Judge Who Spared ‘Privileged’ Oxford Student Jail Now Under Investigation

Justice: not for everyone!

The judge who spared an Oxford University student from jail after she admitted to stabbing her then boyfriend is being investigated by a judicial watchdog. It comes after he ruled the young woman was simply “too clever” to be behind bars.

A spokesman from the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO) confirmed on Friday that it had received a complaint against Judge Ian Pringle QC, who earlier this week handed Lavinia Woodward a suspended sentence for her crime, citing her intellect and potential.

“The JCIO can confirm they have received a complaint against HHJ Ian Pringle QC,” the spokesperson said, as quoted by Sky News.

“Any findings of misconduct against judicial office holders are published on the JCIO website at the conclusion of investigations,” he added.

Woodward, 24, was on trial for stabbing her ex-boyfriend with a bread knife, punching him in the face, and hurling a glass and a jam jar at him during an alcohol-fuelled rage in December 2016.

The victim was Cambridge PhD student Thomas Fairclough, whom Woodward had met on the dating app Tinder.  Fairclough needed three stitches and suffered cuts to his fingers following the attack, which took place at Woodward’s student accommodation at Christ Church College.

Oxford U

Woodward admitted unlawful wounding under section 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 at Oxford Crown Court, but received just a 10-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months. This means she will not serve any time in jail unless she commits another offense or violates the conditions of her release.

Pringle described her as being “too clever” to be behind bars, having previously called her an “extraordinarily able young lady.”

He also let her off the hook for breaching her bail conditions by texting her victim to apologize, choosing to praise her for expressing remorse.

However, it has been alleged that the attack was not the first time Woodward had assaulted Fairclough, having done so on two previous occasions. Woodward has denied the previous incidents.

Meanwhile, Pringle’s ruling has sparked outrage among many who claim it fails to take the issue of domestic violence against men seriously. Others have said Woodward was let off the hook because she comes from a privileged background.

Despite such concerns, the JCIO says on its website it can “only deal with complaints about a judicial office holder’s person conduct - it cannot deal with complaints about judicial decisions or about case management.”

Romanian Government Takes Dead-Aim at It's Own Foot

I have this picture in my mind of someone loading a double-barreled, 12-gauge shotgun, taking dead-aim at their foot and pulling both triggers

The unfortunate metaphor could also fit the Romanian people who elected the Social Democrat Party in December in spite of forcing them to resign just 14 months earlier for corruption and incompetence! To make matters worse, the leader of the PSD party, Liviu Dragnea, was serving a suspended sentence for electoral fraud when he was re-elected. And now, less than 2 months later the people suddenly realize that they have elected a bunch of crooks!??? Astonishing!

Clashes erupt in Bucharest following enormous anti-corruption rally

Groups of masked youths have been throwing flares, firecrackers and stones at police in central Bucharest, following a day of massive but (otherwise?) peaceful rallies that gripped Romania over what protesters call an effective decriminalization of corruption.

Up to 150,000 people rallied in front of the cabinet building in Bucharest on Wednesday, in addition to at least 100,000 across dozens of other Romanian cities, according to police estimates.

Massive crowds dispersed peacefully after midnight, but small groups that remained engaged in clashes with authorities.

The biggest protests in decades were triggered by a government decree that among other things decriminalizes minor graft offences, in which the sums involved are less than 200,000 lei ($48,000).

“Thieves, thieves,” and “Repeal it, then leave,” was heard in the streets of the capital as hundreds of thousands rallied in the capital. Most of the protesters were youth who were mobilized via Facebook, the Romania Insider reports.

Protests have also taken place inside the parliament, where the opposition deputies put up banners reading “Shame,” and shouted “Resignation!” and “Thieves!” The centrist Liberals and the Save Romania Union USR filed a no-confidence motion against the government but has little chance of succeeding, Reuters reports.

Massive protests in Romania have continued for the second night in a row following the controversial emergency decree.

While Bucharest justifies the measure as a way to prevent prison overcrowding, activists argue the ruling party seeks to protect its members who are now on trial for corruption or who have already been convicted.

That's so funny - the government reducing prison over-crowding by keeping itself out of prison.

The decree will stop a number of key investigations against Romanian politicians, including the leader of the ruling Social Democrat Party (PSD), Liviu Dragnea.

Romania Re-Elects Man Serving Suspended Sentence for Electoral Fraud

No Trump effect in Romania, but something that makes even less sense

Leftist party wins Romania's

parliamentary election

The PSD party, which was driven from power in 2015, received 46 percent of the vote, exit polls indicate.

By Ed Adamczyk

Liviu Dragnea, the leader of Romania's Social Democracy Party, speaks at party headquarters in Bucharest on Sunday. His party won 45 percent of Sunday's paliamentary vote, and announced it will seek to build a coaltion government. Photo by Robert Ghement/European Pressphoto Agency

BUCHAREST, Romania, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- Romania's Social Democratic Party announced it will form a coalition government after winning the country's parliamentary election.

