argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Uyghur Tribunal Judgment — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: International Affairs
Amanda Anne Milling (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend will get the opportunity to respond when I sit down; I have limited time On import controls, the Government are fully committed to tackling Uyghur forced labour in global supply chains, but the measures we have taken do not currently include import bans. However, we have announced a range of other measures, including a comprehensive review of export controls as they apply to Xinjiang We are also working closely with international partners. At the G7 last month, under our presidency, G7 leaders committed to working together to ensure that global supply chains are free from the use of forced labour. On international action, the UK has consistently led international efforts to hold China to account at the UN through global diplomatic efforts. We led the first two joint statements on Xinjiang in 2019 and 2020. More recently, last October, we helped secure the support of 43 countries for a statement on Xinjiang at the UN Third Committee.
Uyghur Tribunal Judgment — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: International Affairs
Amanda Anne Milling (Conservative, Centre-right): I will come to the UN shortly. The statement we secured in October demonstrated the breadth of international concern, with fresh support from Turkey, a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, as well as Eswatini and Liberia. Through the UN statements, we have pressed China to allow urgent and unfettered access to Xinjiang for independent observers, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In recent national statements, we welcomed the high commissioner’s plans to publish an assessment of the available information on Xinjiang. I assure Members that the UK will continue to play a significant role in holding China to account for its gross human rights violations there.
Uyghur Tribunal Judgment — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: International Affairs
Amanda Anne Milling (Conservative, Centre-right): No; we have had a long debate and I would like the opportunity to respond to it To monitor the evolving situation, we funded research reports from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the Rights Practice, a non-governmental organisation, on how China is implementing repressive policies on Xinjiang. Those reports are credible and compelling and will inform future action. We will continue to fund future research The Uyghur diaspora also play a crucial role in our understanding the situation. We regularly speak to members of that community to inform policies and ensure that Uyghur voices are heard. Members expressed concern about reports of Uyghurs in the UK being harassed by Chinese authorities. We have repeatedly made it plain that that is unacceptable and have raised our concerns with the embassy.
Uyghur Tribunal Judgment — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: International Affairs
Amanda Anne Milling (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sorry but I am moving on Throughout the debate Members have asked whether we will make our own assessment regarding the risk of genocide occurring in Xinjiang. The UK’s long-standing policy, under successive British Governments, is that any determination of genocide is a matter for a competent court rather than for the Government or non-judicial bodies. This long-standing policy is consistent with our legal obligations under the genocide convention and does not undermine our commitment to prevent and punish genocide. I reassure Members that the policy does not inhibit the UK from taking robust action to address the human rights violations and abuses in Xinjiang.
Uyghur Tribunal Judgment — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: International Affairs
Amanda Anne Milling (Conservative, Centre-right): I am going to conclude The UK’s long-standing policy on genocide has not prevented and will not prevent the Government from taking robust action on human rights violations in Xinjiang through a broad spectrum of channels and international partnerships. We have a strong history of protecting human rights globally and the situation in Xinjiang is no exception to that. I reassure the House that we will continue to work with our partners, including the Uyghur people, to hold China to account for its appalling actions in Xinjiang.
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert William Henry Seely (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is making a fantastically important speech, and I look forward to joining him to talk about these many important subjects. What does he think about those London-based law firms that are so willing to sell intimidatory legal threats as part of their services?
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
David Michael Davis (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend alights upon a very important point. It is very clear that some London-based law firms have found an incredibly profitable niche that they are willing to pursue without too much concern about the outcome. I think the professional bodies for those law firms should be looking very hard at them, as should the Government. It is an important point, which I am sure others will develop.
