Background: Olga Eleonora Talmachiu, a Romanian citizen born in 1946, entered Israel in 2001 on a tourist visa and remained after it expired. She later received temporary status through a graduated-status process based on her relationship and subsequent marriage to an Israeli citizen. After he died in 2009, that process ended. Following litigation, the authorities considered…
Held: Justice Ruth Ronnen denied leave to appeal without requesting a response from the Ministry. The Court explained that review at this third level of proceedings is available only in narrow circumstances: when the case presents a legal question of general importance extending beyond the parties’ dispute or raises a concern of a grave miscarriage of justice. Talmachiu’s challenge met neither…
Background: Janice Mary Connolly died in June 2022, leaving an estate that included Homebush, a cattle property near Mitchell comprising more than 3,000 acres and valued at approximately $4 million. Her will appointed her children Kim Acton and Timothy Connolly, together with Walter Hartnell, as executors. It gave Hartnell interests in another property, partnership assets and…
Held: Treston J advised that the applicants were justified in defending proceeding BS 3274 of 2023. The parties agreed that the claims should be defended, and confidential advice from counsel had carefully assessed the case’s strengths and weaknesses. The Court concluded that defending the proceedings was in the estate’s interests.
Background: M. [E] [T] was placed under formal investigation on April 25, 2024, for organized armed robbery, criminal conspiracy, and arbitrary arrest, abduction, detention, or confinement. On October 25, 2024, he applied to the Paris Court of Appeal’s investigating chamber to annul portions of the proceedings.
Held: The Criminal Chamber dismissed the appeal. It held that signed individual certificates, read together with a common annex marking the three databases at issue, adequately established that each of the three investigators was authorized to consult TAJ, LAPI, and FNAEG. It also rejected the defense’s claim that the authorization document had escaped adversarial scrutiny: counsel had obtained an adjournment because…
Background: In 2023, the congregation of Christ Church Exeter left the Free Church of England for the second time. The congregation continued occupying its church buildings, and Revd Steven Hanna continued leading worship there. The Free Church of England Central Trust, which held legal title to property associated with the congregation, brought charity proceedings to determine…
Held: Master Brightwell held that the Central Trust was the charity trustee of the Original Church Site, Laburnum Cottage Site and Schoolrooms Site, but did not hold them absolutely. The Original Church Site was held for the Free Church of England’s religious charitable purposes and to enable its use by the separate charity under the name Christ Church (Free Church of…
Background: After an argument outside his girlfriend’s home, Leon Guerrero fought with Rafael Fuentes and then challenged Hector Martinez, who had tried to separate the men. Guerrero said he had a gun in his nearby car. When Fuentes and Martinez tried to leave with Guerrero’s daughter in their vehicle, Guerrero continued the confrontation, and a struggle…
Held: The Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed. The evidence permitted the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Guerrero did not reasonably believe deadly force was necessary. Fuentes and Martinez were unarmed, Guerrero had no indication that either possessed a weapon, and the evidence supported a finding that Martinez was trying to stop the fight and that Fuentes was trying to…
Background: Far Ocean Sea Products, a frozen seafood supplier, held a fire insurance policy with United Overseas Insurance covering its industrial premises. A June 2024 fire damaged the premises and disrupted power to its cold rooms, causing substantial business and inventory losses. The policy barred claims after 12 months unless they were the subject of pending…
Held: The High Court dismissed the application. Justice Philip Jeyaretnam held that an applicant seeking an extension under s 10(1) must establish, on a full-merits basis, that its proposed arbitration falls within an operative arbitration agreement. This differs from the prima facie review used when considering a stay of court proceedings in favour of arbitration.
Background: Christopher B. Smith Jr., a Tier III sex offender, worked for Immaculate Cleaning, a janitorial service operating throughout northeastern Ohio. He registered the company as his place of employment with the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office. Each workday, Smith met a company van in Cleveland and traveled with a crew to an assigned jobsite.
Held: The Supreme Court of Ohio unanimously affirmed. It held that the phrase “place of employment address” carries its plain, ordinary meaning: the address of the physical environment where the offender performs work. The phrase therefore refers to the worksite, not merely the business address of the offender’s employer.
Background: Federal law generally makes tax returns and return information confidential. Under 26 U.S.C. § 6103(i)(2), the IRS may disclose return information for specified non-tax criminal investigations only after an agency head submits a written request containing required information, including the taxpayer’s name and address, the relevant taxable period, the statutory authority for the investigation, and…
Held: The D.C. Circuit affirmed the preliminary relief. It held that the Center was likely to establish organizational standing because the data-sharing procedure predictably discouraged immigrant taxpayers from seeking its services, interfered with its core taxpayer-assistance work, and forced it to redirect staff and operating funds toward outreach. The court also held that the Data-Exchange Procedure was final agency action reviewable…
Background: The defendant had rented the plaintiff’s apartment since 1996 and lived there with his then-17-year-old son. In February 2024, the landlord terminated the tenancy on the ground that her granddaughter needed the apartment. The tenant opposed termination under Sections 574 and following of the German Civil Code, alleging serious physical and psychiatric illnesses—including severe depression—and…
Held: The Federal Court of Justice vacated the appellate judgment, including its costs ruling, insofar as it decided the statutory hardship issue against the tenant, and remanded for further proceedings. It did not disturb the finding that the landlord had established personal need. The court held that the Regional Court repeatedly violated the tenant’s constitutional right to be heard under Article…
Background: Alexandros Savvas, then a president of the Court of Appeal, was denied promotion to the Greek Court of Cassation in 2018. During the internal appeal proceedings, several judges criticized his professional conduct and work. Savvas subsequently served three of those judges with out-of-court declarations disputing their accounts, describing their statements as vague, false, or slanderous,…
Held: The European Court of Human Rights unanimously held that Greece violated Article 10. The suspension interfered with Savvas’s freedom of expression because it was imposed for the content and form of his declarations rather than for any failure to perform his judicial duties. Although the interference was prescribed by law and was assumed to pursue legitimate aims, it was not…
Background: Misgana Ghebriel Yosief, an Eritrean citizen and Pentecostal Christian, fled religious persecution and was formally recognized as a refugee in South Africa along with her husband and two younger children. Her two older children were living in Ethiopia. Sponsored by a group in Ottawa, she applied for Canadian permanent residence under the Convention Refugee Abroad…
Held: The Federal Court granted judicial review and held that the refusal was unreasonable. A durable-solution assessment is both legal and factual: it must examine not only the rights refugees possess under domestic law, but also their personal circumstances and whether systemic barriers make those rights inaccessible in practice.
Background: The dispute arose from proceedings to enforce payment of time-unbarred installments of the Workplace Location Allowance (Adicional de Local de Exercício, or ALE) claimed by São Paulo State military-police retirees and pensioners. The asserted entitlement depended on relief originally granted in a collective mandamus action brought by the Association of Retired and Reserve Officers of…
Held: The First Panel unanimously denied the internal appeal. It held that overturning the state court’s conclusion that no enforceable judicial title remained—and accepting the appellant’s related res judicata argument—would require the STJ to reexamine the case’s factual and evidentiary record. STJ Precedent Statement No. 7 bars that inquiry in a special appeal.