Guidance on Securities Group Actions: Beijing Higher Peoples Court

The Beijing City Higher Peoples Court, Susan Finder reports, following the Shanghai court, has issued a guidance on fair and efficient disposition of group securities disputes.  This is a step forward.  Ten years ago when in Beijing I was beseeched by a group of young lawyers who had been stymied by the courts in their efforts to bring product liability actions for victims of contaminated infant formula.  

In 2010 a Conoco run offshore oil rig spilled in the Bohai Bay.  Fishermen and aquaculturists excluded from the compensation scheme negotiated by the Ministry of Agriculture filed lawsuits.  As in the infant formula cases courts simply refused to accept the filings.  Non-plussed by how to handle multiple venue claims and unsure if maritime or general environmental law governed the courts were paralyzed.  Some filed suit in Texas where Conoco Philips is headquartered.  Others protested publicly and through Party channels.  In 2014 the CP Central Committee plenum mandated that courts accept filings of cases, and allowed appeals of refusals to accept cases.  The fishermen and aquaculturists claims eventually resolved.

But it remains the case that no mechanism such as our Multi-District Litigation (MDL) consolidated case system, or Fed R CvPro Rule 23 class actions exists in China.  So these new guidances are a step forward.  Nico Howson - responding on the Chinalaw listserv has these observations:

- gwc

[O]n a very quick read, [this] does represent movement on the idea of (real-er) class actions in the sphere of securities law claims (claims against issuers, underwriters, directors and management, control parties, etc. for false and misleading disclosure upon initial issuance or in periodic reporting), or at least movement beyond outright ban or the cannibalization of class claims under the SPC's 2003 regulations.
I raise it on this list-serve because I think it has some implications for how the PRC party state might handle so-called group cases in other spheres (mass environmental torts to poisonous milk powder...) 

As you will see, the notice allows the Beijing Higher People's Court system courts to designate (upon application by plaintiffs) a set of securities claims (note presently only those, insider trading and manipulation cases are to look at the notice "for reference") as a model or exemplary (shifan) adjudication, take evidence on, adjudicate the legal claims regarding, and determine damages for, such cases, and notify courts handling so-called "parallel" (pingxing) cases of the judgment.  The courts and the parties in the parallel cases sphere can use the evidence, and apply the law, cooked up in the exemplary case adjudication without any re-pleading or evidentiary work, and must then proceed to mediation (tiaojie) with respect to those claims -- the implication I think being that the courts in the parallel cases will apply the law and facts established in the model case adjudication in that court-led mediation.  Sort of mediation under the color of exemplary adjudication...  If the parties don't agree to a mediated result within a time certain, the those cases are re-consolidated into an ongoing litigation.  Please note that there is nothing in this notice that eliminates the 2003 SPC regulations requirement that no case can be established until there is a civil sanction or criminal determination in the case first.

I am not naive in that I see this as anything close to class action litigation (opt in or opt out) or something that solves the financing block in such cases, nor do I want to ignore all sorts of bad due process effects (for the defendants in the parallel cases if they have lost the argument in the model case, or for the plaintiffs in the parallel cases if they have lost in the model case, etc.) apparently serving "efficiency" and the goal of mediation, etc.  However, it does seem a more than rhetorical attempt to address this specific genus of "mass claims" in the PRC, without as I say above falling back on outright bans, group carve ups sent to litigation purgatory, or Taiwan's SFIPC (which the PRC seems committed to copying, with all of its problems, in the new Securities Law...)

-- Nicholas Calcina HowsonProfessor of LawUniversity of Michigan Law School

SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=583541  

The zombie style in legal analysis

A challenge for law teachers is Do we dare say that judges of the Supreme Court are not honest legal analysts?
The Zombie Style in American Politics https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/opinion/republican-party-ideas.html

Congress's Contempt Power and the Enforcement of Congressional Subpoenas: Law, History, Practice, and Procedure

Congress's Contempt Power and the Enforcement of Congressional Subpoenas: Law, History, Practice, and Procedure
by Todd Garvey
Congressional Research Service

Should retired judges be beyond the reach of the courts?

Should retired judges be beyond the reach of the courts?

Alex Kozinski, Brett Kavanaugh, and Maryanne Trump Barry have all been relieved of the burden of inquiries into their conduct under the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 351–364, which empowers the federal judiciary “to determine whether a covered judge has engaged in conduct prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts or is unable to discharge the duties of office because of mental or physical disability.”  