The leftist party, known as PSD, received 46 percent of the vote in Sunday's election. A longtime liberal ally, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party, received 6 percent. Together they will have enough seats in the 504-person legislature to return to power after the PSD was forced from leadership in 2015 amid charges of corruption and government ineptitude.

Voters used a Bucharest nightclub fire in October 2015, in which 27 people were killed, as the focus of discontent with the government.

PSD leader Liviu Dragnea promised reforms, tax cuts and pension increases in the campaign.

"I want to assure all Romanians that everything we have presented in our economic program during this electoral campaign will be implemented by a PSD government," he said Sunday.

Polls indicate the center-right National Liberal Party finished second in Sunday's elections with 20 percent of the vote. The newly formed, anti-corruption Save Romania Union party received 9 percent of the votes, exit polls indicate.

The election was a remarkable comeback for Dragnea, who, his party hopes, will be installed as prime minister. He is currently serving a two-year suspended sentence for electoral fraud, which legally excludes him from office.

Astonishing! Is he that good a candidate or are the rest that bad?

Miss Turkey 2006 Guilty of Insulting Sultan Erdogan

Ex-Miss Turkey in hot water for ‘insulting Erdogan’ amid crackdown on free speech

Miss Turkey Merve Buyuksarac © Katarina Stoltz / Reuters

Miss Turkey 2006 has been found guilty for sharing a poem deemed insulting to the Turkish head of state in the latest of some 2,000 defamation cases President Erdogan filed in two years under a law that bans insulting the president.

The Istanbul court gave 27-year-old Merve Buyuksarac a suspended sentence of 14 months for “publicly insulting” the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on condition that she does not reoffend within the next five years.

The case was based on a satirical verse she reposted on her Instagram account in 2014.

The so-called ‘Master's Poem, ’ an adaptation of the Turkish national anthem, allegedly criticizes Erdogan, who served as prime minister for more than a decade prior to becoming president and has often been called “Buyuk Usta” [the Big Master]. The poem did not mention Erdogan by name, but made reference to a corruption scandal that allegedly involved his family.

During the hearings, the President’s lawyer, Hatice Ozay, stressed that Buyuksarac's Instagram post had gone beyond “the limits of criticism” and was in fact “an attack” on Erdogan’s personal rights.

Buyuksarac was briefly arrested at the time the post was made, but then freed as she denied insulting Erdogan. The case however resurfaced, with Tuesday’s court’s decision based on a previously rarely-used Turkish law that forbids insulting the head of state.

The law has been used increasingly often lately to silence those critical of Erdogan’s policies. Since becoming president in 2014, he has filed up to 2,000 cases under this law in trials targeting journalists, foreign and domestic, academics, politicians, comedians, and now – models.

This spring has in fact been rich with cases of Ankara’s witch-hunt on those critical of the current government.

Also on Tuesday, Cengiz Candar, a former columnist for Radikal and Hurriyet newspapers who’s been in the profession for over 40 years, appeared in Istanbul court accused of insulting Erdogan in a series of articles he wrote in the summer of 2015, criticizing Turkey's renewed conflict against Kurdish rebels. The veteran journalist and an adviser to the late Turkish head of state Turgut Ozal faces up to four years in prison if found guilty.

“These court cases must come to an end,” he told reporters outside the courthouse. “These trials must immediately end with acquittals so that the presidency of the Turkish Republic can preserve its respectability.”

In April, Erdogan sparked a row when he submitted a personal complaint for libel against German comedian Jan Böhmermann for a crude poem with rough sexual references about the Turkish president the comedian read on air. He is now prosecuted by German authorities.

In March, the Turkish government shut down and reformed opposition newspaper Zaman, previously a strong critic of the President. Overnight the newspaper turned into a government mouthpiece.

Four Turkish academics faced trial after having been charged with spreading “terrorist propaganda.” Their alleged crime was to denounce the renewed conflict with Turkey’s Kurds, being part of a group of more than 1,000 scholars who signed a declaration in January that was critical of the Turkish government’s military intervention into the predominantly Kurdish southeast of the country.

Foreign journalists have also been targeted and arrested. The latest incidents involved German TV journalist Volker Schwenck and Dutch journalist Ebru Umar. Schwenck was going to the Turkish-Syrian border to report on refugees, but instead was denied entry into Turkey and spent six hours in detention at Istanbul airport. Umar was briefly detained in Turkey over Twitter posts critical of the Turkish President.

Turkey also shut down Russian news agency Sputnik’s website in the country and blacklisted its Istanbul bureau chief, refusing him entry to the country and seizing his residence permit and press credentials.

"Erdogan’s administration doesn’t seem to tolerate any criticism at all. Any journalist, would they criticize Erdogan, risk being imprisoned and legally harassed. In short, journalism is in coma in Turkey,”  Dr. Y. Alp Aslandogan, President of the Alliance for Shared Values and a Board Member of the Gulen Institute told RT, adding that the overall situation with respect to fundamental freedoms in Turkey will only get worse unless the Turkish people interfere.

“The fate of the country is up to the people of Turkey. Unless there is an outcry from Turkish people I don’t know how this situation can be resolved. I’m just hoping that Turkish people will awaken to what’s going on.”