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<strong>STF</strong> <strong>na</strong> Mídia<br />
Clipping Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l - Dia 12 a 18 de Abril
12/04/2012
Quinta-feira, 19 de Abril de 2012<br />
12/04/2012<br />
Corriere Della Será - Economia<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Corte Costituzio<strong>na</strong>le<br />
Soldi ai partiti, ecco come saranno controllati ma l'emendamento è i<strong>na</strong>mmissibile, 5<br />
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - Politik<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>le Strafgerichtshof<br />
Kabila fordert Fest<strong>na</strong>hme von gesuchtem Kriegsherrn, 7<br />
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - Politik<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Europäischen Gerichtshof<br />
Geschwister ohne Liebe , 8<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Iberdrola wants voting rights ruling annuled, 10<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Arizo<strong>na</strong> governor signs law banning most late-term abortions, 11<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Workers' class action against Brinker can proceed, in part, 12<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Calif court allows part of lawsuit against Brinker , 13<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
SEC commissioner urges U.S. investor-rights action, 14<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Sebelius seeks civil rights support for healthcare law, 15<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
UPDATE 1-Telenor-Unitech dispute referred for intl arbitration, 16<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Mali's Traore sworn in as acting president, 17<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung - Politik<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Europäischen Gerichtshof<br />
Das letzte Tabu , 18<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung - Politik<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Europäischen Gerichtshof<br />
Deutsches Inzestverbot ist rechtens, 19<br />
The New York Times - N.Y./Region<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Cuomo Acts to Advance Health Law in New York, 20<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
3
Quinta-feira, 19 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Honoring O’Connor’s Legacy at the Supreme Court, 22<br />
The New York Times - Arts<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
Jamaa Fa<strong>na</strong>ka, Film Director, Dies at 69, 23<br />
The New York Times - N.Y./Region<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
Evicted From Park, Occupy Protesters Take to Sidewalks, 25<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
Robert Caro’s Big Dig, 26<br />
4
Corriere Della Será/ - Economia, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Corte Costituzio<strong>na</strong>le)<br />
Soldi ai partiti, ecco come saranno<br />
controllati ma l'emendamento è<br />
i<strong>na</strong>mmissibile<br />
Già presentato un disegno di legge a firma Alfano,<br />
Bersani, Casini. Per velocizzare l'iter andrà in<br />
commissione in sede legislativa, cioè senza passare<br />
dall'aula<br />
MILANO - «Allo scopo di garantire la trasparenza e la<br />
correttezza nella gestione contabile e fi<strong>na</strong>nziaria, i<br />
partiti e i movimenti politici» dovranno avere i loro<br />
bilanci certificati da «società di revisione iscritte all'albo<br />
speciale tenuto dalla Consob». Recita così il primo<br />
comma dell'emendamento al decreto legge fiscale<br />
depositato dal relatore Gianfranco Conte, ma subito<br />
giudicato i<strong>na</strong>mmissibile dal presidente della Camera<br />
Gianfranco Fini «vista l'estraneità di materia e preso<br />
atto della mancanza di consenso u<strong>na</strong>nime dei gruppi<br />
-scrive Fini- sull'esistenza di aspetti problematici che<br />
rende i<strong>na</strong>mmissibile l'emendamento». A questo punto<br />
l'unica strada resta quella del disegno di legge che per<br />
molti vuol dire un rinvio a tempi più lunghi per<br />
intervenire su un tema tor<strong>na</strong>to di grande attualità dopo<br />
lo scandalo che ha travolto la Lega.<br />
ITER RAPIDO - Ma i leader della maggioranza<br />
pensano ad un percorso a tappe forzate: un ddl che<br />
porta la firma dei leader di Pdl, Pd e Terzo Polo,<br />
Alfano, Bersani e Casini da approvare in commissione<br />
Affari Costituzio<strong>na</strong>li in sede legislativa, ovvero senza<br />
passare dall'aula. Appunto un iter ultrarapido. Era<br />
questa l'ipotesi su cui si ragio<strong>na</strong>va già nei giorni prima<br />
del tentativo, andato male, di inserire le nuove norme<br />
sui bilanci dei partiti nel decreto fiscale. Tuttavia anche<br />
il tentativo di approvazione lampo potrebbe saltare: per<br />
l'approvazione in sede legislativa occorre infatti il via<br />
libera all'u<strong>na</strong>nimità della commissione. Bastano le<br />
firme di nove deputati per stoppare la «legislativa» e in<br />
commissione Affari Costituzio<strong>na</strong>li Idv e Lega possono<br />
contare su sette deputati, l'ottavo no è gia arrivato dal<br />
radicale Maurizio Turco. A questo punto basterebbe un<br />
solo franco tiratore per far saltare tutto.<br />
TESTO IDENTICO - Spiega il capogruppo del Pdl alla<br />
Camera Fabrizio Cicchitto: «A questo punto l'unica<br />
strada è la presentazione di un disegno di legge alla<br />
Commissione Affari Costituzio<strong>na</strong>li puntando a farlo<br />
approvare in via legislativa». «Prendiamo atto della<br />
valutazione di i<strong>na</strong>mmissibilità dell'emendamento al<br />
decreto fiscale che contiene le norme sulla<br />
trasparenza dei bilanci dei partiti -aggiunge il<br />
capogruppo del Pd Dario Franceschini- è u<strong>na</strong><br />
valutazione del presidente della Camera che<br />
rispettiamo. La volontà dei gruppi che sostengono quel<br />
testo era quella, attraverso l'emendamento al decreto,<br />
di fare entrare in vigore la norma in tempi brevissimi».<br />
«In nome di questo obiettivo -aggiunge- c'è già un<br />
accordo fra i gruppi che sostengono il governo per u<strong>na</strong><br />
proposta di legge con identico testo da approvare in<br />
commissione Affari Costituzio<strong>na</strong>li in sede legislativa in<br />
tempi brevissimi».<br />
BUFERA IN COMMISSIONE - In commissione fi<strong>na</strong>nze<br />
la Lega e l'Idv di Di Pietro si erano opposte con forza<br />
alla strada dell'emendamento e lo stesso presidente<br />
della Commissione Fi<strong>na</strong>nze Gianfranco Conte aveva<br />
già ravvisato che l'emendamento era a forte rischio.<br />
«Allo stato è da ritenersi i<strong>na</strong>mmissibile» aveva<br />
spiegato al termine della seduta della commissione.<br />
«Lo sottoporremo al presidente della Camera -aveva<br />
aggiunto- ma credo che anche lui sarà d'accordo su<br />
questa posizione. In un primo momento sembrava ci<br />
fosse u<strong>na</strong>nimità tra i gruppi poi questa u<strong>na</strong>nimità è<br />
venuta meno». Anche un esponente del Pd, Salvatore<br />
Vassallo, seppur a titolo perso<strong>na</strong>le, aveva espresso<br />
perplessità sull'ammissibilità. «C'è stato un dibattito<br />
piuttosto animato -ha spiegato Vassallo- è discutibile<br />
che lo si possa fare alla luce della recente sentenza<br />
della Corte costituzio<strong>na</strong>le sugli emendamenti estranei<br />
per materia ai decreti legge, come ha sottolineato<br />
anche il presidente della Repubblica Giorgio<br />
Napolitano. Non si può inserire nel decreto fiscale u<strong>na</strong><br />
norma che non riguarda il flusso delle risorse che<br />
vanno ai partiti ma sulla rendicontazione».<br />
DI PIETRO SU TWITTER - Antonio Di Piero si affida<br />
invece a Twiitter per criticare anche nel merito la<br />
riforma. «Incredibile: secondo la proposta ABC le<br />
multe ai partiti per irregolarità le decideranno<br />
presidenti di Camera e Se<strong>na</strong>to». E ancora: «Il<br />
paradosso e la malattia antica della politica italia<strong>na</strong>: il<br />
controllato che nomi<strong>na</strong> e controlla il controllore». Ma la<br />
maggioranza difendono sostanza e procedura seguita.<br />
Spiega il presidente dei deputati del Pd Fabrizio<br />
Cicchitto: «Abbiamo condiviso la presentazione di un<br />
emendamento al decreto sulla semplificazione<br />
tributaria che riproduce il testo riguardante la<br />
5
egolamentazione dei controlli sulle fi<strong>na</strong>nze dei partiti<br />
concordato fra il Pdl, il Pd, l'Udc e il Fli per l'urgenza<br />
che la questione presenta». Mentre da Mo<strong>na</strong>sterace<br />
era intervenuto anche il segretario del Pd Luigi<br />
Bersani: «Spero di mettere in un decreto queste prime<br />
norme sui contributi ai partiti, su cui abbiamo trovato<br />
l'accordo, se ce ne danno la possibilità i presidenti<br />
delle Camere. Questo per farle partire<br />
immediatamente».<br />
I PUNTI SALIENTI - Resta comunque l'intesa nel<br />
merito raggiunta da Pdl, Pd e Terzo Polo per<br />
controllare la gestione del fi<strong>na</strong>nziamento pubblico.<br />
Questi i punti qualificanti dell'emendamento giudicato<br />
i<strong>na</strong>mmissibile. Oltre al Controllo da parte di società di<br />
revisione era prevista l'istituzione di u<strong>na</strong> Commissione<br />
per la Trasparenza «Avrà sede presso la Camera che<br />
provvederà, insieme al Se<strong>na</strong>to, ad assicurarne<br />
l'operatività anche attraverso la dotazione di perso<strong>na</strong>le<br />
Corriere Della Será/ - Economia, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Corte Costituzio<strong>na</strong>le)<br />
di segreteria -si legge nel testo- L'organismo sarà<br />
composto dal presidente della Corte dei Conti che<br />
coordi<strong>na</strong>, da quello del Consiglio di Stato e dal primo<br />
presidente della Cassazione. Ciascuno di loro potrà<br />
avvalersi fino a un massimo di 2 magistrati<br />
appartenenti ai rispettivi ordini giurisdizio<strong>na</strong>li».<br />
Nessuno di loro percepirà «alcun compenso». E<br />
ancora «sul sito internet di ogni partito e di quello della<br />
Camera, entro il 15 giugno di ogni anno, dovranno<br />
essere pubblicati il rendiconto di esercizio dei partiti; la<br />
relazione del collegio sindacale; quella della società di<br />
revisione; i bilanci delle imprese partecipate; il verbale<br />
di approvazione del rendiconto». Tra l'altro è poi<br />
previsto il divieto «di investire i soldi pubblici ricevuti in<br />
strumenti fi<strong>na</strong>nziari diversi dai titoli di Stato italiani».<br />
Redazione Online<br />
6
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/ - Politik, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>le Strafgerichtshof)<br />
Kabila fordert Fest<strong>na</strong>hme von gesuchtem<br />
Kriegsherrn<br />
Kongos Präsident Kabila hat die Verhaftung des<br />
wegen Kriegsverbrechen gesuchten Milizenführers<br />
Ntaganda gefordert. Ntaganda müsse jedoch in Kongo<br />
vor Gericht kommen - nicht in Den Haag vor den<br />
Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>len Strafgerichtshof.<br />
Der kongolesische Präsident Joseph Kabila hat zur<br />
Verhaftung des wegen mutmaßlicher<br />
Kriegsverbrechen gesuchten Armeegenerals und<br />
Milizenführers Bosco Ntaganda aufgerufen.<br />
Ntaganda wird vom Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>len Strafgerichtshof<br />
(ICC) gesucht. Ihm wird vorgeworfen, zwischen 2002<br />
und 2003 bei Kämpfen im Nordosten Kongos Kinder<br />
als Soldaten missbraucht zu haben. Außerdem soll<br />
Ntaganda wegen Mordes und Vergewaltigung belangt<br />
werden.<br />
Nach Angaben des Senders BBC kam Kabila am<br />
Mittwoch im Osten des Landes zu einem<br />
Sicherheitstreffen mit der Armee zusammen, <strong>na</strong>chdem<br />
in der Region seit Anfang April hunderte<br />
Regierungssoldaten desertierten. Sie gehören zu den<br />
Truppen Ntagandas und wurden 2009 <strong>na</strong>ch einem<br />
Friedensschluss offiziell in die Armee aufgenommen.<br />
Ntagandas Soldaten, die vornehmlich der Volksgruppe<br />
der Tutsi angehören, werden für andauernde<br />
Vergehen an der Bevölkerung im Osten Kongos<br />
verantwortlich gemacht.<br />
„Keine Anklage in Den Haag“<br />
„Ich möchte die Verhaftung von Ntaganda, weil die<br />
ganze Bevölkerung Frieden will“, sagte Kabila <strong>na</strong>ch<br />
Angaben der Nachrichte<strong>na</strong>gentur Reuters. Ntaganda<br />
solle vor einem Militärgericht in Kongo angeklagt<br />
werden. Der Aufenthaltsort Ntagandas, der bis dato<br />
offen und unbehelligt in Goma lebte, ist unklar. Nach<br />
Angaben des Senders BBC soll er die Gegend mit<br />
hunderten schwerbewaffneten Soldaten verlassen<br />
haben.<br />
Präsident Kabila hatte sich einen Appell zur<br />
Verhaftung Ntagandas zuvor bislang verweigert. Eine<br />
Auslieferung an den ICC in Den Haag lehnt Kabila ab,<br />
angeblich, um den Frieden in der Region zu erhalten,<br />
in der eine Vielzahl an lokalen Milizen operiert.<br />
Ntganda war einer der Stellvertreter in der Hema-Miliz<br />
von Thomas Lubanga, der vom ICC Mitte März<br />
schuldig gesprochen worden war und in Den Haag in<br />
Haft sitzt.<br />
Zur Zeit des Völkermords im Nachbarland Ruanda war<br />
Ntaganda Mitglied der ruandischen Tutsi-Armee<br />
Forces Rwandaises de Défense, die 1994 das<br />
Hutu-Regime in Kigali stürzte.<br />
7
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/ - Politik, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Europäischen Gerichtshof )<br />
Geschwister ohne Liebe<br />
Das deutsche Inzestverbot ist rechtens. Der<br />
Europäische Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte sieht im<br />
Verbot der Geschwisterliebe keinen Verstoß gegen die<br />
Menschenrechtskonvention.<br />
Von Reinhard Müller<br />
Inzest bleibt strafbar. Der Europäische Gerichtshof für<br />
Menschenrechte sieht im deutschen Verbot der Verbot<br />
der Geschwisterliebe keinen Verstoß gegen die<br />
Menschenrechtskonvention. Die Straßburger Richter<br />
billigen den Staaten einen weiten<br />
Beurteilungsspielraum zu - schließlich gebe es unter<br />
den 47 Staaten des Europarats keinen Konsens über<br />
die Strafbarkeit des Inzests. Und: Die deutsche<br />
Gerichte hätten sorgfältig abgewogen. In der Tat hatte<br />
sich auch das Bundesverfassungsgericht mit dem Fall<br />
befasst - und hatte eine eindeutige, wenn auch nicht<br />
einstimmige Entscheidung getroffen.<br />
Nicht zuletzt im Blick auf den konkreten Fall: Nach der<br />
Scheidung der Eltern war der 1976 geborene Patrick<br />
S. von einer Pflegefamilie adoptiert worden. Seine acht<br />
Jahre jüngere Schwester, die in Leipzig aufwuchs, traf<br />
er zum ersten Mal im Jahr 2000. Nach dem Tod der<br />
Mutter begannen die Geschwister eine sexuelle<br />
Beziehung. Die Schwester ist geistig leicht behindert.<br />
2001, 2003, 2004 und 2005 brachte sie vier Kinder zur<br />
Welt, deren Vater ihr Bruder ist. Zwei der Kinder sind<br />
behindert. Als der Inzest bekannt wurde, musste sich<br />
der Vater mehrfach Strafprozessen stellen. Im vierten<br />
wurde er zu einer Freiheitsstrafe von insgesamt<br />
zweieinhalb Jahren verurteilt. Mittlerweile haben sich<br />
die beiden getrennt.<br />
Verbot schon im preußischen Strafgesetzbuch<br />
Es ist eine alte Norm, die den Beischlaf zwischen<br />
Geschwistern unter Strafe stellt. Das Verbot findet sich<br />
schon im preußischen Strafgesetzbuch von 1851 und<br />
dann auch im Reichsstrafgesetzbuch von 1871, das im<br />
Wesentlichen heute noch gilt. Damals sprach man<br />
noch von „Blutschande“. Schon zu Beginn des 20.<br />
Jahrhunderts gab es Bestrebungen, die Norm zu<br />
streichen, da sie lediglich unmoralisches Handeln<br />
bestrafe. Doch die Vorschrift des Paragraphen 173<br />
überdauerte eine Vielzahl von Reformen. Inzest stelle,<br />
so die Begründung, eine Gefahr für das sittliche<br />
Wesen der Familie und vor allem für die<br />
Nachkommenschaft dar. Die Natio<strong>na</strong>lsozialisten<br />
entschärften die Vorschrift sogar: Sie sahen ihren<br />
Zweck vor allem in der Abwehr von „Erbgefahren“,<br />
erkannten aber darüber hi<strong>na</strong>us kein „völkisches<br />
Schutzbedürfnis“.<br />
Wie jetzt auch der Europäische Gerichtshof für<br />
Menschenrechte war schon das<br />
Bundesverfassungsgericht rechtsvergleichend tätig. Es<br />
holte ein Gutachten beim Max-Planck-Institut für<br />
ausländisches und inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>les Strafrecht in<br />
Freiburg ein. Dem<strong>na</strong>ch ist Inzest in 13 von 20<br />
untersuchten Staaten verschiedener Rechtskreise<br />
strafbar, nicht aber etwa in Russland, Chi<strong>na</strong>,<br />
Frankreich und den Niederlanden.<br />
Sorgfältiges Abwägen des<br />
Bundesverfassungsgerichts<br />
Die Straßburger Richter kamen jetzt zu dem Schluss,<br />
dass in der Mehrheit der Staaten des Europarats<br />
sexuelle Beziehung zwischen Geschwistern strafbar<br />
sind; alle untersuchten Länder verbieten allerdings die<br />
Ehe zwischen Geschwistern. Folglich gebe es einen<br />
breiten Konsens, dass sexuelle Beziehungen zwischen<br />
Geschwistern weder in der Rechtsordnung noch in der<br />
Gesellschaft anerkannt seien. Die Richter sehen auch<br />
keinen Trend für die Entkrimi<strong>na</strong>lisierung solcher<br />
Beziehungen. Das Bundesverfassungsgericht hat aus<br />
Sicht der Straßburger Richter sorgfältig abgewogen,<br />
was sich auch in der „ausführlichen abweichenden<br />
Meinung eines Richters“ zeige.<br />
Hier handelte es sich um den Strafrechtslehrer<br />
Winfried Hassemer, der kurz vor seinem Ausscheiden<br />
aus dem Gericht gegen die Strafbarkeit des Inzest zu<br />
Felde zog: Es gebe mildere und besser geeignete<br />
Instrumente, die Ziele des Gesetzgebers zu erreichen.<br />
Wer eine „so verunglückte“ Strafdrohung passieren<br />
lasse, „segnet schwere Fehler und Versäumnisse des<br />
Gesetzgebers verfassungsrechtlich ab“, meinte<br />
Hassemer.<br />
Abschreckende Wirkung des Inzestverbots<br />
Die Se<strong>na</strong>tsmehrheit dagegen sprach von<br />
<strong>na</strong>chvollziehbaren Strafzwecken „vor dem Hintergrund<br />
einer kulturhistorisch begründeten, <strong>na</strong>ch wie vor<br />
wirkkräftigen gesellschaftlichen Überzeugung von der<br />
Strafwürdigkeit des Inzests, wie sie auch im<br />
inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>len Recht festzustellen ist“. Hassemer hielt<br />
das für nebulös. Ganz offenbar habe die Vorschrift nur<br />
überkommene oder vermutete Moralvorstellungen,<br />
nicht aber ein konkretes Rechtsgut im Auge. Die große<br />
Mehrheit der Richter des Zweiten Se<strong>na</strong>ts meinte<br />
dagegen trotz der nicht ganz klaren Begründung für<br />
die Inzeststrafbarkeit, dass es dem Gesetzgeber<br />
erlaubt sei, den Inzest in dieser Form unter Strafe zu<br />
stellen<br />
8
Der Gesetzgeber hat dem<strong>na</strong>ch seinen<br />
Entscheidungsspielraum nicht überschritten, indem er<br />
das Bewahren der familiären Ordnung vor<br />
schädigenden Wirkungen des Inzests, den Schutz des<br />
in einer solchen Beziehung „unterlegenen“ Partners<br />
und die Vermeidung schwerwiegender Erkrankungen<br />
als ausreichend erachtet hat, „das in der Gesellschaft<br />
verankerte Inzesttabu strafrechtlich zu sanktionieren“.<br />
Das Bundesverfassungsgericht setzt auf die<br />
abschreckende Funktion des Inzestverbots - und<br />
wollte sich auch nicht die Rolle des Gesetzegebers<br />
anmaßen. Straßburg gibt Karlsruhe nun Recht.<br />
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/ - Politik, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Europäischen Gerichtshof )<br />
Und wenn die Entscheidung anders ausgefallen wäre?<br />
Das hätte den schwelenden Streit über Stellung und<br />
Kompetenz des überlasteten<br />
Menschenrechtsgerichtshofs neu angefacht. Aber<br />
dieser Konflikt ist nicht aufgehoben: Großbritannien,<br />
das derzeit den Vorsitz im Ministerkomitee des<br />
Europarates innehat, will den<br />
Menschenrechtsgerichtshof effizienter machen, da<br />
man mit dem Straßburger System unzufrieden ist.<br />
Solche Stimmen gibt es auch im<br />
Bundesverfassungsgericht und im Europäischen<br />
Gerichtshof in Luxemburg.<br />
9
Reuters General/ - Article, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Iberdrola wants voting rights ruling<br />
annuled<br />
MADRID, April 13 | Fri Apr 13, 2012 5:50am EDT<br />
(Reuters) - Spanish energy firm Iberdrola will ask the<br />
Supreme Court to annul its decision to reject the<br />
company's motion against a new law on corporate<br />
shareholder voting rights, a spokesman said on Friday.<br />
Iberdrola had contested the law, which strips<br />
companies of the power to limit individual shareholder<br />
voting rights at 10 percent, as part of its long battle to<br />
keep builder ACS from gaining influence on its board.<br />
The Supreme Court's ruling on Iberdrola's motion was<br />
released earlier on Friday. (Reporting By Carlos<br />
Ruano, writing by Tracy Rucinski; Editing by Julien<br />
Toyer)<br />
10
Reuters General/ - Article, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Arizo<strong>na</strong> governor signs law banning most<br />
late-term abortions<br />
By David Schwartz PHOENIX | Thu Apr 12, 2012<br />
9:35pm EDT (Reuters) - Arizo<strong>na</strong> Republican Governor<br />
Jan Brewer signed into law on Thursday a<br />
controversial bill that bans most abortions after 20<br />
weeks of preg<strong>na</strong>ncy, giving Republicans a win in<br />
ongoing <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l efforts to impose greater restrictions<br />
on abortion. The measure, which state lawmakers<br />
gave a fi<strong>na</strong>l nod to on Tuesday, would bar healthcare<br />
professio<strong>na</strong>ls from performing abortions after 20<br />
weeks of preg<strong>na</strong>ncy, except in the case of a medical<br />
emergency. Only a small number of these abortions<br />
are performed in the state. "This legislation is<br />
consistent with my strong track record of supporting<br />
common sense measures to protect the health of<br />
women and safeguard our most vulnerable population<br />
- the unborn," Brewer said in a statement. "Knowing<br />
that abortions become riskier the later they are<br />
performed in preg<strong>na</strong>ncy, it only makes sense to<br />
prohibit these procedures past 20 weeks," she added.<br />
With Brewer's sig<strong>na</strong>ture, Arizo<strong>na</strong> joins six other states<br />
that have put similar late-term abortion bans in place in<br />
the past two years based on hotly debated medical<br />
research suggesting that a fetus feels pain starting at<br />
20 weeks of gestation. Georgia lawmakers approved a<br />
similar bill in March that now awaits the sig<strong>na</strong>ture of<br />
Republican Governor Nathan Deal. Cathi Herrod,<br />
president of the conservative Center for Arizo<strong>na</strong><br />
Policy, said the passage of the law, was a "momentous<br />
victory for pro-life advocates." "Abortion not only ends<br />
the life of a preborn child, but it also seriously<br />
endangers the health and safety of women," she said.<br />
'EXTREME ASSAULT ON REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS'<br />
Opponents of Arizo<strong>na</strong>'s new law, which will take effect<br />
this summer, said it set a "dangerous new standard for<br />
hostility to women, doctors and reproductive rights."<br />
"To call this an extreme assault on reproductive rights<br />
would be a massive understatement. In its cruelty and<br />
its callous disregard for women's lives, it is downright<br />
appalling," said Nancy Northup, president of the<br />
Center for Reproductive Rights. The U.S. Supreme<br />
Court legalized abortions <strong>na</strong>tionwide in 1973 but<br />
allowed states to ban the procedure after the time<br />
when the fetus could potentially survive outside the<br />
womb, except where a woman's health was at risk.<br />
Late-term abortions will still be allowed in Arizo<strong>na</strong> in<br />
situations where continuing a preg<strong>na</strong>ncy risks death or<br />
would "create serious risk of substantial and<br />
irreversible impairment of a major bodily function." This<br />
is to be determined by a physician's "good faith clinical<br />
judgment." The law also requires a woman to have an<br />
ultrasound at least 24 hours prior to having an<br />
abortion, instead of the one hour previously mandated<br />
under state law. State officials are also required to<br />
create a website that details such items as the risks of<br />
the procedure and shows pictures of the fetus in<br />
various stages. Bryan Howard, president and CEO at<br />
Planned Parenthood Arizo<strong>na</strong>, said the law was part of<br />
a "harmful" <strong>na</strong>tionwide drive by conservatives to curb<br />
not only abortions but other services affecting women's<br />
health. "We're seeing the hubris overreach in states<br />
across the country, not just in the regulation of abortion<br />
but in mainstream Planned Parenthood services like<br />
birth control and cancer screening," he said. (Editing<br />
Tim Gaynor and Cynthia Johnston; desking by Cynthia<br />
Osterman and Lisa Shumaker)<br />
11
Reuters General/ - Article, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Workers' class action against Brinker can<br />
proceed, in part<br />
By Terry Baynes Thu Apr 12, 2012 3:33pm EDT<br />
(Reuters) - Part of a class-action lawsuit against<br />
Brinker Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l Inc can proceed, the California<br />
Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, in a closely<br />
watched case about employee meal and rest breaks at<br />
the company's restaurants. The California high court<br />
authorized a class of workers in the state to proceed<br />