The three have in common that their resignations from the bench assertedly deprived the courts of jurisdiction because a judge is no longer a judge when he or she retires (Kozinski and Trump Barry) or steps up to the United States Supreme Court (Kavanaugh).  In each circumstance, according to the Second Circuit Judicial Council (in the Kozinski case) the “Act is concerned with individuals who currently exercise the powers of the office of federal judge”.  Because he or she “can no longer perform any judicial duties, he does not fall within the scope of persons who can be investigated under the Act” making the proceedings “unnecessary”.  Yet the two Circuit Judges collect pensions at full salary for life [28 U.S.C. 371(a)] and, if willing, may be “assigned judicial duties”. [28 U.S.C. 294] The now Associate Justice draws a salary as a member of the highest court and very much “performs judicial duties”.

The Tenth Circuit Judicial Council declared it lacked disciplinary authority over now Justice Kavanaugh, as did the Second Circuit over the retired Kozinski – a precedent on which Trump Barry now relies. 

But the Act provides simply that the term “judge” means a circuit judge, district judge, bankruptcy judge, or magistrate judge.  It does not state that jurisdiction over misconduct during active service expires upon retirement.  That is a gloss that the Second Circuit Judicial Council has placed on the statute in whose steps the Tenth followed.  But it is equally plausible that the courts – concerned with the confidence of the public – retain jurisdiction over misconduct alleged to have occurred during active service. 

Yet the Second Circuit Council, in its order dismissing the sexual misconduct charges against Judge Kozinski asserted that he is no longer “within the Act’s reach” because its “emphasis” is not on punishment but on “correction of conditions that interfere with the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts.”  The purpose of lawyer discipline is not simply to protect the public from the offender but to maintain confidence in the bar and legal system.  That is no less true of the judiciary.

Each of these jurists was faced with allegations that they violated the rules of conduct of United States Judges – particularly “Canon 2: A Judge Should Avoid Impropriety and the Appearance of Impropriety in all Activities.”  It commands “(A) Respect for Law. A judge should respect and comply with the law and should act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”

 The allegations against the three are of a grave nature. Alex Kozinski faced widely publicized reports of sexual misconduct toward his female law clerks – some of it admitted – such as his display of pornography on his office computer.  Brett Kavanaugh faced not only the testimony of Professor Christine Blasey Ford alleging misconduct in high school, but eighty-three complaints filed regarding his conduct as a judge.  Trump Barry – who served since her appointment in 1983 – was accused in the New York Times of having been an officer of a shell corporation which distributed millions of dollars in fraudulently obtained profits to herself and her siblings. None of these allegations will be investigated, no facts determined, and no judgment rendered.

The asserted lack of jurisdiction cannot be cured by legislation; no one could imagine Donald Trump signing a bill which revived disciplinary proceedings against his sister involving allegations that she, like he, was enriched by a prolonged fraudulent scheme.  Nor is it realistic to expect that local or state disciplinary authorities will be in position to carry out the investigations that the federal courts, aided by the FBI, could have carried out.  Nor would such state investigations accomplish what is needed: to preserve public confidence in the United States courts.  We are left with the likely vain hope that the Chief Justice of the United States will re-examine the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act and declare that retired judges remain subject to its strictures.

- -        George W. Conk

Torts Today: Big Money Enters Debate Over Race and Admissions at Stuyvesant - The New York Times

Torts Today: Big Money Enters Debate Over Race and Admissions at Stuyvesant - The New York Times: Big Money Enters Debate Over Race and Admissions at Stuyvesant - The New York Times : Ronald Lauder and Richard Parsons want to keep the the test for the specialized high schools and find other ways to increase Black and Latin enrollment...

China amends Trademark Law against Bad Faith Applications without Intent to Use

China amends Trademark Law against Bad Faith Applications without Intent to Use: Over the last six months China has built a new national level Patent Appeal Court. On 23 April 2019, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress 
by By Christine Yiu, Alison Wong, Yang Li Bird & Bird

They say it is the Spring of IP in China.  We say it is hot as summer with the speed at which laws and guidelines are being passed. Over the last six months China has built a new national level Patent Appeal Court, passed the Foreign Investment Law, amended the Technology Import and Export Regulations, and on 23 April 2019, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress ("NPC") passed a decision[1] to amend the Trademark Law and the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.  

The amendments to the Trademark Law will become effective from 1 November 2019. We have included reference translation of the new provisions at the end of this article.

1. Bad faith application without intent to use

A new provision is added to Article 4 which provides that "Any bad faith trademark applications without intent to use shall be dismissed." Articles 33 and 44 are amended correspondingly such as Article 4 can be invoked in an opposition action before the CTMO or an invalidation action before the TRAB. Closely connected to that, bad faith trademark applicants could face administrative penalty by the authority including warnings or fines. Courts could also impose punishments if a trademark litigation is initiated in bad faith (Article 68).