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Timothy Paul Loughton (Conservative, Centre-right): As a former colleague of Charlotte Leslie, I think she has been treated appallingly just for doing her job efficiently and in good faith. I am glad that my right hon. Friend has exposed the appalling tactics that have been used against her Is there no way to stop repeated legal actions, or the threats of legal actions, being brought? It is the attrition effect of clearly vexatious complaints that intimidates people into submission or silence or, effectively, bankruptcy. Surely there should be some measure that says, "You have one shot at it, at best, and then there is no further recourse to the courts or such legal action." Would that be a way to stop the appalling actions that my right hon. Friend has been describing?
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
David Michael Davis (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. The way that it happens is that there are legal firms that now specialise in making that sort of intimidating tactic work, and it is based on multiple different laws—as I said earlier, on everything from defamation to data protection and privacy. Therefore, we have to find a way to govern how the courts work to ensure that exactly what he says does not happen and that there are not multiple attempts. After all, someone can be charged only once for a crime, so why can someone be sued multiple times for another sort of misbehaviour It is not only Amersi who is engaged in bullying and egregious behaviour, and it is not just law. For instance, Mr Carl Hunter was in contact by phone with Ms Leslie to attempt to informally broker peace between her and Mr Amersi and to urge her to apologise. He told her: "You need to consider your position—being able to walk the dog at night, being able to sleep well at night." He said that she was looking at a "world of pain" on it. Those are clear and unacceptable threats, of which recordings are available, made in an attempt to intimidate. Those recordings contain other rather sinister comments as well.
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert William Henry Seely (Conservative, Centre-right): To reinforce a point that other hon. Members will probably make, although the lawyers—the Carter-Rucks and the Mishcon de Reyas—will say, "Everything that we do is legal," this is part of a really corrupt and intimidatory practice that veers well into the criminal. Even if the lawyers are obeying the law, other parts of these sorts of campaigns are, frankly, purely criminal.
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert William Henry Seely (Conservative, Centre-right): This is yet another great speech. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that these solicitors’ bodies and barristers’ bodies should be more concerned about the very questionable ethics and behaviour of individual lawyers and individual law firms? They seem to be able to get away with whatever they want and offer whatever service, however questionable.
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I promise that in my brief remarks I will endeavour not to do so. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) for securing this important debate and congratulate him on doing so. This is a significant topic, one with constitutional importance. I wish to confine most of my remarks to the position of the legal system in the UK, bearing in mind that just as living in truth is a great defence against evil, so, in practical terms, is the independence of the judiciary the greatest defence of our constitution. Abuse undoubtedly occurs, and I am grateful to him for highlighting some of the cases. The one case I will refer to is the appalling treatment of our friend and former colleague Charlotte Leslie; this is the worst type of intimidation of a thoroughly good person, as many of us would know, but there are many other such cases. When we deal with that abuse, we have to be wary of not doing so in such a way as to undermine the ability of the courts of this country to act utterly independently. That will sometimes involve the right of an unattractive litigant to seek access to the courts; that is fundamental too. That is probably why it is right that if action has to be taken, this House and Government must do it. We cannot place the judiciary in the invidious position of having to make judgments as to the political acceptability or otherwise of those who might seek to bring a claim before the courts—provided, of course, that there is at least a prima facie legal basis to bring the claim in the first place The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) mentioned some sensible measures that we might take to enable courts to protect themselves. The anti-SLAPP law is worthy of consideration because it could involve an early strike-out mechanism that would speed up the means of dealing with cases without any substantive merit that have clearly been brought for the purposes of intimidation through a war of attrition It is useful to know that many lawyers and judges have raised concerns about the matter. Only at the end of last year, there was a very useful conference in which it was considered by the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, which is chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Neuberger, the former President of the Supreme Court. The panel, of which Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws is also a member, recommended that the Ministry of Justice move towards a consultation on anti-SLAPP laws, perhaps taking up some of the best practice found in the States. We do not have to take up all suggestions—I would have some concerns about the practical impact of the defamation fund suggested by President Biden—but other issues that have been raised are well worthy of consideration.