with claims that they were denied proper rest breaks<br />
by Brinker. With respect to the meal break claims, the<br />
court ruled that employers only have to provide meal<br />
periods to workers, not make sure employees actually<br />
take them. "An employer must relieve the employee of<br />
all duty for the desig<strong>na</strong>ted period, but need not ensure<br />
that the employee does no work," Associate Justice<br />
Kathryn Werdegar wrote for the u<strong>na</strong>nimous court.<br />
Workers first sued Brinker, which owns Chili's and<br />
Romano's Macaroni Grills, in 2004 on behalf of a<br />
proposed class of around 60,000 non-unionized,<br />
hourly employees. They claimed that ma<strong>na</strong>gers<br />
pressured them to skip their breaks by failing to<br />
adequately staff the restaurants or by threatening to<br />
cut or change their hours. Brinker's attorneys argued<br />
that employees should have flexibility in choosing<br />
whether to take their scheduled breaks. A California<br />
appeals court sided with Brinker in 2008, finding that<br />
the restaurant company only had to "make available"<br />
the meal and rest breaks, but not "ensure" they were<br />
taken. The state's Supreme Court agreed that<br />
employers do not have to police meal breaks but do<br />
need to relieve workers of duties at those times. The<br />
court also resolved uncertainty over whether<br />
employers need to enforce a "rolling five-hour" rule,<br />
which gives workers a right to an uninterrupted meal<br />
break after five consecutive hours of work. The first<br />
meal break must fall no later than five hours into an<br />
employee's shift, but employers do not have to<br />
schedule additio<strong>na</strong>l meal breaks every five hours, the<br />
court ruled. The court also set out clear guidelines for<br />
the number and timing of rest breaks, upholding a<br />
lower court's decision to authorize a class action on<br />
those claims. Tracee Lorens, a lawyer for the plaintiffs,<br />
welcomed the opinion as a win for low-wage workers<br />
across the state. "We never argued employers had to<br />
police breaks. We just argued that they had an<br />
affirmative obligation to relieve the employees of duty<br />
so that they could take their lunch break if they wanted<br />
to," she said. She said the case would now go back to<br />
the trial court to determine whether the meal break<br />
claims can remain part of the class action. A<br />
spokeswoman for Brinker said the company was still<br />
reviewing the ruling and could not immediately<br />
comment. California employers and labor lawyers have<br />
waited for three years for the high court to clarify<br />
ambiguities in the state's wage laws, which require<br />
extra pay for meal and rest break violations. "We had<br />
an epidemic of meal and rest-break cases where<br />
virtually every employer in the state was being sued,"<br />
said Scott Witlin, a Los Angeles employment lawyer at<br />
Barnes & Thornburg who is not involved in the case.<br />
The lawsuits have continued to flow in, claiming<br />
millions in damages. Many have resulted seven-figure<br />
settlements due to uncertainty in the law, he said,<br />
adding that the ruling helps businesses by clarifying<br />
the law. Joseph Liburt, an employment lawyer at Orrick<br />
in Silicon Valley, said most businesses have been<br />
taking a conservative approach, paying the extra<br />
pe<strong>na</strong>lty whenever an employee's timecard shows a<br />
potential meal break issue. Many employers have also<br />
tried to make sure workers actually take their breaks,<br />
he said. The case is Brinker Restaurant Corp v.<br />
Superior Court (Hohnbaum), California Supreme<br />
Court, No. S166350. (Reporting By Terry Baynes;<br />
Editing by Steve Orlofsky)<br />
12
Reuters General/ - Article, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Calif court allows part of lawsuit against<br />
Brinker<br />
By Dan Levine and Terry Baynes SAN FRANCISCO,<br />
April 12 | Thu Apr 12, 2012 1:18pm EDT (Reuters) -<br />
The California Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that<br />
part of a class action lawsuit can proceed against<br />
Brinker Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l Inc., in a closely watched case<br />
over employee breaks in the <strong>na</strong>tion's most populous<br />
state. The court also ruled that employers are obliged<br />
to relieve employees of all duty during meal breaks,<br />
but need not ensure that no work is done.<br />
13
Reuters General/ - Article, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
SEC commissioner urges U.S.<br />
investor-rights action<br />
By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON | Thu Apr 12, 2012<br />
4:21pm EDT (Reuters) - A commissioner with the U.S.<br />
Securities and Exchange Commission is calling for<br />
Congress to take action to help investors after a 2010<br />
Supreme Court decision greatly restricted them from<br />
suing foreign companies for fraud. The comments by<br />
Luis Aguilar, a Democratic member of the SEC, came<br />
in response to a study released by the agency earlier<br />
this week. The SEC study was conducted in response<br />
to a June 2010 Supreme Court case, Morrison v.<br />
Natio<strong>na</strong>l Australia Bank Ltd. The ruling prevented<br />
investors from filing fraud claims against companies<br />
that are not traded on a U.S. exchange. Since that<br />
decision, the vast majority of securities fraud claims<br />
against foreign companies that had been filed in U.S.<br />
courts have been wiped out, leaving investors with one<br />
less tool to combat potential securities fraud. Aguilar<br />
said the ruling has had a very negative impact on<br />
investor protection, and that Congress should take<br />
action so that investors can once again have their day<br />
in court. "Properly functioning fi<strong>na</strong>ncial markets require<br />
the protection of investors' rights. U.S. investors expect<br />
to be protected by U.S. securities laws, regardless of<br />
where the securities transaction ultimately occurs,"<br />
Aguilar wrote in a response to the SEC study. "It is my<br />
view that investors should have a private right of action<br />
under the antifraud provisions of the Exchange Act in<br />
trans<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l securities fraud cases." When the<br />
Morrison decision first came out, it not only affected<br />
investors, but it also hampered both the SEC and the<br />
U.S. Department of Justice's ability to sue for<br />
trans<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l fraud. Congress quickly righted this<br />
problem for the SEC and the DOJ just a month later<br />
with the passage of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, which<br />
restored the agencies' ability to bring cases with a<br />
more global reach as long as they met certain<br />
conditions. Congress stopped short, however, of<br />
extending that same privilege to investors. Instead,<br />
Congress directed the SEC to study the issue and<br />
provide any recommendations on whether to change<br />
the law. In order to release the study to Congress this<br />
week, all five commissioners at the SEC had to vote<br />
on it. Aguilar's 12-page statement gave a dissenting<br />
view on the study, which he said was disappointing<br />
because it failed to take a stand for investors or make<br />
any specific recommendations. He also said he was<br />
upset that at one point in the study, the SEC said a<br />
possible option for Congress would be to take no<br />
action in this area. "The study falls far short of<br />
providing Congress with an informed recommendation<br />
and falls far short in fulfilling the Commission's mission<br />
to protect investors," he said. A spokesman for the<br />
Se<strong>na</strong>te Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction<br />
over the SEC, said the chairman is still reviewing the<br />
SEC's report. (Reporting By Sarah N. Lynch; editing by<br />
Matthew Lewis)<br />
14
Reuters General/ - Article, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Sebelius seeks civil rights support for<br />
healthcare law<br />
By David Morgan WASHINGTON | Thu Apr 12, 2012<br />
6:50pm EDT (Reuters) - A top U.S. administration<br />
official asked civil rights activists on Thursday to help<br />
defend President Barack Obama's embattled<br />
healthcare law, saying the reform package faces an<br />
"enemy" determined to set American health policy<br />
back half a century. The remarks in a charged election<br />
year come two months before the Supreme Court is<br />
expected to issue a ruling that could make or break the<br />
law. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen<br />
Sebelius sought to cast the two-year-old reform law as<br />
a vital weapon against racial disparities that have long<br />
condemned U.S. minorities to higher infant mortality<br />
rates, shorter lifespans and limited access to medical<br />
services. "The enemy is at the door and we know that<br />
they would like to dismantle these initiatives," Sebelius<br />
told the annual convention of the Natio<strong>na</strong>l Action<br />
Network, a civil rights group led by the Rev. Al<br />
Sharpton. "Healthcare inequalities have been one of<br />
the most persistent forms of injustice," she said. "Now<br />
is not the time to turn back." Sebelius' remarks were<br />
part of an administration campaign to promote the<br />
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act during a<br />
turbulent election year marked by repeated calls for its<br />
repeal and a Supreme Court ruling expected in June<br />
that could declare all or part of the law<br />
unconstitutio<strong>na</strong>l. Civil rights activists and the minority<br />
communities they represent are a key segment of<br />
Obama's Democratic base, whose support he could<br />
need in great numbers to stave off a Republican<br />
challenge in November, especially if the high court<br />
strikes down his sig<strong>na</strong>ture domestic policy<br />
achievement. Research has long shown low-income<br />
Americans, including many minorities, have<br />
significantly less access to medical care and suffer<br />
disproportio<strong>na</strong>te rates of childhood illnesses,<br />
hypertension, heart disease, AIDS and other diseases.<br />
HEALTHCARE FOR 30 MILLION UNINSURED<br />
Designed to extend health coverage to more than 30<br />
million uninsured Americans, Obama's healthcare<br />
reform law has become a favorite target for<br />
Republicans mainly because of an unpopular provision<br />
that requires most Americans to have private health<br />
insurance by 2014. "We've got folks who are<br />
committed to undoing ... the important initiatives that<br />
we've made in the last few years," Sebelius told her<br />
predomi<strong>na</strong>ntly black audience without making a direct<br />
reference to Republicans or other opponents of reform.<br />
"Frankly, they want to go back and undo Medicare and<br />
Medicaid from the mid-1960s. They want to roll us<br />
back years and years," she added. Medicare and<br />
Medicaid, the <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l healthcare programs for the<br />
elderly and poor, respectively, were created in 1965 in<br />
a period of social and civil rights reforms aimed at<br />
ending racial segregation and protecting the voting<br />
rights of minorities. The civil rights movement of the<br />
1960s led to monumental changes in American race<br />
relations that allowed Obama to be elected as the first<br />
black U.S. president in 2008. The<br />
Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives<br />
voted last month to partially privatize Medicare and<br />
convert Medicaid to a block-grant program for states.<br />
Sebelius called on religious leaders, health advocates<br />
and other minority leaders to help the administration<br />
educate the public about the healthcare law's benefits.<br />
The law, which does not come into full force until<br />
January 1, 2014, has already benefited minorities by<br />
extending private insurance coverage to young adults,<br />
providing free preventive services for those with<br />
insurance and banning coverage denials for children<br />
with pre-existing conditions. "I'm here to ask you to<br />
help," Sebelius said. "If we can begin to close the<br />
disparities in health, we begin to close disparities in<br />
other areas, too." (Editing by Todd Eastham)<br />
15
Reuters General/ - Article, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
UPDATE 1-Telenor-Unitech dispute<br />
referred for intl arbitration<br />
* India Company Law Board refers case for arbitration<br />
in Singapore * Telenor says to challenge order in a<br />
higher court (Adds details, background) (Reuters) -<br />
India's Company Law Board has allowed Unitech Ltd's<br />
plea to refer a dispute over its telecoms joint venture<br />
with Norway's Telenor for arbitration in Singapore,<br />
potentially delaying a resolution. Telenor said in a<br />
statement it was "surprised" by the Company Law<br />
Board's order and would challenge it in a higher court,<br />
adding its intention remained to establish a new<br />
venture in India. Telenor is seeking to scrap the joint<br />
venture and migrate its business to a new company to<br />
seek fresh operating licences, after the JV's telecoms<br />
permits were ordered to be revoked by India's<br />
Supreme Court, which in February declared all<br />
permits awarded in a scandal-tainted 2008 sale "illegal<br />
and quashed". Unitech has opposed Telenor's move<br />
and has said the Norwegian company cannot<br />
unilaterally scrap the joint venture agreement and that<br />
it had veto right to block any asset transfer. Both sides<br />
had separately approached the Company Law Board<br />
over the dispute. Unitech last month appealed to the<br />
quasi-judiciary body to refer the case for inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
arbitration in Singapore, citing provisions in their<br />
shareholder agreement. Unitech said in a separate<br />
statement on Thursday it was "pleased" by the<br />
Company Law Board's order and that their<br />
shareholders' agreement "clearly defines" a dispute<br />
resolution mechanism. Telenor owns 67.25 percent of<br />
the joint venture, which operates under the Uninor<br />
brand <strong>na</strong>me, with Unitech holding the remainder. With<br />
41 million customers at end-February, the JV ranks<br />
eighth in a market of 15 mobile carriers. Shares in<br />
Unitech, a real estate company, rose as much as 6.3<br />
percent after the news. At 0828 GMT, the shares were<br />
trading 3.4 percent up at 29.30 rupees. (Reporting by<br />
Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Aradha<strong>na</strong> Aravindan)<br />
16
Reuters General/ - Article, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Mali's Traore sworn in as acting president<br />
BAMAKO, April 12 | Thu Apr 12, 2012 5:49am EDT<br />
(Reuters) - Mali's Dioncounda Traore was sworn in as<br />
interim president of his West African country on<br />
Thursday after leaders of a March 22 coup agreed to<br />
hand back power to civilians. Traore, previously the<br />
speaker of the <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l parliament, was sworn in by<br />
Supreme Court President Nouhoum Tapily at a brief<br />
ceremony in the capital Bamako. He faces the uphill<br />
task of organising new elections in the mostly desert<br />
state, where Tuareg-led rebels and Islamist allies<br />
earlier this month seized the northern half of the<br />
country in a lightning advance made in the aftermath of<br />
the coup. (Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo; editing by<br />
Mark John and Pascal Fletcher)<br />
17
Von Helmut Kerscher, Karlsruhe Sex zwischen Bruder<br />
und Schwester ist hierzulande verboten. Das hat das<br />
Bundesverfassungsgericht zuletzt vor vier Jahren<br />
bestätigt und mit seinem Urteil harsche Kritik auf sich<br />
gezogen. Nun muss der Europäische Gerichtshof für<br />
Menschenrechte über die Liebe eines deutschen<br />
Geschwisterpaares entscheiden - und die alte Debatte<br />
könnte wieder aufflammen.<br />
Tabus zu finden, die es noch zu brechen gilt, ist für<br />
Kunst und Medien schwierig geworden. Auf dem dafür<br />
besonders geeigneten Gebiet der Sexualität regiert<br />
längst die Parole "Erlaubt ist, was gefällt"; der Staat<br />
beschränkt seinen Strafanspruch auf das<br />
Notwendigste. Mit einer Aus<strong>na</strong>hme: Auch bei<br />
Einvernehmen ist der Beischlaf zwischen leiblichen,<br />
erwachsenen Geschwistern <strong>na</strong>ch wie vor strafbar.<br />
Das Bundesverfassungsgericht hat diesen<br />
Paragraphen vor vier Jahren gebilligt. An diesem<br />
Donnerstag wird sich zeigen, was der Europäische<br />
Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte in Straßburg davon<br />
hält.<br />
Vom Straßburger Urteil wird es abhängen, ob die<br />
Diskussion über die Strafwürdigkeit dieser Form des<br />
Inzests wieder aufleben wird. Für den verurteilten,<br />
heute 35-jährigen Patrick S. kommt die Entscheidung<br />
so oder so zu spät: Seine Strafe hat er mehr als drei<br />
Jahre lang im Gefängnis abgesessen, und die<br />
Beziehung zu seiner jüngeren Schwester, mit der er<br />
vier Kinder gezeugt hat, ist im Lauf des Verfahrens in<br />
die Brüche gegangen. Der Inzest-Paragraph habe<br />
"nicht die Familie geschützt, sondern eine Familie<br />
zerstört", sagt der Dresdner Rechtsanwalt Endrik<br />
Wilhelm, der Patrick S. vertritt.<br />
Bruder und Schwester lernten sich erst als<br />
Erwachsene kennen<br />
Wilhelm meint damit nicht die Herkunftsfamilie der<br />
Geschwister, denn die war schon bei der Geburt der<br />
Schwester zerstört. Die Mutter hatte sich von ihrem<br />
Mann, einem Alkoholiker, scheiden lassen. Sohn<br />
Patrick, den der Vater misshandelt hatte, lebte seit<br />
seinem dritten Lebensjahr in Kinderheimen und<br />
Pflegefamilien. Er und seine Schwester lernten sich<br />
Das letzte Tabu<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung/ - Politik, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Europäischen Gerichtshof )<br />
erst als Erwachsene kennen.<br />
Nach dem Tod der Mutter entwickelte sich eine<br />
Liebesbeziehung, aus der in den Jahren 2001 bis 2005<br />
vier Kinder hervorgingen; zwei von ihnen sind<br />
behindert. Für die Zerstörung dieser Familie macht der<br />
Anwalt das Strafrecht und die Gerichte verantwortlich.<br />
Denn Vater Patrick wurde gleich mehrmals wegen<br />
"Beischlafs zwischen Verwandten" zu Freiheitsstrafen<br />
verurteilt. Rechtsmittel und Verfassungsbeschwerde<br />
blieben erfolglos.<br />
Heftige Diskussion über Inzestverbot<br />
Das Karlsruher Gericht erklärte den zugrunde<br />
liegenden Paragraphen 2008 für verfassungsgemäß.<br />
Er diene dem Schutz von Ehe und Familie und der<br />
sexuellen Selbstbestimmung, außerdem verringere er<br />
die Gefahr von Erbschäden. Gerechtfertigt sei die<br />
Strafbarkeit auch wegen der in der Gesellschaft "<strong>na</strong>ch<br />
wie vor wirkkräftigen Überzeugung von der<br />
Strafwürdigkeit des Inzests". Im Übrigen würden die<br />
"Möglichkeiten intimer Kommunikation nur punktuell<br />
verkürzt", das soll heißen: Bloß der Vagi<strong>na</strong>lverkehr sei<br />
verboten, alles andere nicht.<br />
Der damalige Gerichtsvizepräsident Winfried<br />
Hassemer stemmte sich mit einem scharfen<br />
Sondervotum gegen die Meinung seiner sieben<br />
Kollegen. Diese hätten eine verunglückte<br />
Strafandrohung aufrechterhalten; die Begründung<br />
dafür laufe darauf hi<strong>na</strong>us, das Lebensrecht behinderter<br />
Kinder zu verhindern.<br />
Nach dem Urteil, das in der Wissenschaft recht<br />
einhellig kritisiert wurde, gab es eine heftige<br />
Diskussion über das Inzestverbot. Damals lobte die<br />
FDP-Abgeordnete Sabine<br />
Leutheusser-Sch<strong>na</strong>rrenberger Hassemer und kündigte<br />
eine "öffentliche Ausei<strong>na</strong>ndersetzung" an. Die Debatte<br />
erinnere sie an jene über die Strafbarkeit von<br />
homosexuellen Handlungen zwischen Männern, und<br />
der entsprechende Paragraph 175 sei auf Betreiben<br />
der FDP aufgehoben worden. An diesem Donnerstag<br />
kann sich Leutheusser-Sch<strong>na</strong>rrenberger erneut zu<br />
einer "Inzestentscheidung" äußern, nun als<br />
Bundesjustizministerin.<br />
18
Süddeutsche Zeitung/ - Politik, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Europäischen Gerichtshof )<br />
Deutsches Inzestverbot ist rechtens<br />
Jahrelang führte Patrick S. eine sexuelle Beziehung<br />
mit seiner leiblichen Schwester - und kam dafür ins<br />
Gefängnis. Der Mann aus Leipzig setzte sich dagegen<br />
zur Wehr, zuletzt vor dem Europäischen Gerichtshof<br />
für Menschenrechte. Der hat jetzt entschieden: Das<br />
Urteil gegen den Deutschen ist rechtens.<br />
Inzest darf in Deutschland weiter bestraft werden, ein<br />
Verbot der Geschwisterliebe verletzt nicht die<br />
Europäische Menschenrechtskonvention. Zu diesem<br />
Urteil kommt der Europäische Gerichtshof für<br />
Menschenrechte (EGMR) in Straßburg. Die sieben<br />
Richter einer kleinen Kammer des Gerichts wiesen<br />
damit einstimmig die Beschwerde eines Mannes aus<br />
Leipzig ab, der in Deutschland wegen einer sexuellen<br />
Beziehungen mit seiner leiblichen Schwester verurteilt<br />
worden war.<br />
Die Richter entschieden, dass die strafrechtliche<br />
Verurteilung das Recht von Patrick S. auf Achtung<br />
seines Privat- und Familienlebens nicht verletzt habe.<br />
Dieses Recht ist in Artikel 8 der Europäischen<br />
Menschenrechtskonvention verankert. Zuletzt war der<br />
Kläger 2008 vor dem Bundesverfassungsgericht<br />
gescheitert.<br />
Der EGMR argumentiert, dass der Umgang mit Inzest<br />
in Europa nicht einheitlich geregelt sei, auch wenn die<br />
Geschwisterliebe in zahlreichen Staaten verboten ist.<br />
Somit stehe den deutschen Behörden ein "weiter<br />
Beurteilungsspielraum" zu. Außerdem habe das<br />
Bundesverfassungsgericht diesen speziellen Einzelfall<br />
sorgfältig geprüft, heißt es in der Urteilsbegründung.<br />
Verurteilungen wegen "Beischlafs zwischen<br />
Verwandten"<br />
Patrick S. und seine Schwester waren getrennt<br />
vonei<strong>na</strong>nder aufgewachsen und hatten sich erst im<br />
Jahr 2000 als Erwachsene kennengelernt. Aus der<br />
Liebesbeziehung der Geschwister gingen zwischen<br />
2001 und 2005 vier Kinder hervor, zwei kamen<br />
behindert zur Welt. Wegen "Beischlafs zwischen<br />
Verwandten" war der Mann mehrmals zu<br />
Freiheitsstrafen verurteilt worden.<br />
Auch wegen dieser Gefängnisaufenthalte sind die<br />
Geschwister mittlerweile kein Paar mehr, wie der<br />
Anwalt von Patrick S. kritisierte. Der deutsche<br />
Inzest-Paragraph habe "nicht die Familie geschützt,<br />
sondern eine Familie zerstört", sagte Endrik Wilhelm<br />
vor dem Urteil. Drei der Kinder leben heute in<br />
Pflegefamilien, die jüngste Tochter ist bei der Mutter.<br />
Gegen die Entscheidung der Straßburger Richter kann<br />
der Beschwerdeführer binnen drei Mo<strong>na</strong>ten<br />
Rechtsmittel einreichen. Der Gerichtshof kann die<br />
Klage dann zur Überprüfung an die Große Kammer mit<br />
17 Richtern verweisen. Er muss dies jedoch nicht tun.<br />
19
The New York Times/ - N.Y./Region, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Cuomo Acts to Advance Health Law in<br />
New York<br />
ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, stepping into the<br />
<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l debate over President Obama’s health care<br />
law, used his executive power on Thursday to carry<br />
out one of its critical features in New York after the<br />
state’s Republican lawmakers blocked legislation to do<br />
so. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who has generally<br />
avoided <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l politics even as he is often mentioned<br />
as a potential candidate for president, offered an<br />
enthusiastic endorsement of the benefits of the health<br />
care measure, which is currently being litigated before<br />
the Supreme Court and contested in this year’s<br />
presidential campaign. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who<br />
has generally avoided <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l politics even as he is<br />
often mentioned as a potential candidate for president,<br />
offered an enthusiastic endorsement of the benefits of<br />
the health care measure, which is currently being<br />
litigated before the Supreme Court and contested in<br />
this year’s presidential campaign. As he issued an<br />
executive order to establish a health insurance<br />
exchange, an online marketplace where individuals<br />
and small businesses can choose among competing<br />
health insurance plans, Mr. Cuomo said it would drive<br />
down the cost of insurance while helping the 2.7<br />
million uninsured New Yorkers get affordable<br />
coverage. “The bottom line,” Mr. Cuomo said in a<br />
statement, “is that creating this health exchange will<br />
lower the cost of health insurance for small<br />
businesses, local governments and individual New<br />
Yorkers across the state.” For nearly a year, Mr.<br />
Cuomo asked the Legislature to set up the exchange.<br />
But the Republican majority in the State Se<strong>na</strong>te<br />
refused to consider the measure, arguing that<br />
approving the exchange would amount to condoning<br />
the law, the Affordable Care Act, which they deride as<br />
Obamacare. The Se<strong>na</strong>te Republicans also cited the<br />
uncertainty surrounding the health care law, given the<br />
Supreme Court challenge, and last month, they<br />
blocked Mr. Cuomo from including the exchange in the<br />
state budget for the fiscal year that began April 1. The<br />
health care law requires each state to put an insurance<br />