Article 19 is also amended to impose an obligation on trademark agencies to censor bad faith applications. A trade mark agency should not accept instructions if it knew or ought to know that the applicant's trademark filings are in bad faith as provided under Article 4. Violation of Article 4 by trademark agencies could be subject to a warning, a fine or even criminal liability if the case reaches the criminal threshold (Article 68).

Foreign as well as domestic brand owners have long suffered from the problem of trademark squatting which flooded the register. As of the end of 2018, there are in total 180.49 million valid trademark registrations in China, and just in the year of 2018, China received 7.371 million new trademark filings. Contributing to the millions of applications are those filed by squatters and those filed by legitimate brand owner in a defensive registration plan to fend off the endless applications in nearby classes which get too close for their comfort. For example, Alibaba (baba reads as papa in Chinese) has famously filed a whole family including Ali-mama, Ali-brother, Ali-sister, or Ali-granpa. When the draft amendments were submitted to the NPC for review, the first draft of Article 4 originally read as "any trademark application without intent to use shall be dismissed." which would cut both ways of squatting activities as well as defensive filings.  In fact, it might be easier for an infringer to get through the requirement than for a legitimate brand owner to submit evidence of use in related business that they do not operate in. The bad faith requirement is added later on to address this. [2]  The real challenge now is to define what bad faith means in order to sieve the grain from the kernel correctly.  Otherwise, inconsistent application of the rules would cause more harm than good.

The Beijing High Court Guideline made an attempt to characterise "bad faith". Commenting on Article 4, the Beijing High Court said an applicant with no real intent to use could be found breach of the provision if the application also falls within one of the following:

1. a mark which is identical or similar to trademarks belonging to multiple entities which enjoy certain level of reputation or a relatively strong distinctive features, and such circumstance is serious;
2. a mark which is identical or similar to trademark(s) belonging to another person which enjoys a certain level of reputation or a relatively strong distinctive feature, and such circumstance is serious;
3. a mark which is identical or similar to another person's commercial logo(s) other than trademark, and such circumstance is serious;
4. a mark which is identical or similar to the name of a well-known place, tourist attractions, architectures, and such circumstance is serious;
5. a mark which is one of a large number of trademark filings without justifiable reasons.

Trademark owners must note that the above grounds (1) to (2) hinge on the existence of a prior mark already registered in China. There are no standalone grounds based on overseas reputation with no prior use.

2. Statutory damages increased to RMB 5 million***

Obstruction case against judge proves William Barr’s DOJ is an arm of Trump.

Obstruction case against judge proves William Barr’s DOJ is an arm of Trump.: The charges have nothing to do with the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the election.
by Leah Litman (UC Irvine School of Law)

It took Attorney General William Barr only one week from the release of the Mueller report to bring obstruction of justice charges against two governmental officials for interfering in a federal investigation. But the charges have nothing to do with the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the election or the possible obstruction of that investigation.

Although the obstruction charges DOJ filed are not related to the Mueller report, they underscore just how far the attorney general bent over backward to spin the report in the president’s favor and how partisan the Department of Justice has become. The disparities between the two cases highlight how the Department of Justice, under Barr’s leadership, has become nothing more than a political arm of the Trump administration, particularly in its handling of possible obstruction charges stemming from the Mueller report.

The indictment against Judge Shelley Richmond Joseph, a Massachusetts district court judge, and Officer Wesley MacGregor, a Massachusetts trial court officer, alleges that the officers interfered with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement proceeding by preventing ICE from arresting an individual who was arrested on state charges and attended an arraignment hearing in state court. During the state court proceeding, Joseph asked an ICE officer to wait outside the courtroom while the court conducted the arraignment hearing. Earlier in the day, the judge had requested more information about one of the state charges in the case (a fugitive charge) after the prosecutor said the state would not seek to detain the defendant on the other charge (a drug charge).

Barr’s response to the obstruction issues raised by the Mueller report was partisan and unprincipled.

After recalling the case, the judge observed that ICE was in the courthouse. The prosecutor then informed the court that the state did not believe the defendant was the fugitive from Pennsylvania for whom there was an arrest warrant and therefore believed that the fugitive charge was an error, which would mean that the defendant would be free to leave. The defense attorney, however, noted that ICE was convinced otherwise and suggested they would likely take the client into custody. The defense attorney then suggested that “the best thing for us to do is to … release him … and hope that he can avoid ICE.”

