which in turn led to an erosion of faith in the judicial system.   

To protect the independence of the judiciary from political forces and the Executive, the Supreme Court, in 1993, directed that judges be chosen by a “collegium” of judges of the High Courts (in the first instance), and then a collegium of judges of the Supreme Court in the final stage. The government was required to accept the recommendations and make the appointments.   

The collegiate system appeared to work well until a High Court judge, C.S.Karnan, charged members of the collegium of secrecy, corruption, and caste biases. An intemperate person, Karnan brazenly sentenced to imprisonment all the five members of a Supreme Court bench.   

To protect itself from such challenges, the Supreme Court’s justices banded together to sentence Karnan to six months jail in 2017. But many wondered if it was right to wholly condemn Karnan because there was a felt need to have a mechanism to control the goings on the judiciary which were not always wholesome. Left out of appointments since 1993, the government and the major political parties had also started targeting the collegiate system.   

NJAC and MOP

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress combined to establish, by law, a National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) to control appointments. Threatened, the Supreme Court promptly annulled the NJAC saying it violated the constitutional principle of separation of powers.   

After the National Judicial Appointments Commission was rejected in 2015, the BJP government proposed the adoption of a Memorandum of Procedure (MOP) to appoint judges.   

But there was a snag there. The MOP had a clause saying that the government could reject a candidate on grounds of “national security”. It further said that it would inform only the Chief Justice of the exact nature of the national security threat.   

The collegium rejected such selectivity. Stumped, the government came down a notch and said that it was prepared to negotiate the MOP.   

Delaying Tactics

The government also began to use its power to delay acceptance of the collegium’s recommendations and to send back recommendations for reconsideration.   
The most recent example of the exercise of such power is the way the BJP government has treated the collegium’s recommendation to appoint K.M.Joseph (Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court) as a Supreme Court judge.   

The BJP government did not want to elevate Joseph because in 2016, he had disallowed the sacking of the Congress government and the imposition of President’s Rule in Uttarakhand.   

Peeved by this snub, the BJP government sat over the collegium’s recommendation to appoint Justice Joseph for months. It then sent it back for reconsideration.   
As grounds for reconsideration, it said that Joseph is not senior enough; that his State of Kerala is over represented; and that there is no representation of Dalits or depressed castes in the bench.   

Bench and Collegium Divided

But can the Supreme Court and the collegium pick up the gauntlet and resist the government?   

The current Supreme Court bench and the collegium are divided houses. Four senior judges are ranged against Chief Justice Dipak Misra on various grounds. Senior Justices J. Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph had only recently publicly challenged Misra’s arbitrary style of functioning and accused him of being a hand maiden of the government. But Misra has argued that he has the power to do what he has been doing.   

Given the disunity it is feared that the collegium may not be in a position to over-ride the government, even though the government will have to go by its recommendation if it reiterates the recommendation.   

Predictably, Chief Justice Misra held that the government is entitled to seek reconsideration of a recommendation by the collegium. Misra has also made it clear that he will not opt for a “judicial response” to the government’s move, because, in his view, the issue is not “judicial” but “administrative”.   

He brushed aside Justice Chelameswar’s contention that the government’s sitting over the collegium’s recommendations has become the new norm, and acting on its proposals is an exception.   

The four disgruntled judges had urged Chief Justice Misra to hold a full court meeting on the issue. But Misra did not act until the government sent a letter urging the collegium to reconsider its recommendation relating to Justice K.M.Joseph. The collegium will now meet on Wednesday.   

Demand to Resist Interference

The media and the legal fraternity have warned that failure to resist the government in the case of Justice Joseph will only encourage it to keep ignoring the collegium’s recommendations. It may ignore Justice Ranjan Gogoi’s claim to be Chief Justice when Misra retires in October.   

Former judges, lawyers and the media have condemned the government’s move and appealed to the Supreme Court to sink its internal differences and assert its independence from the executive.   

“The government’s action strikes at the very heart of the independence of the judiciary”, said former Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha.   

Former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court A. P. Shah said: “Bit by bit, the primacy of the collegium is being conceded.”   

Capitulation Feared

But given the alleged closeness of Chief Justice Misra to the government, the legal fraternity and the media wonder if the Supreme Court under his tutelage would resist the government.   