exchange in place by 2014, and gives the federal<br />
government the power to do so in states that do not<br />
act on their own. Mr. Cuomo, u<strong>na</strong>ble to win support for<br />
the exchange in the State Se<strong>na</strong>te, vowed to move<br />
ahead unilaterally, and on Thursday, he signed the<br />
order to set up the exchange within the State Health<br />
Department, rather than as a separate state entity, as<br />
his origi<strong>na</strong>l legislation had sought to do. Mr. Cuomo’s<br />
order drew praise on Thursday from Democratic<br />
lawmakers, health advocacy groups and leaders in the<br />
state’s health care industry. Kenneth E. Raske, the<br />
president of the Greater New York Hospital<br />
Association, called the move “a way of alleviating the<br />
current crisis facing those that don’t have access to<br />
care because of lack of insurance.” But Mr. Cuomo’s<br />
move irked some conservatives, who are determined<br />
to fight the health care law and view state capitals as<br />
important battlegrounds in which the law’s<br />
implementation can be contested. State Se<strong>na</strong>tor<br />
Gregory R. Ball, Republican of Put<strong>na</strong>m County, who<br />
has been one of the most vocal critics of the health<br />
exchange proposal, said Mr. Cuomo was acting<br />
prematurely, given the Supreme Court case. Mr. Ball<br />
also criticized the governor for “sidestepping the<br />
Legislature” to set up the exchange. “Enlisting our<br />
state in a program that may cease to exist on both<br />
constitutio<strong>na</strong>l and administrative grounds is, in my<br />
opinion, overly aggressive and fundamentally<br />
imprudent,” Mr. Ball said. Michael F. Cannon, the<br />
director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, a<br />
libertarian research center in Washington, said that<br />
refusing to pass legislation to set up a health exchange<br />
was “the most powerful blow that a state can strike<br />
against Obamacare,” and questioned Mr. Cuomo’s use<br />
of an executive order. “King Andrew shouldn’t be out<br />
creating new bureaucracies on his own,” Mr. Cannon<br />
said. “If the people’s elected representatives say they<br />
don’t want to create a new government bureaucracy,<br />
then the government doesn’t have the power to create<br />
a new government bureaucracy.” Since the passage of<br />
the Affordable Care Act, 11 states have set up<br />
insurance exchanges, according to the Natio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Conference of State Legislatures. Ten did so with<br />
legislation; only one — Rhode Island — used an<br />
executive order, and a lawsuit challenging the authority<br />
of that order is pending. Mr. Cuomo’s office defended<br />
the use of an executive order, noting that the state<br />
would rely on federal fi<strong>na</strong>ncing to set up the exchange,<br />
rather than any new state spending, and that it would<br />
not set up a new governmental body. New York has<br />
already received $88 million in federal grants to plan<br />
for its health exchange; setting up the exchange will<br />
allow the state to seek additio<strong>na</strong>l federal fi<strong>na</strong>ncing.<br />
“The activities that are necessary to implement the<br />
exchange are within the existing legal authority of the<br />
Department of Health, in which it will be based, and<br />
the other agencies with which it will work, including the<br />
Department of Fi<strong>na</strong>ncial Services,” Mr. Cuomo’s<br />
counsel, Mylan L. Denerstein, said in a statement.<br />
Peter J. Kier<strong>na</strong>n, who served as chief counsel for<br />
20
former Gov. David A. Paterson, a Democrat, said that<br />
although “legislation is always optimal,” he believed<br />
the executive order was legal. “In essence, he’s telling<br />
the Department of Health, which works for him, to get<br />
ready to do this, and to use federal money that has<br />
already come through,” Mr. Kier<strong>na</strong>n said. “There may<br />
be people that would complain about it, but I don’t<br />
think that anyone would be successful challenging the<br />
governor’s authority here.” A spokesman for the<br />
Se<strong>na</strong>te Republicans declined to comment on the<br />
The New York Times/ - N.Y./Region, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
executive order. But after Mr. Cuomo said last month<br />
that he would set up the exchange using his own<br />
power, the Se<strong>na</strong>te majority leader, Dean G. Skelos, a<br />
Long Island Republican, said the Se<strong>na</strong>te Republicans<br />
would not be interested in challenging such a move.<br />
“The governor has the right to issue executive orders,”<br />
Mr. Skelos said. Still, he added, “If somebody wants to<br />
sue him, fine.”<br />
21
The New York Times/ - Politics, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Honoring O’Connor’s Legacy at the<br />
Supreme Court<br />
The four women who have served on the Supreme<br />
Court appeared at the Newseum in Washington on<br />
Wednesday night to celebrate the 30th anniversary of<br />
the appointment of the first one, Justice Sandra Day<br />
O’Connor. It was the first joint appearance of the<br />
current and former female justices at a public forum.<br />
Justice O’Connor joined the court in 1981 and retired<br />
in 2006. The other three women — Justices Ruth<br />
Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Ele<strong>na</strong> Kagan<br />
— are still on the court, and on Wednesday, they<br />
reflected Justice O’Connor’s legacy. The one aspect<br />
that got the most attention — one that continues to this<br />
day — was the morning exercise class Justice<br />
O’Connor founded. Justice Ele<strong>na</strong> Kagan, who served<br />
as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall from 1987<br />
to 1988, recalled meeting and disappointing Justice<br />
O’Connor back then. “She was a formidable person,”<br />
Justice Kagan said. “Even a clerk knew how<br />
formidable a person Justice O’Connor was.” Justice<br />
O’Connor encouraged the female law clerks to attend<br />
the class, but the young Ms. Kagan preferred playing<br />
basketball. “I failed to come to the exercise group,”<br />
Justice Kagan recalled. Justice O’Connor said, a little<br />
sharply, “I noticed.” Later, Ms. Kagan injured herself on<br />
the court and, on crutches, encountered Justice<br />
O’Connor. “She sadly shook her head,” Justice Kagan<br />
recalled, “and she said, ‘It wouldn’t have happened in<br />
exercise class.’ ” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who<br />
joined the court in 1993, said she would have<br />
attended, but the class met too early. Justice<br />
O’Connor, 82, had no patience for that excuse, either.<br />
“I went this morning, as a matter of fact, at 8 a.m.,” she<br />
said. She added that her years on the court had not<br />
been without disappointments. One involved Justice<br />
Stephen G. Breyer. “I got Justice Breyer up there a few<br />
times,” she said of the exercise class, “but he didn’t<br />
want to be the only man.” The Supreme Court these<br />
days hears only about half as many cases as it did<br />
early in Justice O’Connor’s tenure. “Isn’t that<br />
amazing?” she said, to laughter. “It just shows they’re<br />
not working.” Justice Ginsburg said the current<br />
workload was plenty. “I’d like everyone to know I still<br />
work,” she said. Justice Sotomayor agreed. “I know I’m<br />
at the max where I am,” she said. Justice O’Connor<br />
was asked whether serving on the Supreme Court<br />
had been a goal of hers when President Ro<strong>na</strong>ld<br />
Reagan chose her, then a judge on a midlevel appeals<br />
court judge in Arizo<strong>na</strong>. “Oh, heavens no,” she told the<br />
moderator, James Duff. In a way, she said, she was<br />
playing defense as the first woman on the court. “It’s<br />
all right to be the first to do something, but I certainly<br />
didn’t want to be the last,” she said.<br />
22
The New York Times/ - Arts, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
Jamaa Fa<strong>na</strong>ka, Film Director, Dies at 69<br />
By PAUL VITELLO Jamaa Fa<strong>na</strong>ka, a filmmaker who<br />
had considerable success in 1979 with “Penitentiary,”<br />
a feature-length movie he made while still in film<br />
school, but who claimed to have been blacklisted<br />
afterward for raising questions about a dearth of jobs<br />
for black directors in Hollywood, died on April 1 in Los<br />
Angeles. He was 69. The cause was complications of<br />
diabetes, his family said. Mr. Fa<strong>na</strong>ka was part of what<br />
film scholars called the L.A. Rebellion, a small group of<br />
black U.C.L.A. film school graduates who came of age<br />
in the late 1970s, near the end of the so-called<br />
blaxploitation era. The group’s defining aesthetic was<br />
to move beyond pimp stereotypes and funk<br />
soundtracks in film portrayals of blacks. Unlike most of<br />
the others, including the avant-garde filmmakers<br />
Charles Burnett (“Killer of Sheep,” “My Brother’s<br />
Wedding”) and Julie Dash (“Daughters of the Dust”),<br />
Mr. Fa<strong>na</strong>ka, a Billy Wilder fan, wanted to make movies<br />
that were both serious and popular. “Penitentiary,”<br />
starring Leon Isaac Kennedy as a wrongfully<br />
imprisoned man who finds redemption as a prison<br />
boxer, received mixed reviews but became the most<br />
fi<strong>na</strong>ncially successful independent movie of 1979. As<br />
luck would have it he released it during the first boom<br />
in affordable VCRs and movies on videocassette. He<br />
made sequels to “Penitentiary” in 1982 and 1987. The<br />
film was also considered an artistic breakthrough.<br />
Allyson Nadia Field, a professor of cinema studies at<br />
U.C.L.A. who last year helped organize a retrospective<br />
featuring the movies of the L.A. Rebellion, called<br />
“Penitentiary” “the transition moment between<br />
blaxploitation and independent black filmmaking.”<br />
“People think the beginning of independent black<br />
filmmaking was ‘She’s Gotta Have It,’ ” she said,<br />
referring to Spike Lee’s 1986 watershed hit. “But really,<br />
it was Fa<strong>na</strong>ka’s ‘Penitentiary.’ ” Mr. Fa<strong>na</strong>ka became<br />
one of the few black members of the Directors Guild of<br />
America, but he found the guild to be insular — pretty<br />
much like the rest of the film industry, he told<br />
interviewers — saying it rarely acted on its promises to<br />
encourage studios to hire more women and members<br />
of minority groups. When his attempts to change that<br />
quietly were ignored, Mr. Fa<strong>na</strong>ka became dogged. He<br />
brought a series of class-action lawsuits against the<br />
guild in the early 1990s, claiming that its<br />
word-of-mouth system of alerting directors about job<br />
opportunities was inherently discrimi<strong>na</strong>tory and a<br />
violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The suits<br />
sought a more transparent system of notification and<br />
the establishment of minority training programs. But a<br />
federal judge later threw them out on technicalities,<br />
and Mr. Fa<strong>na</strong>ka was termed “a vexatious litigant.” (The<br />
directors guild declined to comment.) “He wrote the<br />
briefs himself; he paid the court costs; it became his<br />
mission for future filmmakers, was how he saw it,” said<br />
Jacqueline Stewart, a professor of radio, television and<br />
film and African-American studies at Northwestern<br />
University, who interviewed Mr. Fa<strong>na</strong>ka for the L.A.<br />
Rebellion retrospective. “It was very upsetting for him<br />
to talk about it,” she added. “He said he felt like he had<br />
been erased from history. It’s hard to prove these<br />
things, but I think it’s safe to say at the very least that<br />
his career suffered.” Mr. Fa<strong>na</strong>ka rejected some movie<br />
opportunities after “Penitentiary” because he<br />
considered them to be in the blaxploitation mold, Ms.<br />
Stewart said. Jan-Christopher Horak, director of the<br />
U.C.L.A. film and television archive, said of Mr.<br />
Fa<strong>na</strong>ka: “In a way his major accomplishment was a<br />
kind of a failure — to have tried and failed to<br />
significantly change the racial politics of his profession.<br />
He was punished for it. The guild, the studios, they<br />
treated him like a crank. But he was not a crank. He<br />
was legitimately concerned about the future.” Mr.<br />
Fa<strong>na</strong>ka was born Walter Gordon on Sept. 6, 1942, in<br />
Jackson, Miss., one of five children of Robert and<br />
Beatrice Gordon. His parents moved to the Los<br />
Angeles area when he was a boy. His father was an<br />
electrician. After serving in the Air Force, he told<br />
interviewers, he was adrift until he entered a<br />
community college film program, which led him to the<br />
U.C.L.A. film school. He made three commercial<br />
feature films before graduating: “Welcome Home,<br />
Brother Charles” (1975), “Emma Mae” (1976). and<br />
“Penitentiary.” He graduated summa cum laude and by<br />
then had changed his <strong>na</strong>me to Jamaa Fa<strong>na</strong>ka, derived<br />
from the Swahili for “together we will find success.” His<br />
survivors include three daughters, Tracey Gordon,<br />
Twyla Louis and Kati<strong>na</strong> Scott; a son, Michael Gordon;<br />
his parents, Robert and Beatrice Gordon; two brothers,<br />
Joseph and Robert Gordon; a sister, Carmen Sanford;<br />
and nine grandchildren. At his death Mr. Fa<strong>na</strong>ka was<br />
working on his eighth film, a documentary about<br />
hip-hop culture. He told the film blogger Jeff Brummett<br />
recently that he wished he had made more films, but<br />
that he was proud of what he had accomplished, both<br />
as a filmmaker and as an activist. “I exposed the<br />
Achilles’ heel of Hollywood,” he said. This article has<br />
been revised to reflect the following correction:<br />
Correction: April 13, 2012 An earlier version of this<br />
article misstated when Mr. Fa<strong>na</strong>ka made the film<br />
23
“Penitentiary.” It was made while he attended film<br />
school and released after his graduation.<br />
The New York Times/ - Arts, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
24
The New York Times/ - N.Y./Region, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
Evicted From Park, Occupy Protesters<br />
Take to Sidewalks<br />
By COLIN MOYNIHAN The protesters arrived on Wall<br />
Street on Wednesday night carrying bedrolls, quilts<br />
and blankets. They spread pieces of cardboard on the<br />
sidewalks. Then, as several police officers stood<br />
nearby, the protesters made signs with anticorporate<br />
slogans. “It’s really exciting to see people actually<br />
occupying Wall Street,” said Embi Weitzel, 25, a <strong>na</strong>nny<br />
from Colorado, who came with earplugs, apples, a<br />
flashlight, a bottle of water and an orange sleeping<br />
bag. “Fi<strong>na</strong>lly, here we are, in the belly of the beast.”<br />
For the third consecutive night, Occupy Wall Street<br />
protesters used a tactic that many of them hope will<br />
emerge as a replacement for their encampment at<br />
Zuccotti Park, which was disbanded by the police in<br />
November. Norman Siegel, a prominent civil-rights<br />
lawyer who visited the protesters on Wednesday night,<br />
said a decision by a federal court in Manhattan arising<br />
from a lawsuit in 2000 allowed the protesters to sleep<br />
on sidewalks as a form of political expression so long<br />
as they did not block doorways and took up no more<br />
than half the sidewalk. The protesters first cited that<br />
ruling last week while sleeping outside bank branches<br />
near Union Square, but said this week that they<br />
wanted so-called sleep-outs to occur nightly around<br />
the New York Stock Exchange. An organizer, Austin<br />
Guest, said protesters had scheduled such events for<br />
Friday night at four other spots, each related to the<br />
Occupy Wall Street message that the fi<strong>na</strong>ncial system<br />
benefits the rich and corporations at the expense of<br />
ordi<strong>na</strong>ry citizens. The protesters’ presence on and<br />
near Wall Street has drawn the attention of the police,<br />
but officers have not dislodged them. Dozens of<br />
Occupy encampments around the country were<br />
forcibly cleared months ago by police forces, and<br />
organizers in New York have acknowledged that it<br />
would be difficult to mount a new occupation of a park<br />
or plaza. Instead, many of them said, they would rather<br />
establish these sleeping spots. “It takes a tremendous<br />
amount of resources to maintain a camp,” Mr. Guest<br />
said Wednesday night. “But sidewalks are<br />
everywhere.” Another organizer, Jo Robin, said that by<br />
moving to Wall Street, the protesters hoped to address<br />
a new audience that would most likely not support the<br />
movement’s message. She added that over the past<br />
week, protesters in Boston, Philadelphia and<br />
Washington had begun sleeping near fi<strong>na</strong>ncial<br />
institutions. About 75 protesters gathered on<br />
Wednesday night in Lower Manhattan. About 15 slept<br />
on Wall Street. Most of them stretched out on Nassau<br />
Street, just north of Wall Street. Others unrolled their<br />
sleeping bags on Broad Street, across from the<br />
illumi<strong>na</strong>ted colon<strong>na</strong>de of the stock exchange. “The<br />
conversations that were happening in Zuccotti Park<br />
are happening again,” said Ray Leone, 26, from the<br />
Lower East Side. “We were separated for so long.”<br />
Around 2 a.m. on Thursday, several protesters kicked<br />
a soccer ball across the cobblestones of Nassau<br />
Street. A large dump truck lifted a metal container with<br />
a clang and emptied its contents. A couple of hours<br />
later, most protesters were asleep, curled under<br />
blankets, some wearing hats and scarves. Nearby, in<br />
Zuccotti Park, empty except for a security guard, there<br />
was the hiss of sprinklers watering tulips. By 5:30 a.m.,<br />
the sound of stainless-steel coffee carts clattering over<br />
cobblestones could be heard. Workers began hosing<br />
the sidewalk across the street from Federal Hall. By 6<br />
a.m., protesters were waking up. As the sky<br />
brightened, workers in suits or high heels began<br />
walking down Wall Street, and a young protester<br />
offered them pamphlets. Many ignored the literature.<br />
Some accepted, leafing through the pamphlet as they<br />
walked or shoving it into their pockets as they hurried<br />
to their jobs.<br />
25
Robert Caro’s Big Dig<br />
Robert Caro probably knows more about power,<br />
political power especially, than anyone who has never<br />
had some. He has never run for any sort of office<br />
himself and would probably have lost if he had. He’s a<br />
shy, soft-spoken man with old–fashioned manners and<br />
an old-fashioned New York accent (he says “toime”<br />
instead of “time” and “foine” instead of fine), so<br />
self-conscious that talking about himself makes him<br />
squint a little. The idea of power, or of powerful people,<br />
seems to repel him as much as it fasci<strong>na</strong>tes. And yet<br />
Caro has spent virtually his whole adult life studying<br />
power and what can be done with it, first in the case of<br />
Robert Moses, the great developer and urban planner,<br />
and then in the case of Lyndon Johnson, whose<br />
biography he has been writing for close to 40 years.<br />
Caro can tell you exactly how Moses heedlessly<br />
rammed the Cross Bronx Expressway through a<br />
middle-class neighborhood, displacing thousands of<br />
families, and exactly how Johnson stole the Texas<br />
Se<strong>na</strong>te election of 1948, winning by 87 spurious votes.<br />
These stories still fill him with outrage but also with<br />
something like wonder, the two emotions that sustain<br />
him in what amounts to a solitary, Dickensian<br />
occupation with long hours and few holidays. Caro is<br />
the last of the 19th-century biographers, the kind who<br />
believe that the life of a great or powerful man<br />
deserves not just a slim volume, or even a fat one, but<br />
a whole shelf full. He dresses every day in a jacket and<br />
tie and reports to a 22nd-floor office in a nondescript<br />
building near Columbus Circle, where his neighbors<br />
are lawyers or investment firms. His office looks as if it<br />
belongs to the kind of C.P.A. who still uses ledgers<br />
and a hand-cranked adding machine. There are an old<br />
wooden desk, wooden file cabinets and a maroon<br />
leather couch that never gets sat on. Here Caro writes<br />
the old-fashioned way: in longhand, on large legal<br />
pads. Caro began “The Years of Lyndon Johnson,” his<br />
multivolume biography of the 36th president, in 1976,<br />
not long after finishing “The Power Broker,” his<br />
immense, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Moses,<br />
and figured he could do Johnson’s life in three<br />
volumes, which would take him six years or so. Next<br />
month, a fourth installment, “The Passage of Power,”<br />
will appear 10 years after the last, “Master of the<br />
Se<strong>na</strong>te,” which came out 12 years after its<br />
predecessor, “Means of Ascent,” which in turn was<br />
published 8 years after the first book, “The Path to<br />
Power.” These are not ordi<strong>na</strong>ry-size volumes, either.<br />
“Means of Ascent,” at 500 pages or so, is the<br />
comparative shrimp of the bunch. “The Path to Power”<br />
is almost 900 pages long; “Master of the Se<strong>na</strong>te” is<br />
close to 1,200, or nearly as long as the previous two<br />
combined. If you try to read or reread them all in just a<br />
The New York Times/ - Politics, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
couple weeks, as I foolishly did not long ago, you find<br />
yourself reluctant to put them down but also worried<br />
that your eyeballs may fall out. The new book, an<br />
excerpt of which recently ran in The New Yorker, is<br />
736 pages long and covers only about six years. It<br />
begins in 1958, with Johnson, so famously decisive<br />
and a man of action, dithering as he decides whether<br />
or not to run in the 1960 presidential election. The<br />
book then describes his loss to Kennedy on the first<br />
ballot at the Democratic convention and takes him<br />
through the miserable, humiliating years of his vice<br />
presidency before devoting almost half its length to the<br />
47 days between Kennedy’s assassi<strong>na</strong>tion in<br />
November 1963 (Caro’s account, told from Johnson’s<br />
point of view, is the most riveting ever) and the State of<br />
the Union address the following January — a period<br />
during which Johnson seizes the reins of power and, in<br />
breathtakingly short order, sets in motion much of the<br />
Great Society legislation. In other words, Caro’s pace<br />
has slowed so that he is now spending more time<br />
writing the years of Lyndon Johnson than Johnson<br />
spent living them, and he isn’t close to being done yet.<br />
We have still to read about the election of 1964, the<br />
Bobby Baker and Walter Jenkins scandals, Viet<strong>na</strong>m<br />
and the decision not to run for a second term. The<br />
Johnson whom most of us remember (and many of us<br />
marched in the streets against) — the stubborn,<br />
scowling Johnson, with the big jowls, the drooping<br />
elephant ears and the gallbladder scar — is only just<br />
coming into view. Johnson, who all along predicted an<br />
early end for himself, died at 64. Caro is already 76, in<br />
excellent health after a scary bout with pancreatitis in<br />
2004. He says that the reason “The Passage of<br />
Power” took so long is that he was at the same time<br />
researching the rest of the story, and that he can wrap<br />
it all up, with reaso<strong>na</strong>ble dispatch, in just one more<br />
volume. That’s what he said the last time, after<br />
finishing “Master of the Se<strong>na</strong>te.” (He also thought he<br />
could finish “The Power Broker” in nine months or so. It<br />
took him seven years, during which he and his wife,<br />
I<strong>na</strong>, went broke.) Robert Gottlieb, who signed up Caro<br />
to do “The Years of Lyndon Johnson” when he was<br />
editor in chief of Knopf, has continued to edit all of<br />
Caro’s books, even after officially leaving the company<br />
(he also excerpted Volume 2 at The New Yorker when<br />
he was editor in chief there). Not long ago he said he<br />
told Caro: “Let’s look at this situation actuarially. I’m<br />
now 80, and you are 75. The actuarial odds are that if<br />
you take however many more years you’re going to<br />
take, I’m not going to be here.” Gottlieb added, “The<br />
truth is, Bob doesn’t really need me, but he thinks he<br />
does.” In his years of working on Johnson, Robert<br />
Caro has come to know him better — or to understand<br />
26
him better — than Johnson knew or understood<br />
himself. He knows Johnson’s good side and his bad:<br />
how he became the youngest Se<strong>na</strong>te majority leader<br />
in history and how, by whispering one thing in the ears<br />
of the Southern se<strong>na</strong>tors and another in Northern ears,<br />
he got the Civil Rights Act of 1957 through a<br />
Congress that had squelched every civil rights bill<br />
since 1875; how he fudged his war record and earned<br />
himself a medal by doing nothing more than taking a<br />
single plane ride; how, while vice president during the<br />
Cuban missile crisis, his hawkishness scared the<br />
daylights out of President Kennedy and his brother<br />
Robert. Caro has learned about Johnson’s rages, his<br />
ruthlessness, his lies, his bribes, his insecurities, his<br />