At that point, the judge noted the other alternative was to recall the proceedings again the next day and asked “ICE is gonna get him?” before directing the clerk to go off the record. The recording was turned off for 52 seconds, and when it resumed, the prosecutor renewed the claim that the defendant was not the person with a Pennsylvania warrant out for his arrest and moved to dismiss the fugitive charge against him. Because the state had already stated it would not seek to detain the defendant on the drug charges, the defendant was released, and the trial court officer escorted him through the back door.

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This evidence provided the basis for Barr’s Department of Justice to indict the state judge and state officer for obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Yet all of the reasons Barr has previously cited for opposing an obstruction investigation against the president suggest the Department of Justice should not have brought obstruction charges against Joseph and MacGregor either.

For example, in June, Barr wrote a memo as a private citizen arguing that obstruction laws should not “reach facially-lawful actions taken by the President in exercising the discretion vested in him by the Constitution.” Yet that is exactly what the obstruction-of-justice charges against Joseph and MacGregor cover. State judges do not persist with criminal charges that the district attorney has dropped, and state law does not require judges to detain individuals on the drug charges that remained. It was therefore “facially legitimate” and within the “discretion” of the judge not to detain the individual based on the drug charge. The judge also has total control of her courtroom and can decide through which doors to instruct people to come and go. And the state judge’s motive shouldn’t matter to the analysis because under Barr’s theory of obstruction, government officials can’t be charged with obstruction “based solely on his subjective state of mind” for “simply exercising his discretion in a facially lawful way.”

Or take Barr’s statement—given at a bizarre press conference just prior to the release of the Mueller report last week—that the president did not corruptly intend to obstruct the investigation because the president “was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency.” A similar exculpatory argument could be made on behalf of Joseph and MacGregor. They, too, may have been “frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that” ICE’s investigations and presence in state courthouses undermined the integrity of state court proceedings. Or perhaps they were frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that ICE’s enforcement efforts were the result of the president’s apparent bias and animosity toward the Latino community.

Ultimately, the Justice Department’s indictment of Joseph and MacGregor is a reminder about how aggressively the federal government often reads the federal obstruction statute. For example, the indictment confirms that obstruction does not have to be particularly sophisticated or successful in order to constitute a crime—the trial court officer merely let the defendant out the back door, and the defendant was subsequently apprehended and now faces deportation.

It also demonstrates a contrast in the kind of evidence that often suffices to establish an obstruction-of-justice charge. In the case of Joseph and MacGregor, DOJ has some snippets of a courtroom conversation that indicated the judge wanted to do something she did not want publicly recorded and less than a minute without a recording. In the case of President Donald Trump and his associates, special counsel Robert Mueller compiled dozens of witnesses, contemporaneous notes, 10 separate incidents, 182 pages of a report, multiple instances of officials lying to investigators or not being forthcoming with them, and several damning instances of the president lying in an apparent effort to cover his tracks. All of this led Barr to his four-page summary conclusion that Trump had not committed a crime—a conclusion that flew in the face of Mueller’s findings.

The stark difference between the attorney general’s treatment of the obstruction case against Joseph and MacGregor and the obstruction cases at the heart of the Mueller report serves as a pointed reminder that Barr’s response to the obstruction issues raised by the Mueller report was partisan and unprincipled. 

---

The Roberts court is considering the legal reasoning of Jim Crow in the census case.

The Roberts court is considering the legal reasoning of Jim Crow in the census case.: How could a late-stage Jim Crow decision be wreaking such havoc in the 21st century?
by Eric L. Muller (University of North Carolina Law School)

Xiao Yang dies at 80, was China's Chief Judge

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/life-death-xiao-yang-former-093153327.html

Napolitano to Trump to Dershowitz to Trump

Every day is a new low.  Andrew Napolitano was a very popular lecturer as a Superior Court Judge in New Jersey and law teacher at Seton Hall before he went to Fox.  He'd probably like to go back. - gwc

Thank you to brilliant and highly respected attorney Alan Dershowitz for destroying the very dumb legal argument of “Judge” Andrew Napolitano....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 28, 2019

....Ever since Andrew came to my office to ask that I appoint him to the U.S. Supreme Court, and I said NO, he has been very hostile! Also asked for pardon for his friend. A good “pal” of low ratings Shepard Smith.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 28, 2019

Roberts Delivers Latest Pro-Arbitration Ruling for Divided Court | New Jersey Law Journal

The consumer consent  fiction continues its sway at the U.S. Supreme Court. - gwc
Roberts Delivers Latest Pro-Arbitration Ruling for Divided Court | New Jersey Law Journal: Ginsburg said in dissent: “I write separately to emphasize once again how treacherously the court has strayed from the principle that ‘arbitration is a matter of consent not coercion.’”