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Roger James Gale (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is infinitely more expert than I am in these matters, but the point has been raised very clearly indeed on a couple of occasions that the regulatory bodies dealing with these law firms appear unwilling or unable to take any action. Can he suggest any way in which the law firms themselves can be brought to heel?
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): Let us be very clear: there are very significant regulations relating to the conduct of law firms in the United Kingdom. There are two separate regulatory regimes. Very properly, there are much greater checks in place on money laundering and source of funds for the solicitors profession, which handles client money, than for the Bar, which does not; it acts on the instructions that come via its professional client, the solicitors. That distinction is important, and I will digress briefly to deal with it We have to bear in mind that one of the key strengths of the independent Bar in England and Wales, in Scotland and in Northern Ireland is that barristers operate on the cab rank rule: if they hold themselves out as having expertise in a particular field of law and are available to take on a case when a proper fee is offered, they are professionally obliged to do so, regardless of their opinion of the client. That is utterly fundamental. Barristers do not and should not have the luxury of making moral choices about the people for whom they act; that is the essence of independence and objectivity at the Bar.
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): Absolutely. The regulations dealing with the solicitors profession have very considerable requirements to track the source of funds. They apply from the basic level of a conveyancing transaction, all the way up to funding for the most complex litigation. We should not mischaracterise the position by saying that there is a high level of cynicism in the legal profession; there is not, and I do not believe that there is a failure of regulation either.
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): Let us put it this way: Parliament may decide as a matter of policy that certain behaviours are undesirable and should be constrained by law. The courts would faithfully apply any law on the subject that Parliament passed. That is the right way, in my judgment, to deal with this. That relates, too, to the law regulating the professions. For the reasons I gave, we should be very wary of fettering lawyers’ ability to defend unpopular clients, which is not the same as unmeritorious clients. Remember why that is: there are many instances where injustice has been prevented by lawyers taking on an unpopular client and an unpopular cause. That is the point on the other side that we have to weigh in the balance before we go entirely down the path of saying that because we disapprove of someone, we should deny them redress in law.
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): Obviously, I am not in a position to consider the facts in that case. If people have suggestions, or examples that suggest a failure in the regulatory environment, of course they should bring them to the attention of the regulatory authorities; my experience has been that they take their job very seriously, and I know that the Ministry of Justice is very aware of this matter. Of course, one should never be afraid to look at specific examples to see if anything could be improved; I am very open to that. I would not, however, want to throw out the baby with the bath water in our approach to this issue, and that is why I argue for a balanced approach.
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert William Henry Seely (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is making fantastically important points, and we are testing our arguments on him out of respect for his background and experience. Much as we like or dislike individual cases or lawyers, we all agree that lawyers should be independent, but we are talking about systemic failure that allows this corrupting industry to grow. On the point made by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), Bill Browder has directly alleged that CMS took instruction from Russian organised crime via middlemen, but nothing much seems to have been done about it, and there does not seem to be huge interest in where the money came from.
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Aaron Stuart Bell (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, I quite understand the position that Clerks are in; our staffers can be in the same position. We need protections for everything that goes on in and around this place in the proper exercise of our duties What else do we need, as well as the things we can do in Parliament? Fundamentally, we need a change of the legal rulebook. Many of the tactics deployed by unscrupulous claimants are becoming increasingly commonplace, so much so that they constitute a rulebook of tactics and strategies to thwart corruption investigations. They need to be countered by an opposing rulebook, in the ways that have been described: anti-SLAPP laws and a reorientation of the legal profession, private investigation and PR firms to abide by fair standards of litigation and stop pre-trial manoeuvres designed simply to drain resources and intimidate counterparties. Such a reorientation would involve an overhaul of all regulations applicable to the legal profession on the conduct of litigation. As many hon. Members have said, the legal professional bodies need to look hard at what they are permitting to take place under their auspices Let us look at anti-SLAPP laws and at what happens elsewhere. In the USA, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) mentioned, there is the public figure defence. Protection of Public Participation Acts were passed in Ontario in 2015 and in the Australian capital territory in 2008. There are off-the-shelf models in other countries that we can adapt to work in the United Kingdom My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden began by praising our courts. Of course he was right to do so, but the best infrastructure in the world, and all our best infrastructure, can always be abused—people can drive at 110 mph on our motorways and flush whatever they like into our sewers. We must not let dirty money flush through our courts. We must find a way to prevent the perversion of justice by people who mean us harm.