wheedling, his groveling, his bluster, his sycophancy,<br />
his charm, his kindness, his streak of compassion, his<br />
friends, his enemies, his girlfriends, his gofers and<br />
bagmen, his table manners, his drinking habits, even<br />
his nick<strong>na</strong>me for his penis: not Johnson, but Jumbo.<br />
This kind of knowledge does not come easily or<br />
cheaply. Caro has taken so long with Johnson that his<br />
agent, Lynn Nesbit, no longer remembers how many<br />
times she has renegotiated his contract; his publishing<br />
house has had two editors in chief, and no one there<br />
worries much about his deadlines any longer. The<br />
books come along when they come along. “I’m not a<br />
charity case,” Caro pointed out to me last month when<br />
I remarked on how Knopf had stuck by him all these<br />
years. It’s true that the Johnson volumes have been<br />
glowingly reviewed (“The Path to Power” and “Means<br />
of Ascent” both won the Natio<strong>na</strong>l Book Critics Circle<br />
Award and “Master of the Se<strong>na</strong>te” won the Pulitzer<br />
Prize and the Natio<strong>na</strong>l Book Award) and that each of<br />
them has been a best seller, but it’s also true that they<br />
turn up so infrequently that Caro can hardly be thought<br />
of as a brand <strong>na</strong>me. “Are the books profitable?” Sonny<br />
Mehta, Knopf’s current head, who took over the<br />
Johnson project — enthusiastically — after Gottlieb’s<br />
departure in 1987, said last month. He paused for a<br />
moment. “They will be,” he answered fi<strong>na</strong>lly, “because<br />
there is nothing like them.” Gottlieb is more<br />
philosophical. “So what if at the end of 45 years it turns<br />
out we lost money by one kind of accounting?” he said.<br />
“Think of what he has given us, what he has added.<br />
How do you weigh that?” The two Bobs, Gottlieb and<br />
Caro, have an odd editorial relationship, almost as<br />
contentious as it is mutually admiring. They still<br />
debate, for example, or pretend to, how many words<br />
Gott-lieb cut from “The Power Broker.” It was 350,000<br />
— or the equivalent of two or three full-size books —<br />
and Caro still regrets nearly every one. “There were<br />
things cut out of ‘The Power Broker’ that should not<br />
have been cut out,” he said to me sadly one day,<br />
showing me his perso<strong>na</strong>l copy of the book, dog-eared<br />
and broken-backed, filled with underlining and<br />
corrections written in between the lines. Caro is a little<br />
like Balzac, who kept fussing over his books even after<br />
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they were published. Gottlieb and Caro also have<br />
slightly different accounts of how the Johnson project<br />
came about in the first place. Caro’s origi<strong>na</strong>l contract<br />
called for him to write a biography of Fiorello<br />
LaGuardia, the former New York City mayor, after<br />
finishing Moses. Gottlieb says that in 1974, when Caro<br />
came in to talk about that project, he told him: “It’s a<br />
mistake. There were two gods in my house in the ’30s<br />
and ’40s: F.D.R. and LaGuardia. But LaGuardia is a<br />
dead end, an anomaly. He doesn’t come from<br />
anything, and nothing followed from him. I think you<br />
should write about Lyndon Johnson.” Turning to me<br />
and shaking his head he added: “You have to<br />
understand, I knew nothing about Lyndon Johnson and<br />
didn’t care about Lyndon Johnson, and it never<br />
crossed my mind until that moment that was what Bob<br />
should do. It was one of the inexplicable great<br />
moments, because it came out of nowhere.” Caro says<br />
that he had already made up his mind that Johnson,<br />
who had only recently died, should be his next subject,<br />
partly because he didn’t want to write about New York<br />
again, but he listened quietly to Gottlieb. “I always felt<br />
that I increased my advance by a substantial amount<br />
by just sitting there not saying ‘That’s what I want to<br />
do,’ ” he told me. Gottlieb and Caro argue about<br />
length, but they also argue about prose, even about<br />
punctuation. “You know that insane old expression,<br />
‘The quality of his defect is the defect of his quality,’ or<br />
something like that?” Gottlieb asked me. “That’s really<br />
true of Bob. What makes him such a genius of<br />
research and reliability is that everything is of exactly<br />
the same importance to him. The smallest thing is as<br />
consequential as the biggest. A semicolon matters as<br />
much as, I don’t know, whether Johnson was gay. But<br />
unfortu<strong>na</strong>tely, when it comes to English, I have those<br />
tendencies, too, and we could go to war over a<br />
semicolon. That’s as important to me as who voted for<br />
what law.” Their worst battle was over the second<br />
Johnson volume, “Means of Ascent,” which is largely<br />
about the stolen Se<strong>na</strong>te election of 1948. Gottlieb<br />
encouraged Caro to tell this story at length because he<br />
was fasci<strong>na</strong>ted by the details of local politics, but he<br />
objected, as some reviewers did, to Caro’s<br />
characterization of Johnson’s opponent in that<br />
election, Coke Stevenson, a former Texas governor,<br />
who is painted in almost heroic terms. “We went mano<br />
a mano, chin to chin, nose to nose, I so disapproved of<br />
his idealization of Coke Stevenson,” Gottlieb said. “We<br />
just about killed each other.” The editing of the most<br />
recent book went much more smoothly, Gottlieb said,<br />
explaining: “We both behaved better, and we really<br />
had a terrific time — maybe the first time we actually<br />
enjoyed the process. He could say, ‘I know you don’t<br />
want all this,’ and I could say, ‘How interesting that you<br />
know that!’ I think we have evolved, to the extent that<br />
we’re evolvable.” He laughed, and added: “How do<br />
these things happen? You just start in the belief that<br />
27
it’s all worth it, and before you know it, it’s 500 years<br />
later and you’re doing the notes on the 43rd volume.”<br />
There was never a plan,” Caro said to me, explaining<br />
how he had become a historian and biographer.<br />
“There was just a series of mistakes.” Caro was born in<br />
October 1935 and grew up on Central Park West at<br />
94th Street. His father, a businessman, spoke Yiddish<br />
as well as English, but he didn’t speak either very<br />
often. He was “very silent,” Caro said, and became<br />
more so after Caro’s mother died, after a long illness,<br />
when he was 12. “It was an unusual household in that I<br />
didn’t want to be there too much,” he said, adding that<br />
though he is fond of his younger sibling, Michael, now<br />
a retired real estate ma<strong>na</strong>ger, they don’t have the kind<br />
of relationship that most brothers do. Caro spent as<br />
much time as he could at the Horace Mann School (it<br />
was his mother’s deathbed wish that he should go<br />
there) or else on a bench in Central Park with a book.<br />
He was always writing, and even then he wrote long.<br />
His sixth-grade essays dwarfed everyone else’s. His<br />
senior thesis at Princeton — on existentialism in<br />
Hemingway — was so long, he was told, that the<br />
college’s English department subsequently instituted a<br />
rule limiting the number of pages a senior could turn in.<br />
Caro said he now thinks that Princeton, which he<br />
chose because of its parties, was one of his mistakes,<br />
and that he should have gone to Harvard. Princeton in<br />
the mid-’50s was hardly known for being hospitable<br />
toward Jews, and though Caro says he did not<br />
perso<strong>na</strong>lly suffer from anti-Semitism, he saw plenty of<br />
students who did. “The way I thought of it, I wasn’t at<br />
Princeton,” he said. “I was at the newspaper and the<br />
literary magazine.” He had a sports column, “Ivy<br />
Inklings,” at The Daily Prince-tonian, where he<br />
eventually became ma<strong>na</strong>ging editor. (The top editor,<br />
until he flunked out, was R. W. Apple Jr., later to<br />
become a legendary New York Times reporter.) He<br />
also wrote short stories, or rather, not so short ones.<br />
One of them, about a boy who gets his girlfriend<br />
preg<strong>na</strong>nt, took up almost an entire issue of The<br />
Princeton Tiger, a humor and literary magazine. It was<br />
also at Princeton that Caro met his wife, I<strong>na</strong>, who<br />
would also become the only assistant and researcher<br />
he has ever trusted. She was 16 at the time, a<br />
high-school student from nearby Trenton,<br />
double-dating at a Hillel mixer. She spotted Caro, very<br />
good-looking to judge from photographs taken around<br />
that time, across the room and announced to her best<br />
friend, “That’s the boy I’m going to marry.” Three years<br />
later, she did, dropping out of college against her<br />
parents’ wishes, and though she went on to finish her<br />
degree, get another one (in medieval European<br />
history) and write a couple of books of her own, she<br />
has to an extent remarkable by today’s standards<br />
devoted her life to his. At the lowest point during the<br />
writing of “The Power Broker,” when Caro had run out<br />
of money and was close to despair about being able to<br />
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finish, she sold their house in suburban Long Island,<br />
moved the family (the Caros have a son, Chase, who<br />
is now in the information-technology business) to an<br />
apartment in the Bronx and took a job teaching school<br />
to keep him going. “That was a bad time, a very bad<br />
time,” Caro recalled. “I always felt that the most<br />
important thing was for Bob to be able to write,” I<strong>na</strong><br />
said. “Things like houses and money never meant<br />
much to me. I think they meant more to our dog,” she<br />
told me one morning in their big Upper West Side<br />
apartment, adding: “But I never thought this would be<br />
all he’d write about. I’ve always wanted him to finish a<br />
novel.” Even now, she went on, it’s hard for her to<br />
accept that Johnson will probably turn out to be the<br />
great work of their lives together. “You never think<br />
about dying,” she said. “You always think there’s going<br />
to be time.” In order to marry, Caro needed a job. The<br />
Times offered him one as a copyboy for a salary that<br />
he now recalls as “something like $37.50 a week.” The<br />
New Brunswick Daily Home News and Sunday Times<br />
offered him $52 a week to be a reporter, and Caro took<br />
it. Another mistake, except that it led to an early lesson<br />
in power politics. The paper’s chief political writer was<br />
on leave to work for the Democratic Party in Middlesex<br />
County during an election. When he became ill, Caro<br />
took his place. He wrote speeches and did P.R. for<br />
one of the party bosses. On Election Day he rode<br />
around with this man to the polling places, and at one<br />
point they came upon the police loading some black<br />
people into a patrol wagon. “One of the cops explained<br />
that the black poll watchers had been giving them<br />
some trouble, but they had it under control,” Caro<br />
recalled. “I still think about it. It wasn’t the roughness of<br />
the police that made such an impression. It was the —<br />
meekness isn’t the right word — the acceptance of<br />
those people of what was happening. I just wanted to<br />
get out of that car, and as soon as he stopped, I did.<br />
He never called me again. He must have known how I<br />
felt.” Caro had a further epiphany about power in the<br />
early ’60s. He had moved on to Newsday by then,<br />
where he discovered that he had a k<strong>na</strong>ck for<br />
investigative reporting, and was assigned to look into a<br />
plan by Robert Moses to build a bridge from Rye, N.Y.,<br />
across Long Island Sound to Oyster Bay. “This was<br />
the world’s worst idea,” he told me. “The piers would<br />
have had to be so big that they’d disrupt the tides.”<br />
Caro wrote a series exposing the folly of this scheme,<br />
and it seemed to have persuaded just about everyone,<br />
including the governor, Nelson Rockefeller. But then,<br />
he recalled, he got a call from a friend in Albany<br />
saying, “Bob, I think you need to come up here.” Caro<br />
said: “I got there in time for a vote in the Assembly<br />
authorizing some prelimi<strong>na</strong>ry step toward the bridge,<br />
and it passed by something like 138-4. That was one<br />
of the transformatio<strong>na</strong>l moments of my life. I got in the<br />
car and drove home to Long Island, and I kept thinking<br />
to myself: ‘Everything you’ve been doing is baloney.<br />
28
You’ve been writing under the belief that power in a<br />
democracy comes from the ballot box. But here’s a<br />
guy who has never been elected to anything, who has<br />
enough power to turn the entire state around, and you<br />
don’t have the slightest idea how he got it.’ ” The<br />
lesson was repeated in 1965, when Caro had a<br />
Nieman fellowship at Harvard and took a class in land<br />
use and urban planning. “They were talking one day<br />
about highways and where they got built,” he recalled,<br />
“and here were these mathematical formulas about<br />
traffic density and population density and so on, and all<br />
of a sudden I said to myself: ‘This is completely wrong.<br />
This isn’t why highways get built. Highways get built<br />
because Robert Moses wants them built there. If you<br />
don’t find out and explain to people where Robert<br />
Moses gets his power, then everything else you do is<br />
going to be dishonest.’ ” Caro’s obsession with power<br />
explains a great deal about the <strong>na</strong>ture of his work. For<br />
one thing, it accounts in large part for the size and<br />
scope of all his books, which Caro thinks of not as<br />
conventio<strong>na</strong>l biographies but as studies in the working<br />
of political power and how it affects both those who<br />
have it and those who don’t. Power, or Caro’s<br />
understanding of it, also underlies his conception of<br />
character and structure. In “The Power Broker,” it’s a<br />
drug that an insatiable Moses comes to require in<br />
larger and larger doses until it transforms him from an<br />
idealist into a monster devoid of human feeling, tearing<br />
down neighborhoods, flinging out roadways and<br />
plopping down bridges just for their own sake. Running<br />
through the Johnson books are what Caro calls “two<br />
threads, bright and dark”: the first is his <strong>na</strong>ked, ruthless<br />
hunger for power — “power not to improve the lives of<br />
others, but to manipulate and domi<strong>na</strong>te them, to bend<br />
them to his will” — and the other is the often<br />
compassio<strong>na</strong>te use he made of that power. If Caro’s<br />
Moses is an operatic character — a city-transforming<br />
Faust — his Johnson is a Shakespearean one:<br />
Richard III, Lear, Iago and Cassio all rolled into one.<br />
You practically feel Caro’s gorge rise when he<br />
describes how awful Johnson was in college, wheeling<br />
and dealing, blackmailing fellow students and sucking<br />
up to the faculty, or when he describes the vicious<br />
negative campaign Johnson waged against Coke<br />
Stevenson. But then a volume later, describing<br />
Johnson’s championing of civil rights legislation, he<br />
seems to warm to his subject all over again. In many<br />
ways, Caro’s notion of character is a romantic,<br />
idealistic one, and what fuels the books is<br />
disappointment and righteousness, almost like that of<br />
a lover betrayed. If there’s a downside to his method,<br />
it’s that anyone’s life, even yours or mine, described in<br />
Caro-esque detail, could take on epic, romantic<br />
proportions. The difference is that our lives would be<br />
epics of what it’s like not to have power, but the<br />
language would probably be the same. Caro has a<br />
bold, grand style — sometimes grandiose, his critics<br />
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would say. It owes something to old-fashioned<br />
historians like Gibbon and Macaulay, even to Homer<br />
and Milton, and something to hard-hitting<br />
newspaperese. He loves epic catalogs (at the<br />
beginning of “The Power Broker” there is a long list of<br />
expressways that would not be out of place in the<br />
“Iliad” if only the Greeks and Trojans knew how to<br />
drive) and long, rolling periodic sentences, sometimes<br />
followed by emphatic, one-sentence paragraphs. He is<br />
not averse to repeating a theme or an image for<br />
dramatic effect. This is not a style ideally suited to the<br />
chaste, <strong>na</strong>rrow paragraphs of The New Yorker,<br />
especially in 1974, when it serialized “The Power<br />
Broker” in four installments that were long even then,<br />
when the magazine was so flush with ads it sometimes<br />
had trouble filling all its columns. I was a proofreader<br />
at The New Yorker then, and my office was across<br />
from that of William Whitworth, the editor of the “Power<br />
Broker” excerpts. I remember him wearily shuttling<br />
back and forth, like some Balkan diplomat, between<br />
the office of William Shawn, the magazine’s editor in<br />
chief, and one that Caro was borrowing while its<br />
occupant, Howard Moss, the poetry editor, was away<br />
for the summer. Caro complained that the magazine<br />
had tampered with his prose, and he wasn’t wrong.<br />
Instead of merely lifting some excerpts from the book<br />
manuscript, as was usually done, Whitworth tried to<br />
condense the whole thing, and this entailed squeezing<br />
out great chunks of writing, running the beginning of<br />
one paragraph into the end of another, pages away.<br />
“They softened my style,” Caro says. Shawn, on the<br />
other hand, had the magazine’s standards to uphold:<br />
The New Yorker insisted on its own, sometimes fussy<br />
way of punctuating; it didn’t approve of passages that<br />
were too leggy and indirect; it didn’t approve of<br />
repetitions; and it especially didn’t approve of<br />
one--sentence paragraphs. A description of the<br />
situation in vigorous Caro-ese might read something<br />
like this: “In the editorial world, William Shawn was a<br />
man of immense power. He wielded it quietly, softly,<br />
almost in a whisper, but he wielded it nonetheless. Not<br />
for nothing did some of his staff members privately call<br />
him the Iron Mouse. For writers, Shawn’s long wooden<br />
desk was like a shrine, an altar, and in the passing of<br />
proofs across that brightly polished surface — pages<br />
and pages of proofs, stacks of proofs, sheaves and<br />
bundles of proofs, proofs from the fact-checkers, the<br />
lawyers, the grammarians, proofs marked with feathery<br />
hen-scratch and with bold red-pencilings — they<br />
discerned something like magic, the alchemy that<br />
renders ordi<strong>na</strong>ry, sublu<strong>na</strong>ry prose free of impurity and<br />
infuses it with an ineffable, entrancing glow, the sheen<br />
of true New Yorker style. “But that style was not for<br />
everyone. “It was not for Robert Caro.” The<br />
negotiations became so fraught that between the<br />
second and third installments there was a weeklong<br />
gap, unthinkable in those days, while the two sides<br />
29
stared each other down and it seemed that the next<br />
two parts might be scuttled. Everyone at the magazine<br />
was aghast. Caro, it turned out, was as stubborn as<br />
Shawn. Here was a 38-year-old unknown who hadn’t<br />
published a word except in newspapers. Moreover, he<br />
was broke, hardly in a position to turn his back on the<br />
biggest payday of his life so far, but alone among New<br />
Yorker contributors at the time, he dared to become a<br />
Bartleby and turn his powerlessness into a point of<br />
principle. Caro now says that Shawn agreed to restore<br />
all the changes he cared most deeply about, but the<br />
magazine version nevertheless differs from the origi<strong>na</strong>l<br />
and changes Caro’s punctuation and paragraphing.<br />
The New Yorker series is a very readable redaction of<br />
the origi<strong>na</strong>l — and without sacrificing much essential<br />
information, easier on the attention span than the<br />
book, which requires an immense time commitment —<br />
but for better or worse, it’s not as full-throated as the<br />
origi<strong>na</strong>l. Whitworth, undaunted, excerpted the first<br />
volume of the Johnson biography in The Atlantic after<br />
he became editor there in 1980. It’s not writing that<br />
takes Caro so long but, rather, rewriting. In college he<br />
was such a quick and facile writer, and so speedy a<br />
typist, that one of his teachers, the critic R. P.<br />
Blackmur, once told him that he would never achieve<br />
anything until he learned to “stop thinking with his<br />
fingers,” and Caro actually tries to slow himself down<br />
these days. He doesn’t start typing — on an old Smith<br />
Coro<strong>na</strong> Electra 210, not a computer — until he has<br />
finished four or five handwritten drafts. And then he<br />
rewrites the typescript. When I visited him one day in<br />
early December, he was correcting the page proofs of<br />
“The Passage of Power” the way Proust used to<br />
correct proofs: scratching out, writing in between the<br />
lines, pasting in additio<strong>na</strong>l sheets of inserts. Caro is an<br />
equally obsessive researcher. Gott-lieb likes to point to<br />
a passage fairly early in “The Power Broker” describing<br />
Moses’ parents one morning in their lodge at Camp<br />
Madison, a fresh-air charity they established for poor<br />
city kids, picking up The Times and reading that their<br />
son had been fined $22,000 for improprieties in a land<br />
takeover. “Oh, he never earned a dollar in his life, and<br />
now we’ll have to pay this,” Bella Moses says. “How do<br />
you know that?” Gottlieb asked Caro. Caro explained<br />
that he tried to talk to all of the social workers who had<br />
worked at Camp Madison, and in the process he found<br />
one who had delivered the Moseses’ paper. “It was as<br />
if I had asked him, ‘How do you know it’s raining out?’ ”<br />
Gottlieb told me, and he added: “When ‘The Power<br />
Broker’ came out, other writers were amazed. No one<br />
had ever seen anything like it. It was a monument not<br />
to industry, because lots of people have industry, but<br />
to something else. I don’t even know what to call it.”<br />
Caro once spent several nights alone in a sleeping bag<br />
in the Texas Hill Country so he could understand what<br />
rural isolation felt like there. For the Johnson books, he<br />
has conducted thousands of interviews, many with<br />
The New York Times/ - Politics, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
Johnson’s friends and contemporaries. (Lady Bird<br />
spoke to him several times and then abruptly stopped<br />
without giving a reason, and Bill Moyers, Johnson’s<br />
press secretary, has never consented to be<br />
interviewed, but most of Johnson’s closest cronies,<br />
including John Con<strong>na</strong>lly and George Christian,<br />
Johnson’s last press secretary, who spoke to Caro<br />
practically on his deathbed, have gone on the record.)<br />
He has spent literally several years at the Johnson<br />
Library, in Austin, Tex., painstakingly going through the<br />
red buckram boxes that contain Johnson’s papers, and<br />
he has been the first researcher to open some of the<br />
most revealing files there. “Over and over again, I’ve<br />
found crucial things that nobody knew about,” he said.<br />
“There’s always origi<strong>na</strong>l stuff if you look hard enough.”<br />
He added that he tried to keep in mind something that<br />
his ma<strong>na</strong>ging editor at Newsday, Alan Hathway, a<br />
crusty old newspaper-man once told him, after pointing<br />
out that Caro was the only Ivy Leaguer who ever<br />
amounted to anything: “Turn every goddamn page.”<br />
His notes, typed on long legal sheets, often with urgent<br />
directions to himself in capital letters, fill his cabinets,<br />
and before he begins writing, he indexes the relevant<br />
files in big loose-leaf notebooks that resemble the<br />
ones behind the counter at auto-parts stores. There is<br />
no computer, no Google, no Wikipedia. One reason<br />
Caro’s books are so long is that he does keep<br />
burrowing through the files, and he keeps finding out<br />
things he hadn’t anticipated. Before beginning the first<br />
volume, he thought he could wrap up Johnson’s early<br />
life in a couple of chapters, until he talked to some of<br />
Johnson’s college classmates and found out about his<br />
lying, conniving side, which no one had previously<br />
described. That volume also includes a mini-biography<br />
of Sam Rayburn, Johnson’s mentor in Congress, and a<br />
brilliantly evocative section about how electrification<br />
changed the lives of people in the Hill Country, much<br />
of it based on interviews conducted by I<strong>na</strong>, who visited<br />
the women there with homemade preserves and<br />
eventually won them over, she says, because she was<br />
as shy and nervous as they were. Caro thought that<br />
the 1948 Se<strong>na</strong>te election would take up a single<br />
chapter or so in his Se<strong>na</strong>te volume. Instead, it takes up<br />
most of a book of its own, what is now Volume 2.<br />
Johnson advocates used to say that “no one will ever<br />
know” whether that election was stolen. Caro knows,<br />
because he uncovered a handwritten memoir by Luis<br />
Salas, an election boss and party henchman, giving<br />
the details of how he falsified the records. The Se<strong>na</strong>te<br />
book, Volume 3, begins with a 100-page history of the<br />