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday wrapped up its arbitration docket for the current term with a 5-4 decision that is a win for business and favors individual over class arbitrations.

The ruling in Lamps Plus v. Varela was the second pro-arbitration ruling this term, joining Schein v. Archer and White Sales in the Supreme Court’s longstanding trend of strengthening the Federal Arbitration Act against attack by consumer groups that view arbitration as a one-sided process working against employees. Both cases were argued on Oct. 29. Schein was decided in January.

New Prime v. Oliveira, the third arbitration case decided this term by the court, was a rare win for consumers, giving judges more power to decide whether arbitration can proceed in certain circumstances.

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority in the Lamps Plus case, overturning a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that allowed a class arbitration to proceed because the arbitration agreement at issue was ambiguous. Roberts wrote that, under the arbitration statute, an ambiguous agreement cannot be interpreted as allowing class arbitrations.

The lighting company was hacked in 2016, exposing tax information about 1,300 employees. Frank Varela, one of the employees, filed suit on behalf of a putative class, but the company pushed back, seeking individual rather than class arbitration.

The company, Roberts wrote, “sought an order compelling individual arbitration. What it got was an order rejecting that relief and instead compelling arbitration on a class-wide basis.” That shift, he continued, “sacrifices the principal advantage of arbitration” and “greatly increases risks to defendants.”

The decision was a win for Andrew Pincus of Mayer Brown, who represented Lamps Plus and also argued in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, the 2011 ruling on class arbitrations that Roberts cited in the Lamps Plus ruling. Michele Vercoski, partner at McCune Wright Arevalo in California, represented Varela.

Andrew Pincus of Mayer Brown. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ ALM)

Lauren Novak, a partner at Schiff Hardin, said the ruling is “a clear win for employers. The decision is important, because it means that employers will maintain the benefits of individual arbitration and avoid the risks of class arbitration unless they agree to it.

Rusty Perdew of Locke Lord said Wednesday: “This decision will make it easier for parties who have an arbitration agreement to stop class actions filed in court and compel individual arbitration. Only agreements that clearly permit arbitration on a class basis will allow either party to force the other party into a class-action arbitration procedure.”

The court’s four liberals—Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan—wrote separate dissents.

Using unusually strong language, Ginsburg said, “I write separately to emphasize once again how treacherously the court has strayed from the principle that ‘arbitration is a matter of consent, not coercion.’”

Opinion analysis: The meaning of consent to class arbitration

Opinion analysis: The meaning of consent to class arbitration
The basic principle of the Roberts court is that people have  been given too many rights.

Should President Trump be above the law because of the statute of limitations?

Should President Trump be above the law because of the statute of limitations?: Should a president be above the law because of the statute of limitations?
by Jed Shugerman

A Trump Transition Staffer Calls for Impeachment - The Atlantic

A Trump Transition Staffer Calls for Impeachment - The Atlantic
by J.W. Verret

Let’s start at the end of this story. This weekend, I read Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report twice, and realized that enough was enough—I needed to do something. I’ve worked on every Republican presidential transition team for the past 10 years and recently served as counsel to the Republican-led House Financial Services Committee. My permanent job is as a law professor at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, which is not political, but where my colleagues have held many prime spots in Republican administration.

If you think calling for the impeachment of a sitting Republican president would constitute career suicide for someone like me, you may end up being right. But I did exactly that this weekend, tweeting that it’s time to begin impeachment proceedings.

SPC President Xiao Yang & internationalizing the Chinese judiciary | Supreme People's Court Monitor

When people ask me about law in China they are mostly skeptical that it means much at all.  Perfectly understandable since the word on the street here is that intellectual property theft is rampant, and violations of rights widespread - as in the compulsory Sinfication camps in the Uyghu Muslim autonomous region of Xinjiang.
But the Chinese courts have in the past 40 years been increasingly professionalized and law codified as one hundred fifty law schools educated two full generations of undergraduates in law.  As My experience with Chinese visiting scholars and LLM students is that the Chinese universities have done what we do here: teach people to "think like lawyers".
Susan Finder - Distinguished Scholar at Peking University's Transnational School of Law in Shenzhen discusses the role of the recently deceased President of the Supreme People's Court.  He played a key role in the internationalization of Chinese law and judiciary - an essential step for China to integrate itself into the world economy.  - gwc
SPC President Xiao Yang & internationalizing the Chinese judiciary | Supreme People's Court Monitor
by Susan Finder [Peking University School of Transnational Law (Shenzhen)]