When the opposition Congress party recently submitted a Motion of Impeachment against Misra in the Upper House of Parliament listing several grave charges against him, the Chairman Venkaiah Naidu of the BJP refused to admit the motion.  Again, only recently, Justice Misra had dismissed a Public Interest Petition seeking re-investigation of the death of Judge B.H.Loya who was handling a murder case which allegedly involved the ruling BJP’s President, Amit Shah.   

Why we should bulldoze the business school

There are 13,000 business schools on Earth. That’s 13,000 too many. And I should know – I’ve taught in them for 20 years. By Martin Parker

Fri 27 Apr 2018 06.00 BST

Visit the average university campus and it is likely that the newest and most ostentatious building will be occupied by the business school. The business school has the best building because it makes the biggest profits (or, euphemistically, “contribution” or “surplus”) – as you might expect, from a form of knowledge that teaches people how to make profits.

Why we should bulldoze the business school.docx by Thavam on Scribd

Exclusive: India rejects U.S. request on price caps on medical devices - sources

A staff member shows Abbott's heart stent inside a store at a hospital in New Delhi, India, April 27, 2018. Picture taken April 27, 2018. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

Aditya Kalra, Neha Dasgupta-MAY 1, 2018

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has told the United States it won’t abstain from capping prices for more medical devices, regardless of pressure to rethink its stance after price controls on heart stents and knee implants spoilt the market for some U.S. firms, sources familiar with the matter said.

India’s drug pricing authority is also pushing to bring three more devices used while treating heart ailments under the ambit of price controls as they are sometimes more expensive than the stent itself, showed a government letter reviewed by Reuters.

India’s $5 billion medical device market has provided rich fishing grounds for U.S.-based companies like Abbott Laboratories and Boston Scientific Corp, but the prospect of price caps being extended to more products sent shivers through their ranks.

In September, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office and Trade Minister Suresh Prabhu urging them “to not expand price controls to additional medical devices”, according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters.

During a meeting last month, Indian officials told USTR Assistant Trade Representative Mark Linscott that India had decided against making any such commitment, a trade ministry official told Reuters on Tuesday.

“This position will not change, it is within the right of the government of India (to impose price caps),” said the official, who declined to be named.

Linscott “expressed concerns” with India’s stance during the meeting, another Indian trade official said.

 

A USTR spokesperson declined to comment for this article, and Modi’s office did not respond to Reuters’ queries.

Price controls form part of Modi’s broader agenda to improve India’s dilapidated public health system and boost affordability of treatment.

Equating high trade margins on some medical devices with “illegal profiteering”, the government last year capped prices of some high-end heart stents - small wire-mesh structures used to treat blocked arteries - at around $450, compared to $3,000 charged earlier.

During a visit to Britain last month, Modi himself extolled the price caps’ success in making treatment much more affordable for Indians.

And India’s National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has been pushing for more price controls.

The regulator wrote to the health ministry on Feb. 26, asking for three other devices used to treat heart ailments - cardiac balloons, catheters and guide-wire - to be added to a list of products eligible for price controls.

In the letter, the NPPA described the prices charged for these products as “exorbitant”, and said companies involved in bringing them to the market were enjoying high trade margins.

“Because of these exorbitant prices of catheter and balloon, which are many times higher than the stent price itself, the objective of price capping of stents gets diluted,” the NPPA said in its letter.
The NPPA also said intraocular lenses, which are used during eye surgery, should be brought under the list.

A senior health ministry official told Reuters that the NPPA’s requests merited “consideration”.

The medical device manufacturers argue that India's price control mechanism hurts innovation, profits and future investment, and the USTR described India's policy as "very troubling".
Indian trade officials anticipate coming under more pressure from the United States.


Boxes of Abbott's heart stents are pictured inside a store at a hospital in New Delhi, India, April 27, 2018. Picture taken April 27, 2018. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

Boxes of Abbott's heart stents are pictured inside a store at a hospital in New Delhi, India, April 27, 2018. Picture taken April 27, 2018. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

The USTR is currently reviewing India's eligibility under its Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), a program that allows duty-free imports of certain goods. India was the largest GSP beneficiary at $5.6 billion, the USTR said in April.

Bilateral trade rose to $115 billion in 2016, but the United States wants to reduce its $31 billion deficit with India, and is pressing New Delhi to ease trade barriers.