Se<strong>na</strong>te, starting with Calhoun and Webster, because<br />
Caro felt that to understand the Se<strong>na</strong>te you needed to<br />
see it in its great period. It includes minibiographies of<br />
Hubert Humphrey and Richard Russell Jr., the<br />
longtime Se<strong>na</strong>te leader of the South, and ends with a<br />
detailed, almost vote-by-vote account of the passage<br />
of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The first few weeks of<br />
30
the Johnson presidency, which take up so much of the<br />
new book, were origi<strong>na</strong>lly imagined as just a chapter in<br />
what would be the fi<strong>na</strong>l volume, and the new book also<br />
includes much more about the Kennedys than Caro<br />
anticipated. He goes into great detail, for example,<br />
about the feud between Johnson and Robert Kennedy,<br />
and the visits Bobby made to Johnson’s hotel room in<br />
Los Angeles after the Democratic convention in 1960,<br />
trying to talk Johnson into withdrawing from the<br />
vice-presidential nomi<strong>na</strong>tion. The installments keep<br />
ballooning, in other words, developing subplots and<br />
stories-within-the-story, in a way that reflects Caro’s<br />
own process of discovery. He is looking ahead to<br />
Volume 5 and to Viet<strong>na</strong>m, which is foreshadowed in<br />
the new book by Johnson’s hawkish impatience during<br />
the Cuban missile crisis. One day when I was visiting<br />
he pulled out a thick file of notes he had written,<br />
including transcripts, about the weekly Tuesday<br />
cabinet meetings Johnson had with Dean Rusk,<br />
Robert McNamara, Earle Wheeler and Walt Rostow, at<br />
which the question of whether to escalate was<br />
frequently discussed. “Look at this stuff,” Caro said to<br />
me. “It’s unbelievable!” Caro now finds Johnson more<br />
fasci<strong>na</strong>ting than ever, he told me, and added: “It’s not<br />
a question of liking or disliking him. I’m trying to explain<br />
how political power worked in America in the second<br />
half of the 20th century, and here’s a guy who<br />
understood power and used it in a way that no one<br />
ever had. In the getting of that power he’s ruthless —<br />
ruthless to a degree that surprised even me, who<br />
thought he knew something about ruthlessness. But he<br />
also means it when he says that all his life he wanted<br />
to help poor people and people of color, and you see<br />
him using the ruthlessness, the savagery for wonderful<br />
ends. Does his character ever change? No. Are my<br />
feelings about Johnson mixed? They’ve always been<br />
mixed.” On a corkboard covering the wall beside<br />
The New York Times/ - Politics, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
Caro’s desk, he keeps an outline, pinned up on<br />
legal-size sheets, of “The Years of Lyndon Johnson.”<br />
It’s not a classic outline, with indentations and<br />
numbered headings and subheadings, but a maze of<br />
sentences and paragraphs and notes to himself.<br />
These days, part of the top row is gone: the empty<br />
spaces are where the pages mapping the new book<br />
used to be. But there are several rows left to go, and<br />
13 additio<strong>na</strong>l pages that won’t fit on the wall until yet<br />
more come down. Somewhere on those sheets,<br />
already written, is the very last line of “The Years of<br />
Lyndon Johnson,” whatever volume that turns out to<br />
be. I begged him more than once, but Caro wouldn’t<br />
tell me what that line says. Caro has no shortage of<br />
plans for what to do next, after he finishes with<br />
Johnson, and he has already picked out a topic,<br />
though he won’t reveal what it is. He also told me he<br />
could imagine writing a biography of Al Smith, the New<br />
York governor and 1928 presidential candidate. But it’s<br />
also possible that at some level he doesn’t really want<br />
to be done — that without entirely intending to, he’s<br />
eking Johnson out — because whenever a biographer<br />
finishes, burying his subject, he dies a little death, too.<br />
Caro is a great student of Gibbon, and he must be<br />
familiar with what Gibbon wrote in his house at<br />
Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1787, after completing his<br />
“Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”: “I will not<br />
dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of<br />
my freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my<br />
fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober<br />
melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that<br />
I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and<br />
agreeable companion, and that, whatsoever might be<br />
the future fate of my history, the life of the historian<br />
must be short and precarious.”<br />
31
13/04/2012
Quinta-feira, 19 de Abril de 2012<br />
13/04/2012<br />
Diário de Notícias Lisboa - Globo<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
PSD propõe nome de Paulo Saragoça da Matta , 35<br />
Expresso OnLine Lisboa - Atualidade<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
AR: PS propõe Conde Rodrigues para o Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l, 36<br />
Expresso OnLine Lisboa - Atualidade<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Pe<strong>na</strong>l Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l (TPI)<br />
Guiné-Bissau: Presidência angola<strong>na</strong> da CPLP ameaça chefe das Forças Armadas com TPI , 37<br />
Le Figaro - Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | La Cour Suprême<br />
Srebrenica/ONU: des victimes déboutées , 38<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
U.N. can't be tried for Srebrenica massacre -Dutch court, 39<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Ex-Lehman Europe clients may get cash this year-PWC, 40<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Judge to review moving hundreds of Madoff cases, 41<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Facebook advertisers lose bid for class status, 42<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Tennessee teacher law could boost creationism, climate denial, 43<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung - Politik<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Europäischen Gerichtshof<br />
"Ähnliche psychische Folgen wie durch Missbrauch", 44<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung - Politik<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Europäischen Gerichtshof<br />
Warum das Inzestverbot widersinnig ist , 46<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung - Politik<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Europäischen Gerichtshof<br />
Klage von Hinterbliebenen gegen UN abgelehnt, 47<br />
The New York Times - U.S.<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
One Fate in Tulsa for 3 Strangers Familiar With Struggle, 48<br />
The New York Times - The Opinion Pages<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
Justice for Trayvon, 50<br />
The New York Times - N.Y./Region<br />
33
Quinta-feira, 19 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
Mornings After, Many of Them, 51<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
Romney vs. Romney, 52<br />
34
Diário de Notícias Lisboa/ - Globo, Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
PSD propõe nome de Paulo Saragoça da<br />
Matta<br />
O PSD vai propor o jurista Paulo Saragoça da Matta<br />
para o Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l, disse à Lusa a<br />
vice-presidente da bancada social-democrata Teresa<br />
Leal Coelho.<br />
Também o PS já divulgou que propôs o nome do<br />
ex-secretário de Estado da Justiça Conde Rodrigues,<br />
faltando, assim, a indicação de um dos três nomes,<br />
que o CDS fará <strong>na</strong> próxima sema<strong>na</strong>.<br />
A eleição está marcada para o dia de 20 de abril, a<br />
próxima sexta-feira, depois de sucessivos apelos da<br />
presidente da Assembleia, Assunção Esteves, para<br />
que os partidos, por consenso, indicassem os nomes.<br />
35
Expresso OnLine Lisboa / - Atualidade, Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
AR: PS propõe Conde Rodrigues para o<br />
Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
O PS propôs hoje o nome do ex-secretário de Estado<br />
da Justiça Conde Rodrigues para o Tribu<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l, disse fonte oficial do grupo<br />
parlamentar, faltando a indicação dos outros dois<br />
juízes, que compete à maioria PSD/CDS-PP.<br />
Conde Rodrigues, que foi juiz dos Tribu<strong>na</strong>is<br />
Administrativos e Fiscais, é atualmente membro do<br />
Conselho Superior do Ministério Público, foi secretário<br />
de Estado da Justiça, da Administração Inter<strong>na</strong> e<br />
Cultura.<br />
De acordo com o PS, o nome de Conde Rodrigues<br />
tem já o acordo da maioria PSD/CDS, que também já<br />
propôs um nome que teve o acordo dos socialistas,<br />
faltando ainda um terceiro nome para a eleição dos<br />
três juízes conselheiros para o Tribu<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l.<br />
36
Expresso OnLine Lisboa / - Atualidade, Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Pe<strong>na</strong>l Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l (TPI))<br />
Guiné-Bissau: Presidência angola<strong>na</strong> da<br />
CPLP ameaça chefe das Forças Armadas<br />
com TPI<br />
Cidade da Praia, 13 abr (Lusa) - A Presidência<br />
angola<strong>na</strong> da Comunidade dos Países de Língua<br />
Portuguesa (CPLP) advertiu hoje as autoridades<br />
militares guineenses, "em particular" o chefe das<br />
Forças Armadas, António Indjai, que a continuação<br />
das ações em curso poderá ter consequências no<br />
Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Pe<strong>na</strong>l Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l.<br />
A Presidência angola<strong>na</strong> da CPLP "adverte as<br />
entidades militares guineenses, em particular o Chefe<br />
de Estado Maior General das Forças Armadas, que a<br />
continuação da insubordi<strong>na</strong>ção militar bem como<br />
qualquer atentado à integridade física das entidades<br />
políticas sob custódia, implicará a responsabilização<br />
dos envolvidos junto do Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Pe<strong>na</strong>l Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l",<br />
diz em comunicado enviado à agência Lusa.<br />
JSD/HB.<br />
37
Le Figaro/ - Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l, Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (La Cour Suprême)<br />
Srebrenica/ONU: des victimes déboutées<br />
La Cour suprême des Pays-Bas a débouté aujourd'hui<br />
des proches de victimes du massacre de Srebrenica<br />
en 1995 de leur plainte visant à obtenir devant la<br />
justice néerlandaise des indemnisations de la part de<br />
l'ONU.<br />
Le groupe des Mères de Srebrenica, qui dit<br />
représenter des milliers de proches des quelque 8000<br />
hommes et garçons musulmans assassinés dans cette<br />
enclave de Bosnie en 1995 et d'autres victimes tués<br />
pendant la guerre de 1992-95, s'était adressé à la<br />
Cour suprême pour tenter d'obtenir gain de cause.<br />
"Les Nations unies ne peuvent pas être poursuivies<br />
devant une juridiction aux Pays-Bas", a fait valoir la<br />
Cour installée à La Haye dans une déclaration sur<br />
internet, en "faisant sien le point de vue que ce qui est<br />
en jeu, c'est l'immunité totale de l'ONU", une<br />
organisation "qui ne peut être poursuivie devant<br />
aucune juridiction <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>le".<br />
Les avocats des Mères de Srebrenica avaient déposé<br />
en juin 2007 une plainte contre l'ONU et l'Etat<br />
néerlandais pour leur rôle respectif dans le massacre<br />
de juillet 1995 à Srebrenica, enclave en principe<br />
protégée par des Casques bleus néerlandais mais où<br />
les forces serbes de Bosnie commandées par le<br />
général Ratko Mladic l'ont emporté et ont pu<br />
commettre leurs tueries.<br />
Dans les jours suivant, le départ des Casques bleus,<br />
les hommes et les garçons musulmans qui se sont<br />
rendus ou ont été arrêtés par les Serbes bosniaques,<br />
ont été systématiquement exécutés, ce qui représente<br />
le plus grand massacre sur le sol européen depuis la<br />
Deuxième Guerre mondiale.<br />
Les Mères de Srebrenica voulaient que la Cour<br />
suprême des Pays-Bas juge que les Nations unies<br />
avaient fait preuve de "négligence dans la prévention<br />
d'un génocide, la plus grave violation des droits de<br />
l'homme", note la Cour dans sa déclaration.<br />
Le groupe avait été débouté de sa plainte au Pays-Bas<br />
en première instance en 2008 puis en appel en 2010,<br />
avant que les avocats ne décident de s'adresser à la<br />
Cour suprême qui a jugé vendredi que l'immunité de<br />
l'ONU "est absolue".<br />
"Ceci est lié directement à son rôle de maintien de la<br />
paix et de la sécurité dans le monde, et pour cette<br />
raison il est important que son immunité reste aussi<br />
forte que possible", souligne la Cour.<br />
Elle ajoute cependant que la plainte visant l'Etat<br />
néerlandais "et ceux qui ont commis le génocide"<br />
pourra se poursuivre devant la justice néerlandaise.<br />
Axel Hagedorn, un des avocats du groupe de<br />
plaig<strong>na</strong>nts, a exprimé sa "déception", tout en<br />
annonçant qu'ils allaient porter l'affaire devant la Cour<br />
européenne des droits de l'homme.<br />
38
Reuters General/ - Article, Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
U.N. can't be tried for Srebrenica<br />
massacre -Dutch court<br />
(Reuters) - The Dutch Supreme Court ruled on Friday<br />
that the United Nations cannot be prosecuted in the<br />
Netherlands for failing to prevent genocide against<br />
Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica near the end of<br />
Bosnia's war in 1995. The fi<strong>na</strong>l ruling was the last legal<br />
option in the Netherlands for a group of survivors of<br />
the July 1995 massacre, when as many as 8,000 boys<br />
and men were killed by Serb forces in an area that the<br />
United Nations had declared a "safe haven". Lawyers<br />
representing a group of 6,000 survivors calling<br />
themselves the Mothers of Srebrenica said they would<br />
appeal against the decision at the European Court of<br />
Human Rights. "The U.N., as the inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l human<br />
rights champion, should not stand above the law but<br />
should take responsibility for its role in the Srebrenica<br />
genocide in 1995," a statement issued by the group<br />
said. "This is a violation of fundamental human rights<br />
and in contravention of the case law of the European<br />
Court for Human Rights (ECHR) and the European<br />
Court of Justice (ECJ)." In 2001 the Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Crimi<strong>na</strong>l Tribu<strong>na</strong>l for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)<br />
judged that the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre was an<br />
act of genocide. The fall of Srebrenica to Serb forces<br />
was the worst single atrocity during the 1992-95 war<br />
and the first act of genocide in Europe since the Nazi<br />
Holocaust against Jews. The Muslim enclave in<br />
eastern Bosnia near the border with Serbia was under<br />
the protection of Dutch peacekeeping troops deployed<br />
by the United Nations. "The Supreme Court upholds<br />
the opinion of the (lower) court that the U.N. has the<br />
most far-reaching form of immunity and cannot be<br />
prosecuted by any <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l court," a summary of the<br />
ruling said. Axel Hagedorn, an attorney at the Van<br />
Diepen Van der Kroef law firm representing families of<br />
the victims, said an appeal would be filed at the<br />
European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg within<br />
six months. "We will argue that the Dutch soldiers and<br />
the United <strong>na</strong>tions violated human rights," he said.<br />
"Granting legal immunity to a group claiming to defend<br />
human rights is like turning things upside down."<br />
Inexperienced and outgunned Dutch soldiers were<br />
u<strong>na</strong>ble to prevent attacking Serb fighters from<br />
capturing Srebrenica, separating Bosnian Muslim men<br />
from women and busing them off to dozens of<br />
execution sites. Last year, a Dutch appeals court found<br />
the Dutch state responsible for the deaths of three<br />
victims, opening the way for compensation claims over<br />
the failed peacekeeping mission. Former Bosnian Serb<br />
military commander Ratko Mladic, indicted by the ICTY<br />
near the end of the war for genocide and war crimes<br />
over the Srebrenica killings and the 43-month siege of<br />
Sarajevo, was arrested a year ago after 16 years on<br />
the run. In December, the tribu<strong>na</strong>l accepted a<br />
prosecutor's request to speed up the trial amid fears<br />
that Mladic, 69, who has suffered ill health, could die<br />
without facing justice as happened with former<br />
Yugoslav and Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.<br />
(Reporting By Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Mark<br />
Heinrich)<br />
39
Reuters General/ - Article, Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Ex-Lehman Europe clients may get cash<br />
this year-PWC<br />
By Luke Jeffs LONDON, April 13 | Fri Apr 13, 2012<br />
12:46pm EDT (Reuters) - Former clients of the<br />
European arm of U.S. investment bank Lehman<br />
Brothers, which collapsed in September 2008, may get<br />
cash back this year for the first time, although<br />
admistrators warned legal struggles could still hold up<br />
the payment. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which<br />
is working to return as much as 13.4 billion pounds<br />
($21.3 billion) of cash and other assets to Lehman's<br />
European creditors and clients, said on Friday it hoped<br />
to make a first distribution to unsecured creditors this<br />
year. The firm has gradually been raising money from<br />
assets of Lehman Brothers Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l Europe<br />
(LBIE). But the administrator warned it could not<br />
guarantee the timing of the refund until it works<br />
through last month's High Court ruling on the rights of<br />
clients to claim monies. "The UK Supreme Court<br />
judgment has provided clarity with regard to the broad<br />
principles that are to be applied in determining client<br />
money entitlement and the constitution of the client<br />
money pool," PWC said in an emailed statement. But<br />
the administrator added: "It (the judgement) has not<br />
addressed the issues of detail and stated that such<br />
matters should be addressed by the UK High Court."<br />
Britain's Supreme Court said late last month Lehman<br />
clients whose cash the U.S. investment bank had<br />
mixed with its own have the same rights as clients<br />
whose cash was kept separately or "segregated."<br />
LOWER PAYOUT The Supreme Court ruling is good<br />
news for clients with their money in non-segregated<br />
accounts, but effectively means a lower payout for<br />
segregated account holders, for whom it had always<br />
been clear they could claim their money back.<br />
Fi<strong>na</strong>ncial firms are required to keep money they trade<br />
on clients' behalf separately from their own. Last<br />
month's court ruling said Lehman had failed to do this<br />
"on a spectacular scale." PWC warned on Friday:<br />
"Given the challenges that remain affecting<br />
distributions in both estates, we cannot guarantee<br />
though that a first interim distribution ... will be paid<br />
before the current year-end." The PWC caution will<br />
make grim reading for clients of MF Global, a smaller<br />
futures broker that collapsed at the end of October last<br />
year, as European adminstrator KPMG forges ahead<br />
with its efforts to return monies to MF Global clients.<br />
Richard Heis, special administrator to MF Global, told<br />
Reuters after the court ruling last month: "We now<br />
have a bit more certainty but there are still lots of grey<br />
areas and it looks likely a lot of the issues are going to<br />
need to be resolved by the court." London Stock<br />
Exchange Group Plc said on Friday it had acquired MF<br />
Global's 2.4 percent of LCH.Clearnet as part of the<br />
British exchange's takeover of the clearing house,<br />
netting a further 13.6 million pound for creditors.<br />
40
Reuters General/ - Article, Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Judge to review moving hundreds of<br />
Madoff cases<br />
By Grant McCool NEW YORK | Fri Apr 13, 2012<br />
5:02pm EDT (Reuters) - In the sprawling litigation to<br />
recover money related to Ber<strong>na</strong>rd Madoff's fraud, a<br />
federal judge said he would decide whether a 2011<br />
U.S. Supreme Court ruling prevents a bankruptcy<br />
court from resolving hundreds of lawsuits brought by<br />
the Madoff firm's trustee. Defendants in those cases<br />
have sought to transfer their cases to district court from<br />
bankruptcy court, citing the U.S. Supreme Court<br />
decision involving the estate of former Playboy model<br />
An<strong>na</strong> Nicole Smith that limited the power of bankruptcy<br />
judges to review claims. In an order published Friday,<br />
U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said he will review how<br />
that decision affects cases brought by the trustee,<br />
Irving Picard, against people he believes benefited<br />
improperly from Madoff's fraud. Rakoff consolidated<br />
341 cases in his order and gave the defendants until<br />
June 11 to appoint lead counsel to argue on their<br />
behalf. He scheduled oral argument for June 18.<br />
Smith, who died of a drug overdose in 2007, had<br />
waged a long legal battle to get part of the fortune left<br />
by her late Texas oil baron husband, J. Howard<br />
Marshall, whom she had married in 1994 when she<br />
was 26 and he was 89. Picard was appointed in<br />
December 2008 to recover money for victims of<br />
Madoff, a fi<strong>na</strong>ncier who ran a multibillion-dollar<br />
investment fraud over several decades, swindling<br />
investors large and small across the globe. Madoff<br />
pleaded guilty in March 2009 to what prosecutors and<br />
the trustee have described as the biggest investment<br />
fraud in history. Madoff, 73, is serving a 150-year<br />
prison sentence. Picard, who filed his cases in<br />
bankruptcy court, says he has recoveries and<br />
settlement agreements totaling $9.068 billion, but $6.4<br />
billion of that is u<strong>na</strong>vailable due to appeals and<br />
reserves. Picard says Madoff defrauded customers of<br />
about $20 billion. In the latest settlement last month,<br />
Rakoff oversaw a deal between Picard and the<br />
principal owners of the New York Mets Major League<br />
Baseball team, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, who were<br />
longtime friends with Madoff as well as investors. The<br />
case is Securities Investor Protection Corporation v<br />
Ber<strong>na</strong>rd L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, U.S.<br />
District Court for the Southern District of New York, No.<br />
12-mc-0115. (Reporting By Grant McCool; Editing by<br />
Dan Grebler)<br />
41
Reuters General/ - Article, Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Facebook advertisers lose bid for class<br />
status<br />
By Jo<strong>na</strong>than Stempel Fri Apr 13, 2012 5:51pm EDT<br />
(Reuters) - Facebook Inc, which runs the world's<br />
largest social networking website, won a court ruling<br />
on Friday rejecting a bid by thousands of advertisers to<br />
sue the company as a group for overcharging them.<br />
U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland,<br />
California, denied the advertisers' request for<br />
class-action status, saying they failed to show they had<br />
enough in common to sue for breach of contract and<br />
violating California's unfair competition law. "The court<br />
is persuaded by Facebook's argument that plaintiffs<br />
have not shown that they have a viable method for<br />
proving each class member's recovery," Hamilton<br />
wrote. "The need to determine both liability and<br />
damages on an individualized basis makes this case<br />
i<strong>na</strong>ppropriate for class treatment." Jo<strong>na</strong>than Shub, a<br />
lawyer for the advertisers, declined to comment.<br />
Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said the<br />
company is reviewing the decision. Class certification<br />
often leads to higher recoveries and allows plaintiffs to<br />
cut legal bills. Facebook is expected this year to<br />
conduct perhaps the most anticipated U.S. initial public<br />
offering ever. The Menlo Park, California-based<br />
company is valued at $95.8 billion, according to<br />
SharesPost Inc, which tracks valuations of private<br />
companies. In their 2009 lawsuit, the advertisers<br />
accused Facebook of overcharging them on their<br />
"cost-per-click" contracts, under which they paid fees<br />
each time users clicked their ads. According to the<br />
advertisers, Facebook improperly imposed charges for<br />
nonexistent clicks, for clicked ads that never opened,<br />
for clicks caused by server problems, and for<br />
accidental multiple clicks by individual users, among<br />
other types of clicks. But citing a 2011 U.S. Supreme<br />
Court decision involving Wal-Mart Stores Inc that<br />
limited class-action litigation, Hamilton said the<br />
advertisers showed neither a "systemic breach of<br />
contract" nor enough similarity among the claims<br />
raised. "There is no way to conduct this type of highly<br />
specialized and individualized a<strong>na</strong>lysis for each of the<br />