***

I’d like to focus one small aspect of his work that likely won’t be considered important enough to be included in his obituaries in either the Chinese or foreign media–his vision, as SPC president, that internationalizing the education of Chinese judges would be beneficial to China. It was done because he was able to take the view at that time that learning about foreign law was beneficial:

In rule of law construction, it is not possible to close the door; copying and blinding transferring [what is done abroad] is not possible: therefore, as for foreign legal civilization, we must creatively absorb the content that conforms to the general principles of the rule of law according to our situation. In fact, a considerable part of our rule of law construction achievements in the past 40 years have been achieved on the basis of absorbing foreign advanced experience. When we formulated the General Principles of Civil Law, the Contract Law, the Property Law, and even the General Principles of Civil Law, we absorbed a lot of advanced concepts and systems from the civil law system and even the Anglo-American legal system. The principle of crime established in the Criminal Law of 1997 is also modern, contains commonalities with the modern rule of law.搞法治建设，关起门来不行，照搬照抄也不行；因此，对外国法律文明，我们要根据自身情况创造性地吸收借鉴那些符合法治一般规律的内容。事实上，四十年来我们的法治建设成就，有相当一部分是在吸收借鉴外国先进经验的基础上取得的。我们制定民法通则、合同法、物权法乃至民法总则时，就大量吸收了大陆法系甚至是英美法系的先进理念和制度；我们在1997年《刑法》中确立的罪刑法定原则，也正是现代法治中共通性的内容。[please feel free to make corrections to this translation]

He considered sending judges abroad an accomplishment that should be included in reports to the NPC:

• More than 200 outstanding young and middle-aged judges have been selected from the national courts to study abroad and in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. More than 100 people have returned from their studies and become the backbone of foreign-related trial operations. (从全国法院选送200多名优秀中青年法官到国外和香港特别行政区进修深造，目前已有百余人学成归来，并成为涉外审判业务骨干.)（2002）
• Continue to organize judges to study and exchange in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Macao Special Administrative Region, and abroad.(继续组织法官到香港特别行政区、澳门特别行政区以及国外学习交流。)

SPC Report Emphasizes Absolute Party Leadership and Xi Jin Ping Thought ~ Susan Finder

https://supremepeoplescourtmonitor.com/2019/04/22/signals-in-the-2019-supreme-peoples-court-work-report-to-the-npc/

Hong Kong~PRC Arbitration Accord Approved by SPC of PRC

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=01dc0ebb-b220-401e-a3c8-8f88a083dc02

Did Trump obstruct justice? Congress must determine that | Corey Brettschneider | Opinion | The Guardian

Did Trump obstruct justice? Congress must determine that | Corey Brettschneider | Opinion | The Guardian:
by Corey Brettschneider (Fordham Law School)
 If Congress finds enough evidence to support this claim, it is not only up to them to impeach and remove the president; it is up to future prosecutors to indict him.
In my view, the arguments for the current DOJ policy are so flawed that it should have been overridden. The indignity to the office comes from allowing a criminal president to continue to occupy it, not from indictments. And the idea that presidents are too busy to be indicted is simply false. The constitutionally enshrined impeachment process is also time-consuming. And as the example of President Clinton’s subpoenaed testimony in Clinton v Jones made clear, presidential schedulers can figure out how to balance a president’s responsibilities as chief executive with his participation in a legal proceeding. The failure to indict the president on obstruction was Barr’s responsibility, not Mueller’s. And in light of Barr’s heavily partisan pre-release press conference, this failure is both predictable and regrettable.

John Roberts and the decline of democracy. Charles Kaiser ~ Guardian

The Chief review: John Roberts and the decline of American democracy https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/apr/21/the-chief-john-roberts-supreme-court-justice-joan-biskupic?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

Robert Mueller let Donald Trump Jr. off the hook too easily. - Rick Hasen - Slate

Robert Mueller let Donald Trump Jr. off the hook too easily
Slate
by Rick Hasen (UCLA)

The redacted Mueller Report and the Executive Summaries

It's a beige wash, not a whitewash.  Robert Mueller - the brave soldier - the all business FBI Director - was a wimp when it came to Trump.  didn't even issue a subpoena to compel Trumpolini to testify.
The redacted Mueller Report
Searchable!  Thank you Bloomberg!

