Washington:

US President Joe Biden said on Sunday he had pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, who had been convicted of making false statements on a gun background check and illegally possessing a firearm and plead guilty to federal tax charges.

“Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,” he said in a statement released by the White House.

The White House had said repeatedly that Biden would not pardon or commute the sentences of his son, a recovering drug addict who became a target of Republicans, including President-elect Donald Trump.

“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son,” Biden said.

“There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

Biden said he had made the decision over the weekend. The president, his wife, Jill Biden, and their family including Hunter, spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket, Massachusetts and returned to Washington on Saturday night.

“Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further,” Biden said.

“I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Mere pendency of a criminal case does not automatically disqualify a person from exercising his right to seek long-term opportunities abroad, the Delhi High Court has noted. The court also directed the passport authorities to issue within two weeks a police clearance certificate (PCC) to a man, who has pending criminal cases and needs to submit a document to Canadian authorities to set up a business there.

Noting that the rights and interests of the petitioner must be balanced with the authorities’ obligation as a sovereign entity, the high court directed that a PCC be issued to the man explicitly mentioning the pending criminal cases against him as well as the fact that he has complied with the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner’s (RPFC) order by making the required deposit.

“This would provide complete transparency to the Canadian authorities for their assessment of his visa application. The PCC shall be issued in two weeks’ time from today,” Justice Sanjeev Narula said in an order passed on October 1.

The court noted that the sole ground for denying PCC to the man was the existence of pending FIRs against the petitioner, as per the report of Delhi Police.

“However, it must be emphasised that the mere pendency of a criminal case does not automatically disqualify an individual from exercising his right to seek long-term opportunities abroad.

“While respondent No. 1 — the Ministry of External Affairs — is correct to point out its obligation to provide accurate information to the foreign authorities, this responsibility does not extend to unjustly curtailing the petitioner’s right to apply for a long-term visa,” it said.

The Ministry of External Affairs and Delhi Police were represented through senior panel counsel Farman Ali.

The petitioner, an Indian national with a valid passport, approached the court challenging the refusal by the authorities to issue him a PCC which was required for applying under the Start-up Visa Programme in Canada, where he intended to set up a business venture.

The plea said according to Canadian visa regulations, an applicant must submit a PCC from their country of residence to set up a business in Canada.

The petitioner, along with his proprietary concern, was facing two FIRs registered with the Delhi Police in 2013, based on complaints lodged by officials of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), alleging that while he deducted provident fund contributions from the wages of employees working at DMRC and NPL sites, he failed to deposit the amount in accordance with the provisions of the Employees’ Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act.

The RPFC has assessed an amount of Rs 7.48 lakh to be deposited by him which he paid in 2019.

The petitioner’s counsel submitted that even if the PCC indicated the pending FIRs against him, he would be able to fulfil the requirement of submitting the PCC and apply for visa, and therefore his right to travel abroad would not be prejudiced.

The high court also noted that the PCC indicates that the applicant does not have a criminal record, essentially serving as an assurance by the State to a foreign country that the applicant is not involved in any ongoing criminal proceedings.

However, the regional passport office can only issue a PCC if it receives a ‘clear’ police verification report from the relevant authorities.

In this case, the court said the petitioner has a valid passport and there are no restrictions on his travel, adding that his right to work and freedom of movement must not be unjustly restricted solely on the existence of these FIRs.

This relates to his fundamental right under Article 19(1)(g) to engage in an occupation or business and the petitioner, like any other Indian citizen, holds the constitutional right to pursue any lawful business or trade both within and outside the country as permissible.

The court noted that even though the State has the authority to impose reasonable restrictions on the fundamental rights of a citizen under Article 19(6), denying a PCC to the petitioner due to mere pendency of FIRs constitutes an unreasonable restriction.

“Therefore, it would be unjust to impose a blanket restriction on his efforts to secure a visa solely based on the pendency of a case,” it said, adding that the issuance of the PCC will neither impact the ongoing criminal proceedings, nor confer any undue advantage upon the petitioner.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Lucknow:

BSP president Mayawati on Tuesday welcomed the Supreme Court’s observation on the demolition of houses of those involved in criminal cases and said that the families of criminals should not be punished for their deeds.

With several state administrations bulldozing the houses of those involved in criminal cases, the Supreme Court on Monday asked how anybody’s house can be demolished just because he is an accused.

The court said it would lay down the guidelines on the issue that would be enforceable across the country.

“Action against criminal elements in the country should be taken under the law and their families and close ones should not be punished for their crimes. Our party’s government in the state had shown this by establishing the rule of law through law,” Mayawati said in a series of posts on X in Hindi.

“Bulldozers should also be used now as per the decision of the Supreme Court. However, it would be better if there was no need to use them because criminal elements could also be dealt with under strict laws.

“Instead of using bulldozers on the families and close ones of criminal elements, strict action should be taken against the concerned officials who, in collusion with such elements, do not give proper justice to the victims. All governments must pay attention to this,” she said.

The Supreme Court’s observation came during a hearing on petitions filed by Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind and others seeking directions to various state governments to ensure that no further demolition of properties of those accused in cases of rioting and violence takes place.

The court, however, said it would not protect any unauthorised construction or encroachment on public roads. 

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

A new study by researchers at the University of Manchester has uncovered a surprising trend in England and Wales: rap and drill music is being used as prosecution evidence in serious criminal cases. The analysis identified 68 cases spanning three years where lyrics from these genres were presented as evidence against 252 defendants, including those facing charges of gang-related murder.

As per a release by the University of Manchester, rap lyrics and videos are regularly used as prosecution evidence in youth violence criminal cases in England and Wales. The material selected by the state typically has violent themes, often from the popular ‘drill’ rap music genre, and is composed by one or more of the defendants or by one of their friends. This use is deeply controversial because of concerns that rap is an unreliable form of evidence, and that its use is unfairly prejudicial.

Despite mounting criticism, there is very little regulation or monitoring of how rap is being used as criminal evidence, and it continues to be used to build ‘gang-related’ prosecutions under highly contentious secondary liability laws. In turn, ‘gang’ labels, which have even been discredited as imprecise and racist by some law enforcers, are ‘evidenced’ by rap music, often to build large ‘Joint Enterprise’ trials in which more than one person is prosecuted for a single crime.

Eithne Quinn, Erica Kane, and Will Pritchard say that their research has uncovered very concerning processes of ‘compounding injustice’ that risk innocent people being convicted of the most serious crimes.

“Our findings are deeply troubling, and support the view that the marshalling of rap evidence in criminal cases encourages police and prosecutors to further increase the number of people charged as secondaries under already-egregious secondary liability laws,” said Professor Eithne Quinn.