thousands of advertisers in the proposed class," she<br />
said. Hamilton scheduled a May 17 conference to<br />
discuss how best the case should proceed. The case<br />
is In re: Facebook Inc PPC Advertising Litigation, U.S.<br />
District Court, Northern District of California, No.<br />
09-3043. (Reporting By Jo<strong>na</strong>than Stempel in New<br />
York; Editing by Andre Grenon, Gary Hill)<br />
42
Reuters General/ - Article, Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Tennessee teacher law could boost<br />
creationism, climate denial<br />
By Deborah Zabarenko Fri Apr 13, 2012 12:53pm EDT<br />
(Reuters) - A new Tennessee law protects teachers<br />
who explore the "scientific strengths and scientific<br />
weaknesses" of evolution and climate change, a move<br />
science education advocates say could make it easier<br />
for creationism and global warming denial to enter U.S.<br />
classrooms. The measure, which became law<br />
Tuesday, made Tennessee the second state, after<br />
Louisia<strong>na</strong>, to e<strong>na</strong>ble teachers to more easily teach<br />
alter<strong>na</strong>tive theories to the widely accepted scientific<br />
concepts of evolution and human-caused climate<br />
change. At least five other states considered similar<br />
legislation this year. The heart of the law is protection<br />
for teachers who "help students understand, a<strong>na</strong>lyze,<br />
critique, and review in an objective manner the<br />
scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of<br />
existing scientific theories covered in the course being<br />
taught." Science education advocates say this leaves<br />
latitude for teachers to bring in material on creationism<br />
or climate change denial, which they consider unsound<br />
science. The law was billed as a triumph of academic<br />
freedom by proponents of creationism or intelligent<br />
design, who reject the concept that human beings and<br />
other life forms evolved through random mutation and<br />
<strong>na</strong>tural selection. The Tennessee measure "protects<br />
teachers when they promote critical thinking and<br />
objective discussion about controversial science<br />
issues such as biological evolution, climate change<br />
and human cloning," said a statement from the<br />
Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which promotes<br />
intelligent design. But Brenda Ekwurzel of the Union of<br />
Concerned Scientists saw a risk to education: "We<br />
need to keep kids' curiosity about science alive and not<br />
limit their ability to understand the world around them<br />
by exposing them to misinformation." Tennessee's<br />
action came 87 years after the 1925 "monkey trial" in<br />
which John Thomas Scopes was tried for teaching<br />
evolution in Tennessee. The state legislature<br />
overwhelmingly approved it, and Governor Bill Haslam<br />
let it become law without his sig<strong>na</strong>ture, tacitly<br />
acknowledging that a veto would not be sustained. In a<br />
statement, Haslam said the legislation did not change<br />
the state's scientific standards or school curriculum, or<br />
do anything u<strong>na</strong>cceptable in Tennessee schools. On<br />
such controversial subjects as "biological evolution, the<br />
chemical origins of life, global warming and human<br />
cloning," the law stipulates that teachers cannot be<br />
barred from helping students understand "the scientific<br />
strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing<br />
scientific theories." The law protects the teaching of<br />
scientific information, not religious or non-religious<br />
doctrine, which is important, since that could stray into<br />
unconstitutio<strong>na</strong>l territory. But science educators worry<br />
that teachers could offer unsound science, or<br />
non-science, and be protected by this legislation.<br />
CREATIONISM IN THE CLASSROOM Josh Rose<strong>na</strong>u<br />
of the Natio<strong>na</strong>l Center for Science Education said the<br />
law could easily come between administrators and<br />
teachers, if science teachers bring creationist or<br />
climate change denial ideas into their classes. The<br />
U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that requiring that<br />
creation science be taught in public schools alongside<br />
evolution is unconstitutio<strong>na</strong>l as a violation of the First<br />
Amendment right to freedom of religion. The<br />
Tennessee law might make it harder for administrators<br />
to prevent the introduction of creationism in the<br />
classroom, Rose<strong>na</strong>u said by telephone. And any legal<br />
challenge by parents or others would be "tricky," he<br />
said. He cited a survey of U.S. high school biology<br />
teachers published in the jour<strong>na</strong>l Science in 2011 that<br />
found about 13 percent of those surveyed "explicitly<br />
advocate creationism or intelligent design by spending<br />
at least one hour of class time presenting it in a<br />
positive light." The survey found only about 28 percent<br />
consistently followed Natio<strong>na</strong>l Research Council<br />
recommendations for introducing evidence that<br />
evolution occurred. The rest, about 60 percent,<br />
avoided controversy by limiting evolution instruction to<br />
molecular biology, telling students they need not<br />
believe in evolution to score well on tests, or exposing<br />
students to all positions, scientific and otherwise, to let<br />
them make up their own minds, the article said. ( here )<br />
In teaching climate change, Ekwurzel said the U.S.<br />
Natio<strong>na</strong>l Academy of Sciences offered useful<br />
classroom information in a May 2010 report that<br />
affirmed the reality of climate change, its largely<br />
human cause and the significant risk posed to human<br />
and <strong>na</strong>tural systems. But James Taylor of the<br />
Chicago-based free-market Heartland Institute, which<br />
plans to offer a global warming K-12 curriculum<br />
pointing up scientific disagreement about the impact of<br />
climate change, questioned the academy's<br />
assessment and those who advocate it. "To gloss that<br />
disagreement over, to pretend that it does not exist, is<br />
misrepresenting the science and doing a disservice to<br />
students and teachers alike," Taylor said by phone.<br />
(Reporting By Deborah Zabarenko; Editing by Marilyn<br />
W. Thompson and Cynthia Osterman)<br />
43
Süddeutsche Zeitung/ - Politik, Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Europäischen Gerichtshof )<br />
"Ähnliche psychische Folgen wie durch<br />
Missbrauch"<br />
Interview: Le<strong>na</strong> Jakat<br />
Übersexualisiertes Umfeld, marode Familienstrukturen,<br />
unklare Rollenverteilung: Das sind alles Faktoren, die<br />
Inzest unter Geschwistern begünstigen können. Ein<br />
Gespräch mit dem Psychiater Peer Briken über<br />
sexuelle Grenzüberschreitungen.<br />
Das gesetzliche Verbot einer sexuellen Beziehung<br />
zwischen Geschwistern ist rechtens: Das hat der<br />
Europäische Gerichtshof in Straßburg entschieden.<br />
Ein Urteil, dass eine heftige Debatte in Gang gesetzt<br />
hat - auch unter den Lesern von Süddeutsche.de. Wie<br />
kommt es zu Inzest zwischen Bruder und Schwester?<br />
Welche Rolle spielen Erziehung und eine gemeinsam<br />
verbrachte Kindheit? Peer Briken ist Leiter des Instituts<br />
für Sexualforschung und Forensische Psychiatrie an<br />
der Universitätsklinik Hamburg-Eppendorf. Ein<br />
Gespräch über eines der letzten Tabus unserer<br />
Gesellschaft.<br />
Süddeutsche.de: Herr Briken, wie oft kommt es zu<br />
inzestuösen Beziehungen zwischen Geschwistern?<br />
Peer Briken: Es gibt Daten darüber, dass sexuelle<br />
Erfahrungen in einem weiteren Sinne zwischen<br />
Geschwistern gar nicht so selten sind. Eine Studie<br />
<strong>na</strong>nnte in den 1980erJahren die Zahl von zehn<br />
Prozent aller Kinder. Da geht es aber in der Regel um<br />
Fummeleien oder Berühren. Tatsächliche sexuelle<br />
Grenzverletzungen sind - <strong>na</strong>ch allem was wir darüber<br />
wissen - sehr viel seltener.<br />
Süddeutsche.de: Wie meinen Sie das?<br />
Briken: Bei Inzest zwischen Geschwistern, also<br />
Kindern, herrscht nur sehr selten ein Gleichgewicht. Es<br />
gibt Altersunterschiede und damit unter Umständen<br />
auch ein Machtgefälle. In solchen Fällen kann auch<br />
Zwang eine Rolle spielen, der manchmal auch subtil<br />
ausgeübt wird. Erfahrungen aus der Praxis zeigen: Die<br />
psychischen Folgen einer solchen<br />
Grenzüberschreitung unterscheiden sich manchmal<br />
nicht von denen sexuellen Missbrauchs durch den<br />
Vater oder Stiefvater. Es gibt auch Faktoren, die<br />
verschiedene Arten von Inzest begünstigen können.<br />
Süddeutsche.de: Welche Faktoren sind das?<br />
Briken: Eine übersexualisierte Atmosphäre kann eine<br />
Rolle spielen, das heißt, wenn zum Beispiel die Kinder<br />
gezwungen werden, sich Pornographie anzusehen.<br />
Wenn Kindern die Möglichkeit genommen wird,<br />
Schamgefühle zu entwickeln. Wenn in einer Familie<br />
Gewalt und Suchtmittel eine Rolle spielen. Wenn es an<br />
emotio<strong>na</strong>len Beziehungen fehlt, oder die Rollen der<br />
verschiedenen Generationen nicht klar verteilt sind.<br />
Auch Missbrauchserfahrungen der Eltern können da<br />
relevant sein.<br />
Süddeutsche.de: Macht es einen Unterschied, wenn<br />
der Inzest zwischen Geschwistern, also innerhalb<br />
einer Generation, stattfindet?<br />
Briken: Wissenschaftlich sind solche Fälle bislang nur<br />
wenig untersucht. Das liegt auch daran, dass von einer<br />
sehr großen Dunkelziffer auszugehen ist. Aber ich<br />
nehme an, dass durch die große Nähe zwischen<br />
Geschwistern Scham und Schuldgefühle auf andere<br />
Weise berührt werden. Außerdem sind die Grenzen<br />
dessen, was erlaubt ist und was nicht, unter<br />
Umständen weniger klar.<br />
Süddeutsche.de: Können sich Bruder und Schwester<br />
verlieben?<br />
Briken: Schwärmereien für die Geschwister sind an der<br />
Tagesordnung und gehören zur kindlichen<br />
Entwicklung. Eine Liebe über längere Zeit mit sexueller<br />
Beziehung ist eher die Aus<strong>na</strong>hme.<br />
Süddeutsche.de: Entwickelt sich bei Kindern, die<br />
gemeinsam aufwachsen, eine Art <strong>na</strong>türliche<br />
Inzest-Barriere?<br />
Briken: Es gibt Hinweise darauf, dass sich Grenzen im<br />
Kindesalter entwickeln, die so nicht vorliegen, wenn<br />
sich zum Beispiel Bruder und Schwester erst im<br />
Erwachsene<strong>na</strong>lter begegnen. Solche Grenzen werden<br />
durch gemeinsame Erfahrungen in der Kindheit<br />
gezogen, unter anderem durch die Erziehung und<br />
soziokulturelle Faktoren. Das Inzestverbot ist ja<br />
vielerorts in unserer Gesellschaft verankert. Dieses<br />
gesellschaftliche Tabu hat wahrscheinlich auch<br />
biologische Ursachen.<br />
Süddeutsche.de: Weiß man etwas über die Kinder, die<br />
aus solchen Beziehungen hervorgehen?<br />
Briken: Ich hatte mit einigen solcher Kinder Kontakt,<br />
44
die psychisch sehr angegriffen waren. Aber das muss<br />
nicht repräsentativ sein, sondern hat mit dem<br />
klinischen Umfeld zu tun, in dem ich tätig bin.<br />
Süddeutsche.de: Wie bewerten Sie die Entscheidung<br />
des Europäischen Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte,<br />
der das deutsche Inzest-Verbot für rechtens erklärt<br />
hat?<br />
Briken: Wie bei vielen normativen<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung/ - Politik, Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Europäischen Gerichtshof )<br />
Entscheidungsprozessen gibt es hier wohl kein<br />
absolutes richtig oder falsch. Im Hintergrund gibt es da<br />
einfach eine Vielzahl von Schwierigkeiten, die<br />
Berücksichtigung finden müssten. Dass<br />
Geschwisterinzest mit Homosexualität und Ehebruch<br />
in eine Reihe gestellt wird, halte ich für fraglich. Denn<br />
zahlenmäßig ist Geschwisterinzest doch eher eine<br />
Randerscheinung.<br />
45
Süddeutsche Zeitung/ - Politik, Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Europäischen Gerichtshof )<br />
Warum das Inzestverbot widersinnig ist<br />
Ein Kommentar von Helmut Kerscher<br />
Mit der Billigung des deutschen Inzestverbots hat der<br />
europäische Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte nicht<br />
gerade eine Ruhmestat vollbracht. Die Entscheidung<br />
hilft niemandem, weder Befürwortern, noch Gegnern,<br />
schon gar nicht den Klägern. Nun liegt es an der<br />
Politik, auch das letzte Tabu von der Strafbarkeit zu<br />
befreien - wie früher Ehebruch, Kuppelei und<br />
Homosexualität.<br />
Das Straßburger Urteil zur "Blutschande" ist gewiss<br />
kein Schandurteil. Es ist aber auch kein Ruhmesblatt<br />
für den Europäischen Gerichtshof für<br />
Menschenrechte. Die Entscheidung hilft weder den<br />
Befürwortern der Strafbarkeit "verbotener Liebe" unter<br />
erwachsenen Geschwistern noch den Gegnern und<br />
schon gar nicht dem Kläger.<br />
Im Kern begnügt sich das Gericht mit einer<br />
Zustandsbeschreibung - einerseits der<br />
unterschiedlichen Rechtslage in den 47 Ländern des<br />
Europarats, andererseits der eigenen Rolle. Die ist<br />
zunehmend von Zurückhaltung gegenüber den<br />
<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>len Gerichten und Rechtsordnungen geprägt,<br />
wozu die Kritik aus Deutschland und Großbritannien<br />
wesentlich beigetragen hat. Und wovon zuletzt<br />
insbesondere diese Länder profitiert haben.<br />
So akzeptierte Straßburg nun eine auf schwachen<br />
Füßen stehende Entscheidung des<br />
Bundesverfassungsgerichts vom März 2008 für die<br />
Strafbarkeit des Geschwister-Inzests. Alles, was<br />
dagegen an überzeugenden Gründen gesagt werden<br />
kann, ist bereits gesagt. Nicht bloß von Kritikern in der<br />
Wissenschaft und in den Medien, sondern am besten<br />
vom damaligen Gerichtsvizepräsidenten Winfried<br />
Hassemer.<br />
In seinem Sondervotum beschrieb er präzise den<br />
Unsinn einer Bestrafung des einvernehmlichen<br />
Beischlafs unter leiblichen Geschwistern: Die<br />
Strafdrohung sei unklar und widersprüchlich; sie sei<br />
nicht auf den Schutz von Ehe und Familie<br />
zugeschnitten, schütze nicht die sexuelle<br />
Selbstbestimmung und sie dürfe nicht auf die Gefahr<br />
von Erbschäden gestützt werden. Hassemer<br />
widerlegte das Argument, das Gesetz solle eine im<br />
Familienverband schwächere Person (im konkreten<br />
Fall die Schwester) schützen. Diesen Zweck habe die<br />
Se<strong>na</strong>tsmehrheit dem Gesetz <strong>na</strong>chträglich unterlegt,<br />
der Gesetzgeber habe sich nicht darauf berufen.<br />
Die Angst vor genetischen Schäden<br />
Den u<strong>na</strong>usgesprochen zentralen Grund sowohl des<br />
gesellschaftlichen Tabus als auch des daraus<br />
folgenden strafrechtlichen Inzest-Verbots - die<br />
möglichen Erbschäden - referiert Straßburg nur. Hinter<br />
der eugenischen Begründung steckt aber eine Absicht,<br />
die nicht nur in Deutschland mit seiner schrecklichen<br />
NS-Geschichte ethisch unhaltbar ist: Das erhöhte<br />
Risiko von Erbschäden rechtfertigt kein strafrechtliches<br />
Verbot.<br />
Oder will irgendjemand weiteren Risikogruppen, etwa<br />
Frauen über 40 oder Menschen mit Erbkrankheiten,<br />
die Fortpflanzung bei Strafe verbieten? Will jemand im<br />
Jahr 2012 erwartbare Behinderungen bei Strafe<br />
verhindern und damit behinderten Kindern das<br />
Lebensrecht absprechen? Absurd. Und doch prägt die<br />
Angst vor genetischen Schäden die Strafbarkeit des<br />
Beischlafs unter leiblichen, erwachsenen<br />
Geschwistern.<br />
Der Paragraph 173 richtet sich nämlich gerade nicht<br />
gegen Geschwister in den heute häufigen<br />
Patchwork-Familien, nicht gegen Adoptivfamilien, nicht<br />
gegen Verschwägerte, nicht gegen Cousin und<br />
Cousine. Und dieses Strafgesetz richtet sich auch<br />
nicht allgemein gegen sexuelle Handlungen zwischen<br />
leiblichen Geschwistern - die Möglichkeiten würden<br />
"nur punktuell verkürzt", hieß es geradezu zynisch in<br />
der jetzt von den Straßburger Richtern gebilligten<br />
Karlsruher Entscheidung. Gemeint ist das<br />
ausschließliche Verbot des Beischlafs, der zur<br />
Befruchtung führen könnte. Das Ziel des Verbots ist im<br />
Ergebnis, was die Nazis als "Verhütung erbkranken<br />
Nachwuchses" bezeichnet haben.<br />
46
Süddeutsche Zeitung/ - Politik, Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Europäischen Gerichtshof )<br />
Klage von Hinterbliebenen gegen UN<br />
abgelehnt<br />
Das Oberste Gericht der Niederlande hat einen<br />
Vorstoß abgelehnt, die Vereinten Nationen wegen des<br />
Versagens ihrer Friedenstruppen beim Massaker von<br />
Srebrenica zu verklagen. Hinterbliebene der Opfer<br />
wollten eine Klage anstrengen. Die UN genössen<br />
Straffreiheit, urteilten die Richter.<br />
Die "Mütter von Srebrenica" ge<strong>na</strong>nnte Gruppe hatte<br />
sich dafür eingesetzt, die UN vor niederländischen<br />
Gerichten zur Rechenschaft zu ziehen. Die Anwälte<br />
der 6.000 Hinterbliebenen kündigten in einer<br />
Stellung<strong>na</strong>hme an, vor den Europäischen Gerichtshof<br />
für Menschenrechte zu ziehen.<br />
In der bosnischen Enklave Srebrenica wurden im Juli<br />
1995 mehr als 8.000 muslimische Jungen und Männer<br />
von serbischen Truppen getötet. Es war das<br />
schlimmste Massaker seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg.<br />
47
The New York Times/ - U.S., Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
One Fate in Tulsa for 3 Strangers<br />
Familiar With Struggle<br />
By MANNY FERNANDEZ TULSA, Okla. — Shortly<br />
after midnight on Good Friday here, Bobby Clark was<br />
standing at the corner, waiting for his brother. Dan<strong>na</strong>er<br />
Fields was walking home after playing dominoes at a<br />
friend’s house. William Allen was walking, too, headed<br />
home after visiting his brother. In the close-knit world<br />
of north Tulsa, the three of them were strangers, two<br />
men and a woman who happened to be out on the<br />
streets late at night, in the middle of a mundane<br />
moment. But they had more in common than they<br />
could have imagined. The predomi<strong>na</strong>ntly black<br />
neighborhoods where they lived — home to crime,<br />
poverty and hundreds of boarded-up homes and<br />
businesses — have known struggle, and so had they.<br />
Mr. Clark, 54, who as a tee<strong>na</strong>ger was given a<br />
diagnosis of schizophrenia, used to be homeless and<br />
had moved in with his brother after being evicted from<br />
the public-housing apartment where he lived. Ms.<br />
Fields, 49, overcame drug addiction; she, too, moved<br />
in with her brother after an eviction. In a<br />
three-square-mile area of north Tulsa in the span of<br />
one hour on April 6, the authorities say, two men drove<br />
up to Mr. Clark, Ms. Fields and Mr. Allen, asked them<br />
for directions and then fatally shot them, part of a<br />
series of attacks that left two others wounded and<br />
terrified the second-largest city in Oklahoma. The five<br />
victims were black. One of the suspects, Alvin L.<br />
Watts, 32, is white, and the other, Jacob C. England,<br />
19, is an American Indian who has also described<br />
himself as white. On Friday, prosecutors formally<br />
charged Mr. England and Mr. Watts with hate crimes.<br />
The two men were each charged with three counts of<br />
first-degree murder, two counts of shooting with intent<br />
to kill and five counts of malicious harassment, the<br />
equivalent of hate crimes under state law. The<br />
shootings unfolded the day after Mr. England used a<br />
racial slur on Facebook to describe the man he<br />
believed had killed his father, Carl, in April 2010.<br />
Prosecutors declined to file homicide charges against<br />
the man who was a person of interest in the case,<br />
Pernell Jefferson. They determined that Mr. Jefferson,<br />
who is black, was justified using deadly force in<br />
self-defense under Oklahoma law. In a statement on<br />
Friday, Doug Drummond, the first assistant district<br />
attorney for Tulsa County, said he would not comment<br />
about the specific evidence for any of the charges<br />
against Mr. England and Mr. Watts, both of whom the<br />
police said had confessed after their arrest on Sunday.<br />
“Filing charges is the first step to obtain justice for the<br />
victims and their families,” Mr. Drummond said. “This is<br />
a tragic and senseless crime. Our office is committed<br />
to holding those responsible accountable for their<br />
actions.” The potential punishment on each<br />
first-degree murder charge is life with parole, life<br />
without parole or the death pe<strong>na</strong>lty. Mr. Drummond<br />
said the decision whether to seek the death pe<strong>na</strong>lty<br />
against the two men would be determined later. The<br />
charges were announced the day of the first funeral,<br />
for Mr. Clark. At a chapel not far from the scenes of the<br />
shootings, Mr. Clark’s brothers and relatives and<br />
several black leaders and Tulsa officials, including the<br />
Rev. Jesse Jackson and Mayor Dewey F. Bartlett Jr.,<br />
gathered before his coffin to sing and pray. In his<br />
remarks to mourners and in an interview after the<br />
service, Mr. Jackson likened Mr. Clark’s death to those<br />
of Trayvon Martin, the u<strong>na</strong>rmed 17-year-old who was<br />
shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in<br />
Florida, and Emmett Till, the 14-year-old whose<br />
murder in Mississippi in 1955 was a catalyst of the civil<br />
rights movement. “Emmett Till was not famous,” Mr.<br />
Jackson said outside the Crown Hill Chapel. “Trayvon<br />
Martin was not famous. And yet it is the power of the<br />
blood of the innocent that often is redeeming to us all.”<br />
Mr. Clark — who was the son of a school bus driver<br />
and who grew up in the Seminole Hills public-housing<br />
complex — walked around the city with his<br />
auburn-colored acoustic guitar slung across his back,<br />
and he would often play for friends at the downtown<br />
Tulsa homeless shelter where he once stayed, the<br />
Tulsa Day Center for the Homeless. He was<br />
unemployed, and had survived on his disability check.<br />
Every Tuesday morning, he would pick up a portion of<br />
his check from the homeless center’s executive<br />
director, Sandra Lewis, whom he had known for years.<br />
“He was not the stereotypical version of a<br />
schizophrenic man,” Ms. Lewis said. “Bobby didn’t<br />
have a mean bone in his body. He was a very kind and<br />
gentle man. Never cross. Never cranky. Never had a<br />
bad day that I ever saw.” On Friday at the chapel, Ms.<br />
Lewis and Mr. Clark’s relatives and friends reminisced<br />
about him, telling stories about the Kool-Aid that he<br />
made so sweet no one else could drink it, and about<br />
his love of Jimi Hendrix riffs. There was little anger<br />
displayed for Mr. England and Mr. Watts by relatives<br />
and friends, even after word spread that the two men<br />
were being charged with hate crimes. “Justice needs<br />
to be served,” said Donnie Clark, 56, one of Mr. Clark’s<br />
three brothers. “We didn’t know them. Maybe if they<br />
would have known us it wouldn’t have happened.” Ms.<br />
Fields’s funeral is Saturday. Services for Mr. Allen, 31,<br />
48
a <strong>na</strong>tive of Hattiesburg, Miss., will be Tuesday. Ms.<br />
Fields did not know Mr. Clark, but members of their<br />
families knew one another: one of Mr. Clark’s brothers<br />
was friends with one of Ms. Fields’s brothers, Kenneth<br />
Fields. Ms. Fields was known as Don<strong>na</strong> because<br />
people had trouble pronouncing her first <strong>na</strong>me,<br />
Dan<strong>na</strong>er, which sounds like Danner. She was an<br />
active member of Rentie Grove Baptist Church, and<br />
after becoming seriously ill a few years ago, she<br />
The New York Times/ - U.S., Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
stopped abusing drugs and alcohol, turning more than<br />
ever to her faith, those close to her said. She often<br />
walked home late at night after playing dominoes at a<br />
friend’s house, and her brother would caution her. “I<br />
had been telling her, ‘You don’t need to walk that late<br />
in the morning,’ ” said Mr. Fields, 58. “But she said, ‘I<br />
got Jesus on my side.’ That’s what she would always<br />
say. ‘I got Jesus on my side.’ ”<br />
49
By CHARLES M. BLOW America has heard the calls<br />
for justice from a Florida family. A boy’s blood had<br />
been spilled on a rain-soaked patch of grass behind a<br />
row of mustard-colored condominiums by a man who<br />
had pursued him against the advice of 911<br />
dispatchers. That man carried a 9-millimeter handgun.<br />
The boy carried a bag of candy. Yet it seems, largely<br />
on the weight of his own word, the man who killed the<br />
boy was allowed to walk out of the police station that<br />
night without even a charge. The boy’s body was taken<br />
to the medical examiner’s office and kept in a morgue.<br />
The man who killed him was able to return home. The<br />
dead boy was Trayvon Martin. The man who killed him<br />
was George Zimmerman. The bullet that passed<br />
between them silenced a child but ignited a <strong>na</strong>tion.<br />
Americans saw the anguish of the boy’s father and the<br />
tears of his mother. America saw a child who was its<br />
own. America saw its concept of basic fairness sinking<br />
in to the marsh of miscarried justice. So America rose<br />
up. Thousands marched in the streets. Millions signed<br />
petitions online. Hearts poured out for justice to rain<br />
down. With the force of public pressure at its back, the<br />
system kicked into gear. A state attorney in the Florida<br />
county where the shooting death occurred recused<br />
himself, and the local police chief stepped down — at<br />
least “temporarily.” The governor appointed a special<br />