And The Executive Summaries
Thank you Lawfare

Helvetica

I'm a Georgia fan, hate courier, think Tahoma is OK.  But as a subway rider, gotta hand it to Helvetica. ~gwc

Loved and loathed, iconic Helvetica font enters a new era https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2019/04/17/loved-and-loathed-iconic-helvetica-font-enters-new-era/dBwf6YWjbkvKsTYmGrN4mJ/story.html

Congrats to Pulitzer Prize-wining WSJ team for TRUMP’S HUSH MONEY

TRUMP’S HUSH MONEY - WSJ: Key articles from The Wall Street Journal’s investigation of the president’s role in secret payoffs.
Very proud of Michael Rothfeld, father of two of my granddaughters, and member of the Pulitzer Prize winning WSJ team for Trump’s Hush Money: Key stories from The Wall Street Journal’s investigation of the president’s role in secret payoffs.

Barr’s Playbook: He Misled Congress When Omitting Parts of Justice Dep’t Memo in 1989 - Just Security

As soon as William Barr's name appeared as possible Attorney General Beltway-insider and old school ties syndrome began to seep into the commentary of normally level-headed commentators (names omitted to protect the guilty).  NYU's Ryan Goodman tells a story  that shows that Barr is a con artist, rather than the "rule of law" DOJ man that many serious commentators told us. - GWC

Barr’s Playbook: He Misled Congress When Omitting Parts of Justice Dep’t Memo in 1989 - Just Security: When Bill Barr was head of Office of Legal Counsel, he gave Congress the legal conclusions and reasoning of an important Justice Department memo but left out major portions of it. When the full memo was finally released nearly two years later it was clear what Barr had covered up, writes Ryan Goodman.

On Friday the thirteenth October 1989, by happenstance the same day as the “Black Friday” market crash, news leaked of a legal memo authored by William Barr. He was then serving as head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). It is highly uncommon for any OLC memo to make headlines. This one did because it was issued in “unusual secrecy” and concluded that the FBI could forcibly abduct people in other countries without the consent of the foreign state. The headline also noted the implication of the legal opinion at that moment in time. It appeared to pave the way for abducting Panama’s leader, Gen. Manuel Noriega.

Members of Congress asked to see the full legal opinion. Barr refused, but said he would provide an account that “summarizes the principal conclusions.” Sound familiar? In March 2019, when Attorney General Barr was handed Robert Mueller’s final report, he wrote that he would “summarize the principal conclusions” of the special counsel’s report for the public.

When Barr withheld the full OLC opinion in 1989 and said to trust his summary of the principal conclusions, Yale law school professor Harold Koh wrote that Barr’s position was “particularly egregious.” Congress also had no appetite for Barr’s stance, and eventually issued a subpoena to successfully wrench the full OLC opinion out of the Department.

What’s different from that struggle and the current struggle over the Mueller report is that we know how the one in 1989 eventually turned out.

When the OLC opinion was finally made public long after Barr left office, it was clear that Barr’s summary had failed to fully disclose the opinion’s principal conclusions. It is better to think of Barr’s summary as a redacted version of the full OLC opinion. That’s because the “summary” took the form of 13 pages of written testimony. The document was replete with quotations from court cases, legal citations, and the language of the OLC opinion itself. Despite its highly detailed analysis, this 13-page version omitted some of the most consequential and incendiary conclusions from the actual opinion. And there was evidently no justifiable reason for having withheld those parts from Congress or the public.

Opinion | Brent Staples’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning Work at The Times - The New York Times

Opinion | Brent Staples’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning Work at The Times - The New York Times: The editorial board member’s work tackled head-on the uncomfortable truths about race in America.

CREW Calls for Release of Full Mueller Report, Citing Barr’s Conflicts - CREW

CREW Calls for Release of Full Mueller Report, Citing Barr’s Conflicts - CREW: Barr's conflicts include his involvement with President Trump’s legal team, as well as his 19-page memo criticizing a possible obstruction charge.

Washington—The only appropriate way to address Attorney General William Barr’s potential conflicts of interest and apparent lack of impartiality is for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report in its entirety, according to a request sent today to DOJ by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

CREW’s letter raises potential conflicts of interest for Barr, including his involvement, while in private practice, with President Trump’s White House legal team, Trump’s personal lawyers, and lawyers who represented likely subjects of Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation, as well as Barr’s 19-page legal memo criticizing possible obstruction of justice charges against the President written before he was nominated to be our country’s top law enforcement officer.

The letter further critiques Barr’s decision to issue a four-page summary on the Mueller report: “Your subsequent decision as Attorney General to release a four-page summary in which you conclude that President Trump did not obstruct justice further contributed to the impression that you prejudged the matter based on your prior involvement and undermines public confidence in DOJ’s decision-making process,” the letter reads. “This action appeared to be an attempt to skew public opinion in advance of the full release of the report. Your actions in this matter have already damaged the public’s trust in your service as Attorney General on a matter with national security implications.”

