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09/07/2018

European Commission launches infringement procedure against Poland judiciary law

The law drops the retirement age from 70 to 65, which will require 27 out of 72 judges to retire, including “the First President of the Supreme Court, whose 6-year mandate would be prematurely terminated.” Judges may request their mandates be prolonged for a period of up to three years, but no criteria is in place to guide President Andrzej Duda in making those decisions.
Source: jurist.org
09/07/2018

Romanian president threatened with impeachment

The leader of Romania’s ruling party has threatened to launch impeachment proceedings against the country’s president, Klaus Iohannis, after he condemned the government’s latest bid to soften anti-corruption legislation.
Source: irishtimes.com
09/07/2018

Protesters hear echoes of the past in Germany’s new police laws

When Germany starts granting its police sweeping new powers of surveillance, arrest and detention, the symbolic and constitutional implications are extremely concerning.
Source: opendemocracy.net
16/07/2018

Facebook faces small but symbolic UK fine over data protection breaches

The 500,000 pound ($663,850) fine is less than 10 minutes worth of revenue for the social media firm worth $590 billion, whose shares were unchanged, but is the maximum amount allowed and represents the first move by a regulator to punish Facebook for the Cambridge Analytica controversy.
Source: reuters.com
16/07/2018

Russia’s Investigative Committee considered a ‘like’ in social networks as extremism

Proceedings were started in Khabarovsk territory against a doctor from the city of Sovetskaya Gavan for a ‘like’ in social network Odnoklassniki according to part 1 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (extremism).
Source: thebell.io
16/07/2018

No asylum in the Netherlands for LGBT people from Cuba

The administrative law department of the Dutch State Council decided that Justice and Security Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus acted lawfully when he refused to grant asylum status to three transgender people from Cuba.
Source: liberties.eu
16/07/2018

German neo-Nazi Beate Zschäpe sentenced to life for NSU murders

One of the longest and most expensive trials in German postwar history has ended with a life sentence for the sole survivor of a neo-Nazi terrorist cell, but failed to answer questions raised by victims’ relatives.
Source: theguardian.com
16/07/2018

Spanish Government examines how to outlaw the Francisco Franco Foundation

The Minister of Justice, Dolores Delgado, declared that the Government will examine the ways to outlaw the associations or organizations that advocate Francoism, as is the case of the Francisco Franco Foundation and almost a dozen others, within a series of measures that also include an "integral" reform of the Law of Historical Memory of 2007.
Source: eldiario.es
23/07/2018

Belgium: Burkini ban in two Ghent swimming pools overturned by judge

Two swimming pools in the Ghent area where a burkini ban applied, need to change the rules and allow the burkini after all. In a reaction, the city of Ghent said that it supports the ruling, and that it wants to allow body-covering suits in all pools.
Source: vrt.be