prosecutor, Angela Corey, to lead the state’s<br />
investigation in the case, and the United States<br />
Department of Justice’s civil rights division and the<br />
F.B.I. opened their own investigations. On<br />
Wednesday, Corey charged Zimmerman with<br />
second-degree murder and he was taken into custody.<br />
On Thursday, Zimmerman appeared in a Florida<br />
courtroom, and Corey released a simple but chilling<br />
affidavit for probable cause that painted a disturbing<br />
portrait of Zimmerman as a man who “profiled,”<br />
“followed” and “confronted” the boy. This is a moment<br />
when America should be proud. The wheels of justice<br />
are fi<strong>na</strong>lly turning. The State of Florida has taken up<br />
the cause of the dead boy. His life is no more, but his<br />
legacy will live forever. The state will vigorously<br />
prosecute, and Zimmerman will be vigorously<br />
defended as is his constitutio<strong>na</strong>l right. The facts should<br />
come out in court and under oath and not just over<br />
The New York Times/ - The Opinion Pages, Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
Justice for Trayvon<br />
airwaves and in newspapers. Truth will be sought and,<br />
hopefully, found. And whatever the verdict, it will be<br />
based on the presentation of evidence and the<br />
interpretation of the law, as it should be. That is not to<br />
say that the quest for justice in this case has been<br />
without incident. Some have sought to demagogue the<br />
boy’s death and shroud his lifeless body in partisan<br />
politics. Some have pressed their passion for justice<br />
beyond the bounds of what is proper. Some have<br />
sought to besmirch the boy’s life to minimize the<br />
reso<strong>na</strong>nce of his death. But, in the end, all of this was<br />
just a diversion from the central issue, a noble good, a<br />
moral right: the quest for truth and justice for a child by<br />
the people who loved him and a <strong>na</strong>tion who refused to<br />
forget him. None but those who themselves have lost a<br />
child can ever know his parents’ pain, but we can all<br />
sympathize with their sorrow. America doesn’t always<br />
get it right, but she is in her greatest glory when she<br />
turns her face toward righteousness. She is not<br />
perfect, but men and women of good will and good<br />
conscience toil endlessly to make her better. And, in<br />
this case, America seems to be fi<strong>na</strong>lly getting it right<br />
because equal justice under the law is one of her<br />
greatest ideals. By the way, it is important to remember<br />
here that no one should take joy in any dark days that<br />
may come Zimmerman’s way, even as we take great<br />
joy in seeking justice for the child he killed. Crusading<br />
for justice is an act of love and honor, not of<br />
vengeance or spite or hatred. Justice is a high calling,<br />
not a low pursuit. And, because of Florida’s Stand<br />
Your Ground law and Zimmerman’s claim of<br />
self-defense, there is a possibility that the case may<br />
never go to trial or, even if it does, there will be no<br />
conviction. But whatever the outcome, satisfaction<br />
must be taken in the fact that the system recognized<br />
the value of Trayvon’s life and the tragic circumstances<br />
of his death. As his mother said after the charge was<br />
announced: “We simply wanted an arrest. We wanted<br />
nothing more, nothing less. We just wanted an arrest.<br />
And we got it. And I just want to say, ‘Thank you.<br />
Thank you, Lord. Thank You, Jesus.’ ” I invite you to<br />
join me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter, or<br />
e-mail me at chblow@nytimes.com.<br />
50
The New York Times/ - N.Y./Region, Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
Mornings After, Many of Them<br />
A Review of ‘Carry It On,’ in Red Bank, N.J. By ANITA<br />
GATES Fairly early in “Carry It On,” Maureen<br />
McGovern imagines the tabloid headline when she<br />
dies: “Disaster-Theme Queen Bites the Dust” appears<br />
on a Natio<strong>na</strong>l Enquirer-like page on the wall-size video<br />
screen upstage. And that’s as good an introduction to<br />
Ms. McGovern as any. You know her <strong>na</strong>me, of course,<br />
but it is understandable if all you can think of when you<br />
reflect on her voice is that plaintive song “The Morning<br />
After” from the movie “The Poseidon Adventure”<br />
(1972) or the equally poig<strong>na</strong>nt “We May Never Love<br />
Like This Again” from the equally disaster-filled<br />
“Towering Inferno” (1974). Ms. McGovern’s career took<br />
off with those recordings when she was in her early<br />
20s, and both won Oscars for best song. Then she sort<br />
of disappeared. At 62 — although she says she<br />
prefers to give her age “in Celsius: 17” — Ms.<br />
McGovern is sharing both her career<br />
rise-and-fall-and-rise story and a good bit about her<br />
perso<strong>na</strong>l life in this almost-solo show, Two River<br />
Theater Company’s latest main stage production. It’s<br />
an uneven but eventually satisfying mix of songs and<br />
anecdotes. The first full-length musical number is “The<br />
Times They Are a-Changin’,” and the jarring<br />
arrangement is enough to make Bob Dylan react the<br />
way Rick Santorum says he does to the separation of<br />
church and state. Jeffrey Harris, the show’s pianist,<br />
also did the show’s music direction and arrangements,<br />
and he has devised some irritatingly show-offy<br />
passages for himself. The second-worst example of his<br />
overwrought work is Laura Nyro’s “And When I Die”<br />
(“There’ll be one child born and a world to carry on”),<br />
and it happens to be the fi<strong>na</strong>le. Thank heaven there is<br />
a different encore. Ms. McGovern’s patter seems<br />
forced and artificial at first, too, going on about “The<br />
Wizard of Oz,” Emily Dickinson, her childhood home in<br />
Ohio and her musical idols, including Judy Collins and<br />
Mary Travers. It would have been nice if Philip<br />
Himberg, the director and the star’s co-author, could<br />
have forced a little more liveliness into those<br />
anecdotes. But Ms. McGovern either eases into them<br />
or becomes carried away with memories of social<br />
activism. “The 1960s sort of snuck up on me,” she<br />
says, and goes into Joni Mitchell’s classic “Circle<br />
Game” (“The seasons, they go round and round”).<br />
However, by the time she does the title number, a<br />
protest anthem by Joan Baez, with a backdrop of<br />
violent scenes from the civil rights movement, the<br />
audience is hers. In the best numbers, her voice is big,<br />
powerful and capable of crystal-clear notes with layers<br />
of emotion. Maya Ciarrocchi’s projection design is a<br />
significant part of the show. It’s not wildly innovative,<br />
but the images are well chosen and artistically edited.<br />
Ms. McGovern sings “The White Cliffs of Dover” to a<br />
portrait of her father in his World War II uniform. She<br />
sings “When I’m 64” and “Let It Be” in front of a<br />
changing collage of the Beatles in their youth. But it is<br />
annoying when the cover of Carole King’s “Tapestry”<br />
album (1971) fills the screen, followed by only a few<br />
lines of “You’ve Got a Friend.” An image like that<br />
seems to promise a medley. (Considerably later, she<br />
does “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”) The show also<br />
suffers from some common flaws of contemporary<br />
revues. Too many great songs are begun but cut off<br />
after a few bars. Whether it stems from rights and<br />
permissions problems or a desire for an extensive<br />
song list, the practice is just frustrating for audiences.<br />
Some numbers seem like time-fillers or attempts at<br />
Shakespearean-style comic relief, like the medley of<br />
funny sounds in 20th-century pop lyrics, from<br />
ting-tang-walla-walla-bing-bang to the<br />
<strong>na</strong>h-<strong>na</strong>h-<strong>na</strong>h-<strong>na</strong>h of “Hey Jude.” And aside from loving<br />
reminiscences of Ms. McGovern’s parents, her life<br />
story seems a dispiriting series of encounters with<br />
seemingly good people who went on to betray her.<br />
Don’t even ask how she feels about the man who<br />
directed her on Broadway in “The Threepenny Opera.”<br />
Mortality, loss and the passing of time are major<br />
themes in “Carry It On,” which should not be a surprise<br />
for a performer now in the fifth decade of her musical<br />
and acting career. And bittersweet is what Ms.<br />
McGovern does best. “Carry It On,” by Philip Himberg<br />
and Maureen McGovern, is at Two River Theater<br />
Company, 21 Bridge Avenue, Red Bank, through April<br />
22. Information: (732) 345-1400 or trtc.org.<br />
51
‘The Real Romney,’ by Michael Kranish and Scott<br />
Helman By GEOFFREY KABASERVICE It’s unlikely<br />
that Mitt Romney saw the film “The Graduate” when it<br />
appeared in 1967. He was a 20-year-old Mormon<br />
missio<strong>na</strong>ry in France at the time, isolated from the<br />
cultural influences that shaped most Americans of the<br />
baby-boom generation, and his taste in movies ran to<br />
more wholesome fare like “The Sound of Music.” If he<br />
had seen it, though, one doubts that he would have<br />
scoffed along with his contemporaries during the<br />
scene in which a smarmy businessman declares that<br />
the key to the future is “plastics.” He might have<br />
considered it useful career advice. Critics have noted<br />
Romney’s plastic qualities ever since he entered<br />
politics: the elasticity of his views, the android<br />
awkwardness of his interactions with voters, his slick<br />
evasions and platitudes, his sculptured features and<br />
molded hair, and his apparent lack of appetites and<br />
passions. But plastic is also durable and<br />
indispensable, and although a majority of Republican<br />
voters in the primaries so far have preferred Anyone<br />
but Romney, he appears poised to win the party’s<br />
presidential nomi<strong>na</strong>tion. Despite the growing possibility<br />
that Romney may soon occupy the <strong>na</strong>tion’s highest<br />
office, he remains an enigma to most Americans, and<br />
his campaign seems predicated on the hope that<br />
voters will see in his smooth surfaces whatever they<br />
want to see. The great service of this new biography<br />
by the Boston Globe jour<strong>na</strong>lists Michael Kranish and<br />
Scott Helman is that it humanizes Romney. The<br />
authors sniff over their subject with bloodhound<br />
thoroughness, dredging up old report cards, housing<br />
deeds, and family records and videos. They interview<br />
seemingly everyone who had contact with Romney in<br />
every phase of his life. They conclude that he is in<br />
many ways an admirable man, deeply devoted to his<br />
religion and family and possessing stellar qualities that<br />
made him a success in business and public service,<br />
including his leadership of the 2002 Winter Olympics<br />
and his governorship of Massachusetts from 2003 to<br />
2007. But “The Real Romney” leaves an unsettling<br />
impression. Romney’s peculiar misfortune is that the<br />
things that defined him have become liabilities in his<br />
presidential pursuit, leading him to minimize or<br />
repudiate his own beliefs, legacy and<br />
accomplishments. Even as he shifts into the<br />
front-runner’s role, he is running on who he is not —<br />
<strong>na</strong>mely, Barack Obama — rather than on who he is,<br />
and cannot stand openly for the things that matter<br />
most to him. If Obama is our first post-racial president,<br />
Romney, with his strategy of absences and denials,<br />
bids to become our first postmodern president.<br />
Romney’s political problems begin, in a basic sense,<br />
Romney vs. Romney<br />
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CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
with his family history. The authors trace the<br />
intertwined histories of Romney’s ancestors and the<br />
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, beginning<br />
with his great-great-grandfather Miles Archibald<br />
Romney, who became an early convert to Mormonism<br />
in 1837. Mitt’s great-grandfather had undertaken the<br />
pioneer journey to the Utah Territory as a boy, and<br />
when he refused to abandon what Mormons<br />
considered the divinely ordained practice of “plural<br />
marriage” — he had three wives at that point — he fled<br />
federal agents to establish a colony in Mexico; the<br />
family remained there after the Mormon Church<br />
agreed to ban po-lygamy in 1890 as a condition of<br />
Utah’s gaining statehood. Mitt’s grandfather was not<br />
polygamous and returned destitute to the United<br />
States after Mexican rebels confiscated the colony’s<br />
property. Mitt’s father, George Romney, was elected<br />
governor of Michigan in 1962, ran unsuccessfully for<br />
president in 1968, and became a member of Richard<br />
Nixon’s cabinet as secretary of housing and urban<br />
-development. It’s an exotic but unquestio<strong>na</strong>bly<br />
American success story, even though the first<br />
generations of Mormon Romneys spent their lives in<br />
bitter conflict with the United States. Mitt Romney<br />
takes evident “pride in his standing” as a member of<br />
“one of Mormonism’s first families,” according to<br />
Kranish and Helman. He has given the church millions<br />
of dollars and has occupied high positions in its<br />
hierarchy. He abides by his faith’s prohibitions on<br />
alcohol, tobacco, caffeine and profanity. The authors<br />
portray him as an adoring husband, a devoted father<br />
and a doer of many unpublicized good deeds.<br />
Mormonism’s emphasis on family, patriotism,<br />
community and hard work explains much of Romney’s<br />
worldview. The church’s generous support of Mormons<br />
in need, fi<strong>na</strong>nced by the 10 percent tithe on members<br />
like Romney, may give him the idea that the poor are<br />
well taken care of in America. And his criticism of “the<br />
bitter politics of envy” echoes his father’s complaint<br />
that his family was forced from his childhood home<br />
“because the Mexicans were envious of the fact that<br />
my people . . . became prosperous.” Romney’s plastic<br />
image to some extent stems from his difficulty in<br />
relating to people outside Mormon circles, though<br />
within those circles he is seen as warm, funny and<br />
charming. His upstanding life fails to win Romney the<br />
political credit that would normally extend to such a<br />
paragon, because many people do not understand or<br />
approve of the religion that inspires him. Over the last<br />
several years, about a quarter of Americans have told<br />
poll takers they would not vote for a Mormon. Liberals<br />
are skeptical of a religion that until 1978 refused to<br />
grant full membership to anybody with even one drop<br />
52
of African blood and still bars women from the<br />
priesthood. Mormon leaders have supported extreme<br />
right-wing organizations like the John Birch Society,<br />
denounced the theory of evolution, condemned much<br />
of American popular culture, and led the fights against<br />
the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and the gay<br />
marriage movement over the past decade. Christian<br />
conservatives might be expected to support<br />
Mormonism’s political agenda, but many believe that<br />
the religion is not Christian but a heretical and even<br />
satanic cult. Because of this opposition from both left<br />
and right, Romney is forced to play down his distinctive<br />
heritage, resorting instead to generalized expressions<br />
of faith and patriotism. A similar bipartisan mistrust<br />
extends to Romney’s accomplishments in business<br />
and politics. Kranish and Helman illumi<strong>na</strong>te Romney’s<br />
work for Bain & Company and its private equity<br />
offshoot, Bain Capital. Prudence, aptitude for<br />
data-driven a<strong>na</strong>lysis and providence e<strong>na</strong>bled Romney<br />
and his team to report what the authors call “the<br />
highest returns in the business in the 1990s” and gave<br />
Romney a fortune that they estimate as “at least $250<br />
million, and maybe much more.” But many Americans<br />
have reservations about leveraged-buyout firms like<br />
Bain that acquired struggling companies using<br />
borrowed money, saddled them with enormous debt,<br />
and often walked away with incredible profits no matter<br />
whether the companies prospered or went bust. Even<br />
many Tea Party conservatives resent the “creative<br />
destruction” that the fi<strong>na</strong>ncial industry brought to bear<br />
on companies and communities, and see the<br />
loopholes that allowed investors like Romney to pay<br />
taxes at lower rates than many working-class<br />
Americans as further evidence that the economic<br />
system is rigged in favor of the 1 percent. In 1994,<br />
when he was trying to displace the liberal icon Ted<br />
Kennedy from the Se<strong>na</strong>te, Romney cast himself as<br />
what Kranish and Helman characterize as “a<br />
passio<strong>na</strong>te supporter of abortion rights,” as well as a<br />
“socially innovative” advocate of gay rights (although<br />
not gay marriage), progressive taxation and gun<br />
control. He retained these positions as the Republican<br />
governor of a Democratic state. His sig<strong>na</strong>ture political<br />
accomplishment was the bipartisan passage of<br />
breakthrough health care reform, which the authors<br />
deem an overall success, particularly in achieving<br />
near-universal insurance coverage for Massachusetts<br />
residents. Romney’s quest to become the presidential<br />
nominee of the conservative--domi<strong>na</strong>ted Republican<br />
Party, though, has required him to jettison his past<br />
positions as well as distance himself from his health<br />
care program, which was the model for President<br />
Obama’s. The authors manfully resist the urge to call<br />
Romney a hypocrite for these reversals. They suggest<br />
that he has been “applying a business model to<br />
politics,” and that in business, “changing positions in<br />
an evolving market can be the secret of survival.”<br />
Unfortu<strong>na</strong>tely, he has not so far succeeded in showing<br />
The New York Times/ - Politics, Sex, 13 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
that “his shifts were not expedient but reasoned and<br />
heartfelt.” As a result, Romney hasn’t convinced<br />
conservatives he has seen the light, while moderates<br />
and liberals hope he doesn’t really believe in the<br />
increasingly extreme positions he has espoused. The<br />
argument that Romney is not a moderate at heart<br />
emerges most clearly in the book’s comparisons<br />
between him and his father, who was a leader of the<br />
moderate wing of the Republican Party in the 1960s<br />
and ’70s. This is ironic, since Mitt has said he “grew up<br />
idolizing” his father, and the authors imply that his<br />
motivation for wanting to be president is “avenging his<br />
father’s loss” in 1968. But Romney appears to have<br />
little in common politically with his father, and his<br />
candidacy in no way aims to uphold the moderate<br />
legacy his father embodied. George Romney was born<br />
into exile and raised in poverty, and he worked his way<br />
to prosperity in the automobile industry. As chairman<br />
of the American Motors Corporation, he was wealthy<br />
but nowhere near as rich as his son became and,<br />
unlike his son, was known for refusing bonuses that<br />
would have made his income too many multiples of the<br />
average worker’s salary. Civil rights for<br />
African-Americans was George Romney’s lifelong,<br />
passio<strong>na</strong>te cause, undertaken in defiance of his<br />
church as well as the conservative wing of his party;<br />
Mitt has shown scant incli<strong>na</strong>tion to follow his father’s<br />
example. Where George saw the dissent and protest<br />
of the 1960s as legitimate responses to real social and<br />
political problems, Mitt saw only inexplicable disorder<br />
and lack of proper deference toward authority. George<br />
Romney governed at a time when Republican<br />
moderation meant something. He stood not only for<br />
pro-business fiscal conservatism but for civil rights and<br />
civil liberties, Republican outreach to minorities and<br />
labor, an inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>list but noninterventionist foreign<br />
policy, wise public investments in infrastructure and<br />
education, and government programs to promote<br />
equal opportunities for all Americans. If his son has the<br />
courage to champion such positions in the face of<br />
conservative opposition within his party, he has given<br />
little indication of it in his campaign so far. On the<br />
evidence in this biography, Mitt Romney is not so<br />
much a plastic politician as a perso<strong>na</strong>lly upstanding<br />
and generally conservative man who will do whatever<br />
it takes to be elected president. His idiosyncratic<br />
background and deliberate efforts to obscure his<br />
beliefs and accomplishments mean that his election<br />
would not represent a victory for the conservative<br />
movement, but most likely would significantly<br />
advantage the right nonetheless. The blurred outlines<br />
of “the real Romney” may come into focus only if and<br />
when he occupies the White House. Geoffrey<br />
Kabaservice’s latest book is “Rule and Ruin: The<br />
Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the<br />
Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party.”<br />
53
14/04/2012
Quinta-feira, 19 de Abril de 2012<br />
14/04/2012<br />
ABC Digital - Nacio<strong>na</strong>les<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Magistrados latinoamericanos respaldan a la Corte, 57<br />
Business Line - Markets<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
UP to take action against schools violating RTE Act, 58<br />
Correo Peru - Política<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Viceministro Figallo justidica que caso 'Madre Mía' se vea en fueros externos, 59<br />
Corriere Della Será - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Corte Costituzio<strong>na</strong>le<br />
L'inchiesta ancora aperta su un ragazzo all'epoca minorenne , 60<br />
Corriere Della Será - Economia<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Corte Costituzio<strong>na</strong>le<br />
Ha ragione la Fiat, respinto ricorso della Fiom diritti sindacali soli ai firmatari dell'accordo, 61<br />
Corriere Della Será - Politica<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Corte Costituzio<strong>na</strong>le<br />
De Lorenzo e i 5 milioni da risarcire «Vivrò da francescano per restituire tutto», 62<br />
Diário de Notícias Lisboa - Globo<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Luanda divulga lema para eleições de setembro, 65<br />
El Peruano - Noticia<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Denuncien a corruptos, 66<br />
El Peruano - Noticia<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Sí habrá cambios, 67<br />
El Peruano - Noticia<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Erradicarán corrupción en PJ, 68<br />
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - Politik<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | EuGH<br />
Inflation Kleingläubige EZB-Beamte, 69<br />
Le Figaro - Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | La Cour Suprême<br />
Vauzelle au Mexique: Juppé "scandalisé" , 70<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Democratic Super PACs off to modest 2012 start, 71<br />
The Economic Times - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Mayawati warns Akhilesh Yadav from making changes in parks, statues, 73<br />
The Economic Times - News<br />
55
Quinta-feira, 19 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
UP government promises strict action against schools violating RTE, 74<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Why Medical Bills Are a Mystery, 75<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Working and Women, 77<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
When Is a Flip Not a Flop?, 79<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
Cotton Fields and Brownfields, 84<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
The Provocateur, 85<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
The Battle for a Comic-Book Empire That Archie Built, 89<br />
The New York Times - The Opinion Pages<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Should We End Life Tenure for Justices?, 93<br />
USA Today - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
Trayvon's father says he warned son on stereotypes, 94<br />
56
ABC Digital/ - Nacio<strong>na</strong>les, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Magistrados latinoamericanos respaldan a<br />
la Corte<br />
En conferencia de prensa, explicó que el viernes se<br />
enteró de la decisión de los se<strong>na</strong>dores paraguayos e<br />
inmediatamente preparó su viaje al Paraguay.<br />
“Estamos preocupados por el futuro de la sociedad del<br />
Paraguay, porque cada vez que sucede esto, reciben<br />
el impacto los habitantes del Paraguay”, expresó el<br />
magistrado.<br />
Refirió que en varios países ya se intentó remover a<br />
magistrados, con el argumento de la corrupción. “En<br />
todos los países el argumento es el mismo: corrupción<br />
y se pretende solucio<strong>na</strong>rlo debilitando al Poder<br />
Judicial, es muy fácil genéricamente”, refirió.<br />
“Todos queremos evitar que sea perseguido un juez<br />
por el contenido de la sentencia o de lo contrario se<br />
acabará la garantía de las perso<strong>na</strong>s”, manifestó.<br />
Indicó que este sábado dará aviso a la relatora<br />