“After 215 criminal charges, 38 indictments or pleas, five prison sentences, 500 search warrants, 2800 subpoenas, and 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence, there is overwhelming public interest in the Special Counsel Report,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said in the letter. “The American people are entitled to full transparency into the Russian government’s attack on the 2016 Presidential election process, any established links between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign, and any actions taken by President Trump to obstruct the related federal investigations.”

Click here to read the letter.

Notre Dame - nous la rebatirons. Tous ensemble. - Macron

Cette cathédrale Notre-Dame, nous la rebâtirons. Tous ensemble. C’est une part de notre destin français. Je m’y engage : dès demain une souscription nationale sera lancée, et bien au-delà de nos frontières.

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) April 15, 2019

“Notre Dame is our history, our literature, part of our psyche, the place of all our great events, our epidemics, our wars, our liberations, the epicentre of our lives ... So I solemnly say tonight: we will rebuild it together.” - Emmanuel Macron

The moment #NotreDame’s spire fell pic.twitter.com/XUcr6Iob0b

— Patrick Galey (@patrickgaley) April 15, 2019

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Thousands of Parisians – many weeping and some praying – watched as vast orange flames soared from the roof for hours, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the western world. There were gasps on the southern bank of the river Seine as locals watched fire sweep across the roof, which slowly caved in.

Hints, but no proof of crime, in Mueller's hunt for a Trump-Russia conspiracy - Reuters

The hunt for a Democrat at the FBI must evoke Greek mythology, so it was inevitable that we would be dependent on types like Comey.  And we were Mueller and Rosenstein never even tried to depose Trump or call him before a Grand Jury. (Remember how that worked out for Bill Clinton?)  Maybe he figured that with the deck stacked at SCOTUS it was pointless.  But what was the harm in trying? 
Hints, but no proof of crime, in Mueller's hunt for a Trump-Russia conspiracy - Reuters: As recently as February, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team dropped hints that the inquiry into Russia's role in the 2016 U.S. election might unearth evidence of active cooperation between Moscow and President Donald Trump's campaign.

How the Great Leftist Thinkers of the 20th Century Contended With Zionism - The New York Times

How the Great Leftist Thinkers of the 20th Century Contended With Zionism - The New York Times: In “The Lions’ Den,” Susie Linfield tours the minds of eight thinkers, including Hannah Arendt and Noam Chomsky, investigating their relationship to the Jewish state.
Reviewed by J.J. Goldberg
"“The Lions’ Den” illustrates the individual struggles of Jewish leftists in the World War II generation to reconcile their conflicting impulses, the particularist pull of Zionism and the universalist pull of socialism. Their stories precisely anticipate the tension today’s Jewish liberals experience trying to reconcile their own pro-Israel particularism and their social-justice universalism."

Pete Buttigieg reacts to Trump incitement against Rep. Ilhan Omar

After 9/11 we all said we were changed. That we were stronger and more united. That’s what “never forget” was about. Now, a president uses that dark day to incite his base against a member of Congress, as if for sport. As if we learned nothing that day about the workings of hate.

— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) April 13, 2019

Benedict's Letter is a Regrettable Text - Michael Sean Winters - National Catholic Reporter

Why was there no one to protect the retired Pope Joseph Ratzinger from this damaging text?
by Michael Sean Winters //National Catholic Reporter

When a friend first sent me Pope Emeritus Benedict's article about the root causes of clergy sex abuse, I thought the text was a hoax. Here, it seemed, was a caricature of both Joseph Ratzinger's once powerful intellect and of conservative explanations for the sex abuse crisis. Apparently the text is authentic, so we must search for other reasons why it gets so much wrong — and so much that the retired pope would know is wrong. Let us examine the difficulties with this text.

First and foremost, Benedict knows as few others do, that the crisis is a double affliction: There is the fact of the abuse and the fact of that abuse being covered up. Nowhere in this text does he explore the second affliction. Yet he knows that when, as Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he completed his investigation into the evil deeds of Fr. Marcial Maciel, no action was taken against this most horrible of perpetrators. He would have known about the allegations leveled against then-Archbishop Theodore McCarrick before his promotion to the Archdiocese of Washington and to the cardinalate, and that those allegations were unanswered or ignored. He knew the circumstances that forced Cardinal Bernard Law to resign his see and spend the rest of his life occupying a sinecure in Rome. Why no mention of any of this?