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: International Affairs
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me be clear to my right hon. Friend. I was simply referring to the debate as a whole. I recognise that he referred to all parties; I was just putting in some balance because we had only heard about one party. On his point, I am more than happy to meet him and look at the detail of what he proposes, because I do not think it is directly relevant to the matters that we have been debating It is important to consider lawfare threats in the broader context of Government action to curb abusive foreign influence. Last year, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy brought in the National Security and Investment Act 2021 precisely to target foreign state interference in our economy.
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): I recognise that there is a lot of concern about sources of money. The hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) and a number of other colleagues have talked about the source of funding. I do recognise its importance, but stress that the legal profession has a robust due diligence mechanism in place to prevent dirty money corrupting our courts. Anti-money laundering regulations exist to combat illicit financing. The suspicious activity reporting regime requires legal professions to report to the UK financial intelligence unit within the National Crime Agency where terrorist activity or money laundering is suspected. Law enforcement officials must act safe in the knowledge that the Government defend their investigative remit as we all collectively rely on their industry. There has been a lot of talk about following the money. I just make the point that we do have robust regulations in place, as my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Justice Committee said earlier.
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I know that he is working very hard on these issues. He is right to talk about suspicious activity reports. The problem with them is that, for far too long, we have prioritised quantity over quality. Will he focus on this with his colleagues at the Home Office to make sure that we make this a meaningful process? May I gently say to him that the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) is germane? It is a clear SLAPP. If somebody is trying to do the right thing in the public interest, and, in effect, a litigation stops that, then that is a classic SLAPP and something that we should all be concerned about.
Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman had the leave of the House to speak again Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the matter of lawfare and the UK court system.
Mental Health Act 1983: Detention of People with Autism and other Lifelong Conditions — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for giving way, and for the passion and knowledge that he brings to this topic. He refers to out-of-date legislation and how things have moved on. He will know from his experience as Justice Secretary that if we thought that we were applying the same regimes in terms of detention and use of restraint to people who had been convicted of offences after the passing of 60 years, we would rightly be outraged. Should we not be rightly outraged now that this is being done to people who have committed no offence and have not had the protection of due process that those going through the justice system have?
Flash Flooding: London — House of Commons, 2022-01-27
Topic: Environment
Rebecca Faye Clark (Pow) (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and my sympathy goes out to those who suffered and indeed are still suffering. We expect water companies to carry out their duties and deliver on their commitments, and we fully support the regulators in holding them to account. In the 2019 price review, Ofwat confirmed that Thames Water had incurred a penalty of £148 million for cancelling the Counter’s Creek project, which I believe is the one she refers to. As Members will know, the Government are now taking strong action on the water companies, through our statement to Ofwat. I have met my hon. Friend before, but I would be particularly happy to discuss this project with her.
Fly-tipping — House of Commons, 2022-01-27
Topic: Environment
Johanna Peta Churchill (Conservative, Centre-right): Criminals should have no place to hide when they mindlessly dump waste. Fly-tipping blights lives and neighbourhoods, and wrecks our environment. We are consulting on legislative reforms to the way waste handlers are regulated, and introducing digital waste tracking.
Fly-tipping — House of Commons, 2022-01-27
Topic: Transportation
Robert John Blackman (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for her answer. In the London Borough of Harrow, dealing with fly-tipping on the public highway costs council tax payers £1.5 million each year just to clear it up. The worst aspect is fly-tipping on privately owned land. What further measures can my hon. Friend take to highlight those people, catch them, put them through the courts, and get justice for people with privately owned land?