especial de las Naciones Unidas, para que esté al<br />
tanto de lo que sucedió con los siete miembros de la<br />
Corte.<br />
“Desde afuera lo que percibo es un atentado a la<br />
institucio<strong>na</strong>lidad del país, que luego no siempre<br />
desemboca bien”, señaló.<br />
El jueves el Se<strong>na</strong>do paraguayo, con la disidencia de<br />
los colorados, declaró la vacancia de siete cargos de<br />
ministros de la Corte por fenecimiento del mandato.<br />
Afecta a los ministros Víctor Núñez, José Torres<br />
Kirmser, Alicia Pucheta, Sindulfo Blanco, César Gary,<br />
Miguel Bajac y Antonio Fretes.<br />
Los ministros de la corte sostienen que existe u<strong>na</strong><br />
resolución de la máxima instancia judicial, que los<br />
declara i<strong>na</strong>movibles en el cargo hasta los 75 años.<br />
Los se<strong>na</strong>dores argumentan que para acceder a la<br />
i<strong>na</strong>movilidad, tiene que ser confirmados en el cargo<br />
luego de cinco años.<br />
57
Business Line/ - Markets, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
UP to take action against schools<br />
violating RTE Act<br />
The Uttar Pradesh Government has said that strict<br />
action would be taken against schools overlooking the<br />
order of the Supreme Court on Right to Education<br />
Act.<br />
The Basic Education Minister, Mr Ram Govind<br />
Chaudhary, said strict implementation of the Supreme<br />
Court order would be ensured in the state and<br />
recognition of schools violating it could be cancelled.<br />
He told reporters as per the order, the schools would<br />
not only be required to give admission to 25 per cent<br />
poor children, but also provide them facilities like other<br />
students.<br />
Mr Chaudhary said that emphasis would be given that<br />
schools run as per the schedule and an environment of<br />
education and discipline was created.<br />
58
Correo Peru/ - Política, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Viceministro Figallo justidica que caso<br />
'Madre Mía' se vea en fueros externos<br />
Lima - El viceministro de Derechos Humanos del<br />
Ministerio de Justicia, Daniel Figallo, señaló ayer que<br />
es válido el pedido que presentaron los familiares de<br />
las víctimas del caso Madre Mía ante la Comisión<br />
Interamerica<strong>na</strong> de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) para<br />
que el proceso sea reabierto.<br />
En entrevista con Radio San Borja, Figallo explicó que<br />
en el 2009 la Corte Suprema excluyó al presidente<br />
Ollanta Humala pero dejó abierto el tema de los<br />
responsables y las circunstancias en que se habrían<br />
cometido los crímenes.<br />
En ese sentido, consultado sobre si era "válido" el<br />
reclamo de los familiares, Figallo respondió: "Así es. El<br />
Poder Judicial ha establecido que se archive el tema<br />
de Humala en su momento, en que no era Presidente,<br />
y se reserva el fallo y se mantiene abierto lo relativo a<br />
determi<strong>na</strong>r quién ha sido y cómo ha sido; ese es el<br />
punto y lo que falta", precisó.<br />
Remarcó que los deudos tienen derecho a saber lo<br />
que ocurrió y subrayó que el sistema interamericano<br />
no está hecho para conde<strong>na</strong>r a u<strong>na</strong> perso<strong>na</strong>."No<br />
conozco la denuncia, pero estoy seguro de que los<br />
actores y abogados que han intervenido conocen el<br />
sistema. No es usado para conde<strong>na</strong>r a alguien, sino<br />
para ver si es que se ha investigado adecuadamente",<br />
manifestó.<br />
En ese sentido, el funcio<strong>na</strong>rio informó que el Estado<br />
ha reconocido a las víctimas del caso Madre Mía y<br />
que estas se encuentran incluidas en el Registro único<br />
de Víctimas con el fin de que puedan acceder a u<strong>na</strong><br />
reparación.<br />
"He revisado las actuaciones judiciales inter<strong>na</strong>s. Hay<br />
u<strong>na</strong> parte en que se involucra al actual Presidente,<br />
pero se llega a concluir que de todas maneras han<br />
habido desapariciones, tanto que el Estado lo ha<br />
reconocido a propósito del registro de perso<strong>na</strong>s. Las<br />
víctimas del caso Madre Mía están inscritas en el<br />
registro y (los familiares) van a ser reparados",<br />
puntualizó. Por Piero Llamo<br />
59
Corriere Della Será/ - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Corte Costituzio<strong>na</strong>le)<br />
L'inchiesta ancora aperta su un ragazzo<br />
all'epoca minorenne<br />
Sulla strage di Piazza della Loggia rimane aperto un<br />
altro procedimento diviso tra la Procura dei minori e la<br />
Procura di Brescia incentrato sulle dichiarazioni di<br />
Giampaolo Stimamiglio, legato a Ordine nuovo del<br />
Veneto e che aveva raccontato della partecipazione<br />
alla fase operativa dell'eccidio di un giovane di destra,<br />
sempre veneto, all'epoca diciassettenne. Anche il<br />
fascicolo aperto in Procura ha un nome iscritto nel<br />
registro degli indagati. Quello di competenza della<br />
Procura dei minori - viene spiegato in ambienti<br />
giudiziari - presenta non pochi problemi: u<strong>na</strong> sentenza<br />
della Corte costituzio<strong>na</strong>le ha infatti stabilito l'illegittimità<br />
dell'ergastolo per i minorenni e l'inchiesta che vede<br />
indagato l'allora diciassettenne potrebbe essere a<br />
rischio prescrizione. Nell'ambito del procedimento si sa<br />
che sono stati sentiti alcuni testimoni, in particolare<br />
veneti.<br />
60
Corriere Della Será/ - Economia, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Corte Costituzio<strong>na</strong>le)<br />
Ha ragione la Fiat, respinto ricorso della<br />
Fiom diritti sindacali soli ai firmatari<br />
dell'accordo<br />
Respinto il ricorso dei metalmeccanici della Cgil che<br />
chiedevano rappresentanza pur non avendo siglato<br />
accordo col Lingotto<br />
MILANO - Il tribu<strong>na</strong>le di Torino ha respinto 21 ricorsi<br />
della Fiom, con i quali il sindacato chiedeva di poter<br />
nomi<strong>na</strong>re propri rappresentanti sindacali in 15 società<br />
di Fiat e Fiat Industrial, confermando che le Rsa<br />
possono essere nomi<strong>na</strong>te solo dalle sigle che hanno<br />
firmato l'accordo con l'azienda. Di conseguenza viene<br />
riconosciuta la correttezza della Fiat e la chiarezza<br />
della norma: «la legittimazione e l'attribuzione dei diritti<br />
sindacali si applica unicamente ai firmatari degli<br />
accordi aziendali».<br />
IL LINGOTTO - Si trattava di ricorsi in 21 unità<br />
produttive del gruppo a Torino che il tribu<strong>na</strong>le del<br />
capoluogo piemontese aveva deciso di unificare in un<br />
unico procedimento. La decisione conferma<br />
l'esclusione dei metalmeccanici della Cgil da circa il<br />
50% dei siti del gruppo guidato da Sergio Marchionne<br />
nell'area piemontese. Soddisfatta la Fiat: «Il giudice ha commentato il Lingotto in un u<strong>na</strong> nota - ha<br />
riconosciuto la correttezza del comportamento tenuto<br />
dall'azienda nell'applicazione dell'articolo 19 dello<br />
Statuto dei lavoratori». «Viene così confermato - ha<br />
aggiunto - che la norma è assolutamente chiara e<br />
precisa: la legittimazione e l'attribuzione dei diritti<br />
sindacali si applica unicamente ai firmatari degli<br />
accordi aziendali».<br />
LA REAZIONE DELLA UILM - Si tratta, è stato il<br />
commento di Rocco Palombella, segretario generale<br />
della Uilm, di «u<strong>na</strong> sentenza unica da parte del giudice<br />
del lavoro di Torino che dà ragione a Fiat rispetto a 21<br />
ricorsi presentati dalla Fiom che pretendeva la<br />
rappresentanza nei luoghi di lavoro pur non avendo<br />
firmato il contratto specifico di primo livello col gruppo<br />
automobilistico lo scorso 13 dicembre». Per<br />
Palombella la decisione «smentisce la vulgata diffusa<br />
dai metalmeccanici della Cgil secondo la quale<br />
aumentano i tribu<strong>na</strong>li che condan<strong>na</strong>no l'azienda». «Si<br />
tratta - gli fa eco il segretario generale della Fismic,<br />
Roberto Di Maulo - di un colpo importante, se non<br />
definitivo, alla strategia antagonista della Fiom che<br />
preferisce alla contrattazione sindacale il ricorso ai<br />
giudici».<br />
L'ALLARME DELLA FIOM - Immediata la reazione<br />
della Fiom che ha annunciato appello contro la<br />
decisione del Tribu<strong>na</strong>le del lavoro di Torino che ha<br />
respinto 21 ricorsi presentati dalle tute blu in merito<br />
alla nomi<strong>na</strong> dei propri rappresentanti sindacali in<br />
quindici società di Fiat e Fiat Industrial. Lo ha<br />
annunciato il segretario generale della Fiom, Maurizio<br />
Landini. Complessivamente «abbiamo presentato 61<br />
ricorsi. Nei prossimi giorni - ha spiegato Landini - ce ne<br />
saranno altri. Ci sono giudici che dicono che ciò che<br />
sta facendo la Fiat è antisindacale e giudici, con<br />
motivazioni diverse, che dicono altre cose. Siamo di<br />
fronte ad un problema aperto. Credo che noi,<br />
<strong>na</strong>turalmente, ricorreremo contro questa decisione<br />
perchè - ha continuato il leader della Fiom riferendosi<br />
alla sentenza del tribu<strong>na</strong>le di Torino - dalla prima<br />
lettura che abbiamo fatto non ci sembra abbia<br />
argomenti forti. Consideriamo che il tema della libertà<br />
sindacale sia un tema aperto. Viene negata non solo la<br />
libertà della Fiom ma anche quella delle persone. Qui<br />
si nega il diritto di chi lavora di potersi scegliere il<br />
sindacato che ritiene più opportuno». Ha infine<br />
giudicato «anticostituzio<strong>na</strong>le» negare la possibilità ai<br />
delegati Fiom di eleggere i propri rappresentanti nelle<br />
rsa. «Su questo punto - ha concluso il segretario delle<br />
tute blu - abbiamo intenzione di muoverci fino ad<br />
arrivare, se necessario, anche a chiedere un<br />
intervento della Corte Costituzio<strong>na</strong>le».<br />
Redazione Online<br />
61
Corriere Della Será/ - Politica, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Corte Costituzio<strong>na</strong>le)<br />
De Lorenzo e i 5 milioni da risarcire<br />
«Vivrò da francescano per restituire<br />
tutto»<br />
[Esplora il significato del termine: L’ex ministro: «I soldi<br />
li ho presi, ma li davo al partito» L’allora ministro della<br />
Sanità Francesco De Lorenzo con don Verzé L’allora<br />
ministro della Sanità Francesco De Lorenzo con don<br />
Verzé ROMA - «Farò u<strong>na</strong> vita da francescano».<br />
Addirittura. «Avevo già restituito quattro miliardi».<br />
Vecchie lirette. «Mica le prendevo per me». No? «No.<br />
Solo per il mio partito, il Pli». Non come questi di<br />
adesso, chessò, i Lusi e i Belsito, magari con qualche<br />
famigliola politica da sfamare... «Eh, ora c’è chi<br />
scambia il Parlamento per un benefit». Pure prima<br />
esageravate. «Lo ammetto, ma era diverso. Le<br />
spiegherò come». Sospira Francesco De Lorenzo, un<br />
tempo Sua Sanità, ed è difficile dire se per nostalgia<br />
d’u<strong>na</strong> stagione morta o per il sollievo d’esserle<br />
sopravvissuto. Settantatré anni portati alla grande,<br />
come uno che prima è passato sotto le forche caudine<br />
di Tangentopoli, poi attraverso Poggioreale e un<br />
tumore con chemioterapia devastante, ed è infine<br />
risorto, lavorando coi drogati di don Gelmini (grande<br />
foto del controverso sacerdote dietro la scrivania), e<br />
inventandosi infine l’Aimac, che raccoglie cinquecento<br />
associazioni di volontari nella lotta contro il cancro: «E<br />
tutto senza un euro delle case farmaceutiche, lo<br />
scriva, lo scriva». Marmi, assistenti, gran sede in via<br />
Barberini, c’è chi resta in piedi anche quando cade...<br />
«Si chiudono dei cicli, io ho cambiato vita». Già, però il<br />
tarlo è quello vecchio. Averci marciato, sui malati,<br />
quand’era ministro della Salute, governo Amato, primi<br />
anni Novanta. «Non ho alterato i prezzi dei farmaci, i<br />
giudici me l’hanno riconosciuto infine! Non ho<br />
danneggiato l’erario, guardi qua». L’ex ministro in aula<br />
a MontecitorioL’ex ministro in aula a Montecitorio (Tira<br />
fuori faldoni, sentenze, pandette, carte da bollo in<br />
perenne lotta tra loro: come molti a lungo strizzati dai<br />
magistrati, è ormai il migliore avvocato di se stesso).<br />
Comunque sia, deve pagare cinque milioni di euro per<br />
danno all’immagine del nostro povero Stato, sentenza<br />
definitiva. Dove li trova? «Metà li restituii a suo tempo,<br />
gliel’ho detto prima. Per il resto, venderò la casa, ho<br />
qualche bene al sole. Potrei vendere anche i pastori».<br />
I famosi pastori del Settecento <strong>na</strong>poletano... «Quelli:<br />
u<strong>na</strong> settanti<strong>na</strong>, raccolti in trent’anni. Valgono<br />
duecentomila euro, ma non facciamolo sapere ai<br />
ladri». Ci mancherebbe. Parliamo di altri furti. U<strong>na</strong> sua<br />
foto sotto l’inseg<strong>na</strong> del ristorante «Due Ladroni» è<br />
rimasta nella storia. «Mai intascato un soldo, per me».<br />
Dunque si dichiara innocente? «No. Il fi<strong>na</strong>nziamento<br />
illecito è stata la mia colpa. Mandavo dagli imprenditori<br />
il mio segretario, Marone, perché non si pensasse che<br />
me li tenevo io. Adesso lo fanno per loro tasche. Ma<br />
allora tutti sapevano. Anche Zanone che poi ha fatto<br />
tanto il moralista». Pochi sono stati tanto detestati<br />
dagli italiani quanto lei. «Colpa di u<strong>na</strong> lunga campag<strong>na</strong><br />
di stampa». Lei era uno dei viceré di Napoli, con<br />
Pomicino e Di Do<strong>na</strong>to. «Un viceré senza truppe, mi<br />
creda. Napoli è u<strong>na</strong> città plebea, mia moglie non<br />
poteva nemmeno più andare a giocare a bridge. I miei<br />
amici liberali si misero con Bassolino. Io per la sanità<br />
ho dato il sangue, l’ho detto varie volte». Sangue<br />
infetto, quello dello scandalo... «Non ero nemmeno<br />
testimone, in quell’inchiesta, sia serio. Mi hanno<br />
spedito all’inferno e non so perché. Ero benestante,<br />
ero un tecnico, avevo il settanta per cento di<br />
consensi». Meglio di Berlusconi... «Non scherzi. La<br />
gente si è sentita tradita. Ma io ho avuto giudici etici,<br />
mi hanno condan<strong>na</strong>to per associazione per delinquere<br />
da solo, tutti i miei coimputati erano assolti. Il mio<br />
processo è stato ingiusto, l’ha detto la Corte<br />
costituzio<strong>na</strong>le quattro mesi dopo la mia condan<strong>na</strong><br />
definitiva. E mi hanno fatto andare in udienza mentre<br />
facevo la chemio!». Lei, nessu<strong>na</strong> colpa? «Non insista.<br />
Gliel’ho detto: avrei dovuto rinunciare alla poltro<strong>na</strong> di<br />
ministro, è vero. Se la volevi, dovevi fi<strong>na</strong>nziare il<br />
partito. Funzio<strong>na</strong>va così. Per assicurare il quoziente al<br />
partito servivano consiglieri comu<strong>na</strong>li, sezioni, gior<strong>na</strong>li,<br />
cose che costavano». E <strong>na</strong>ni, ballerine, terrazze...<br />
«Cose che ho letto, non c’ero su quelle terrazze». Mi<br />
dica dei fi<strong>na</strong>nziamenti. «Il fi<strong>na</strong>nziamento illecito c’è<br />
sempre stato. Malagodi prendeva soldi da<br />
Confindustria, Moro si alzò per difendere Gui. Solo che<br />
quelli avevano... gli attributi. Noi ci lasciammo<br />
sbra<strong>na</strong>re, portare via l’immunità parlamentare». Molti<br />
imprenditori si sentirono sbra<strong>na</strong>ti, in verità. «Se agli<br />
imprenditori chiedevi di darti i soldi in chiaro,<br />
rifiutavano: avrebbero dovuto dare cento a noi liberali,<br />
ottocento ai socialisti, mille alla Dc». Ci furono ruberie<br />
grosse. «Ci furono. Ma io non appartenevo a quella<br />
classe politica. Comunque gente come Citaristi o<br />
Balzamo non prendeva soldi per sé. E, lo sa?,<br />
nemmeno Craxi, dico io». Dice lei. E di Tonino Di<br />
Pietro che mi dice? «Nulla. E’ stato mio pm, non<br />
sarebbe elegante». Di Berlusconi? «La magistratura<br />
ha abusato anche con lui. Poi lui avrebbe dovuto fare<br />
62
attenzione al suo ruolo, l’ultima variante non mi piace.<br />
Ma ha aiutato molto la nostra associazione contro il<br />
cancro, gli sono grato». Vent’anni dopo. Si ruba in<br />
proprio rispetto a ieri? «Oggi è tutto abnorme». Ormai<br />
è saltato anche lo schermo del partito, no? «Mi<br />
invitarono nel casertano all’ultima campag<strong>na</strong><br />
elettorale. Non c’era un comizio, non c’era un<br />
manifesto. E allora dove stanno i costi della politica?».<br />
Già. E dove vanno i soldi della politica? «Questa legge<br />
elettorale è tremenda, tutti stanno appesi al leader».<br />
Pure Belsito e Lusi? «Cosa mi sta chiedendo?». Un<br />
leader può avere un tesoriere simile e non saperlo?<br />
«Ai miei tempi, no». E adesso? «E’ diverso. Non si<br />
coprono spese reali periferiche, il fi<strong>na</strong>nziamento viene<br />
dato al centro, il tesoriere ha un ruolo fondamentale.<br />
Certo, se poi un partito non ha nessu<strong>na</strong> attività...».<br />
Cosa fa, allude a un caso specifico? Manda<br />
messaggi? «Prossima domanda». Ultima. Cosa fa<br />
domani l’ex viceré di Napoli? «Cerca di salvare San<br />
Giuseppe». Chi? «Il mio pastore preferito, un viso<br />
splendido. Quello non lo vendo. A costo di smettere di<br />
mangiare». Goffredo Buccini] L'ex ministro: «I soldi li<br />
ho presi, ma li davo al partito»<br />
L'allora ministro della Sanità Francesco De Lorenzo<br />
con don Verzé L'allora ministro della Sanità Francesco<br />
De Lorenzo con don Verzé<br />
ROMA - «Farò u<strong>na</strong> vita da francescano».<br />
Addirittura.<br />
«Avevo già restituito quattro miliardi».<br />
Vecchie lirette.<br />
«Mica le prendevo per me».<br />
No?<br />
«No. Solo per il mio partito, il Pli».<br />
Non come questi di adesso, chessò, i Lusi e i Belsito,<br />
magari con qualche famigliola politica da sfamare...<br />
«Eh, ora c'è chi scambia il Parlamento per un<br />
benefit».<br />
Pure prima esageravate.<br />
«Lo ammetto, ma era diverso. Le spiegherò come».<br />
Sospira Francesco De Lorenzo, un tempo Sua Sanità,<br />
ed è difficile dire se per nostalgia d'u<strong>na</strong> stagione morta<br />
o per il sollievo d'esserle sopravvissuto. Settantatré<br />
anni portati alla grande, come uno che prima è<br />
passato sotto le forche caudine di Tangentopoli, poi<br />
attraverso Poggioreale e un tumore con chemioterapia<br />
devastante, ed è infine risorto, lavorando coi drogati di<br />
don Gelmini (grande foto del controverso sacerdote<br />
dietro la scrivania), e inventandosi infine l'Aimac, che<br />
raccoglie cinquecento associazioni di volontari nella<br />
lotta contro il cancro: «E tutto senza un euro delle case<br />
farmaceutiche, lo scriva, lo scriva». Marmi, assistenti,<br />
gran sede in via Barberini, c'è chi resta in piedi anche<br />
quando cade...<br />
«Si chiudono dei cicli, io ho cambiato vita».<br />
Già, però il tarlo è quello vecchio. Averci marciato, sui<br />
Corriere Della Será/ - Politica, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Corte Costituzio<strong>na</strong>le)<br />
malati, quand'era ministro della Salute, governo<br />
Amato, primi anni Novanta.<br />
«Non ho alterato i prezzi dei farmaci, i giudici me<br />
l'hanno riconosciuto infine! Non ho danneggiato<br />
l'erario, guardi qua».<br />
L'ex ministro in aula a MontecitorioL'ex ministro in aula<br />
a Montecitorio<br />
(Tira fuori faldoni, sentenze, pandette, carte da bollo in<br />
perenne lotta tra loro: come molti a lungo strizzati dai<br />
magistrati, è ormai il migliore avvocato di se stesso).<br />
Comunque sia, deve pagare cinque milioni di euro per<br />
danno all'immagine del nostro povero Stato, sentenza<br />
definitiva.<br />
Dove li trova?<br />
«Metà li restituii a suo tempo, gliel'ho detto prima. Per<br />
il resto, venderò la casa, ho qualche bene al sole.<br />
Potrei vendere anche i pastori».<br />
I famosi pastori del Settecento <strong>na</strong>poletano...<br />
«Quelli: u<strong>na</strong> settanti<strong>na</strong>, raccolti in trent'anni. Valgono<br />
duecentomila euro, ma non facciamolo sapere ai<br />
ladri».<br />
Ci mancherebbe. Parliamo di altri furti. U<strong>na</strong> sua foto<br />
sotto l'inseg<strong>na</strong> del ristorante «Due Ladroni» è rimasta<br />
nella storia.<br />
«Mai intascato un soldo, per me».<br />
Dunque si dichiara innocente?<br />
«No. Il fi<strong>na</strong>nziamento illecito è stata la mia colpa.<br />
Mandavo dagli imprenditori il mio segretario, Marone,<br />
perché non si pensasse che me li tenevo io. Adesso lo<br />
fanno per loro tasche. Ma allora tutti sapevano. Anche<br />
Zanone che poi ha fatto tanto il moralista».<br />
Pochi sono stati tanto detestati dagli italiani quanto lei.<br />
«Colpa di u<strong>na</strong> lunga campag<strong>na</strong> di stampa».<br />
Lei era uno dei viceré di Napoli, con Pomicino e Di<br />
Do<strong>na</strong>to.<br />
«Un viceré senza truppe, mi creda. Napoli è u<strong>na</strong> città<br />
plebea, mia moglie non poteva nemmeno più andare a<br />
giocare a bridge. I miei amici liberali si misero con<br />
Bassolino. Io per la sanità ho dato il sangue, l'ho detto<br />
varie volte».<br />
Sangue infetto, quello dello scandalo...<br />
«Non ero nemmeno testimone, in quell'inchiesta, sia<br />
serio. Mi hanno spedito all'inferno e non so perché.<br />
Ero benestante, ero un tecnico, avevo il settanta per<br />
cento di consensi».<br />
Meglio di Berlusconi...<br />
«Non scherzi. La gente si è sentita tradita. Ma io ho<br />
avuto giudici etici, mi hanno condan<strong>na</strong>to per<br />
associazione per delinquere da solo, tutti i miei<br />
coimputati erano assolti. Il mio processo è stato<br />
ingiusto, l'ha detto la Corte costituzio<strong>na</strong>le quattro mesi<br />
dopo la mia condan<strong>na</strong> definitiva. E mi hanno fatto<br />
andare in udienza mentre facevo la chemio!».<br />
Lei, nessu<strong>na</strong> colpa?<br />
«Non insista. Gliel'ho detto: avrei dovuto rinunciare alla<br />
poltro<strong>na</strong> di ministro, è vero. Se la volevi, dovevi<br />
63
fi<strong>na</strong>nziare il partito. Funzio<strong>na</strong>va così. Per assicurare il<br />
quoziente al partito servivano consiglieri comu<strong>na</strong>li,<br />
sezioni, gior<strong>na</strong>li, cose che costavano».<br />
E <strong>na</strong>ni, ballerine, terrazze...<br />
«Cose che ho letto, non c'ero su quelle terrazze».<br />
Mi dica dei fi<strong>na</strong>nziamenti.<br />
«Il fi<strong>na</strong>nziamento illecito c'è sempre stato. Malagodi<br />
prendeva soldi da Confindustria, Moro si alzò per<br />
difendere Gui. Solo che quelli avevano... gli attributi.<br />
Noi ci lasciammo sbra<strong>na</strong>re, portare via l'immunità<br />
parlamentare».<br />
Molti imprenditori si sentirono sbra<strong>na</strong>ti, in verità.<br />
«Se agli imprenditori chiedevi di darti i soldi in chiaro,<br />
rifiutavano: avrebbero dovuto dare cento a noi liberali,<br />
ottocento ai socialisti, mille alla Dc».<br />
Ci furono ruberie grosse.<br />
«Ci furono. Ma io non appartenevo a quella classe<br />
politica. Comunque gente come Citaristi o Balzamo<br />
non prendeva soldi per sé. E, lo sa?, nemmeno Craxi,<br />
dico io».<br />
Dice lei. E di Tonino Di Pietro che mi dice?<br />
«Nulla. E' stato mio pm, non sarebbe elegante».<br />
Di Berlusconi?<br />
«La magistratura ha abusato anche con lui. Poi lui<br />
avrebbe dovuto fare attenzione al suo ruolo, l'ultima<br />
variante non mi piace. Ma ha aiutato molto la nostra<br />
associazione contro il cancro, gli sono grato».<br />
Vent'anni dopo. Si ruba in proprio rispetto a ieri?<br />
«Oggi è tutto abnorme».<br />
Corriere Della Será/ - Politica, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Corte Costituzio<strong>na</strong>le)<br />
Ormai è saltato anche lo schermo del partito, no?<br />
«Mi invitarono nel casertano all'ultima campag<strong>na</strong><br />
elettorale. Non c'era un comizio, non c'era un<br />
manifesto. E allora dove stanno i costi della politica?».<br />
Già. E dove vanno i soldi della politica?<br />
«Questa legge elettorale è tremenda, tutti stanno<br />
appesi al leader».<br />
Pure Belsito e Lusi?<br />
«Cosa mi sta chiedendo?».<br />
Un leader può avere un tesoriere simile e non<br />
saperlo?<br />
«Ai miei tempi, no».<br />
E adesso?<br />
«E' diverso. Non si coprono spese reali periferiche, il<br />
fi<strong>na</strong>nziamento viene dato al centro, il tesoriere ha un<br />
ruolo fondamentale. Certo, se poi un partito non ha<br />
nessu<strong>na</strong> attività...».<br />
Cosa fa, allude a un caso specifico? Manda<br />
messaggi?<br />
«Prossima domanda».<br />
Ultima. Cosa fa domani l'ex viceré di Napoli?<br />
«Cerca di salvare San Giuseppe».<br />
Chi?<br />
«Il mio pastore preferito, un viso splendido. Quello non<br />
lo vendo. A costo di smettere di mangiare».<br />
Goffredo Buccini<br />
64
Diário de Notícias Lisboa/ - Globo, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
Luanda divulga lema para eleições de<br />
setembro<br />
Candidaturas devem ser apresentadas até 20 dias<br />
antes da data do escrutínio, que não se encontra<br />
ainda marcado.<br />
As próximas eleições gerais em Angola, a realizar em<br />
setembro, terão como lema "Vota pela paz e pela<br />
democracia", após reunião da Comissão Nacio<strong>na</strong>l de<br />
Eleições (CNE), destaca <strong>na</strong> sua edição de hoje o<br />
Jor<strong>na</strong>l de Angola.<br />
Ainda sem data marcada, o escrutínio vai renovar o<br />
mandato dos 220 assentos da Assembleia Nacio<strong>na</strong>l e,<br />
pela primeira vez, desig<strong>na</strong>rá, por via indireta, o<br />
próximo chefe de Estado.<br />
A nova modalidade de eleição do Presidente, e do<br />
vice-presidente da República, assenta no que está<br />
inscrito <strong>na</strong> nova Constituição angola<strong>na</strong>, que prevê o<br />
preenchimento dos dois cargos pelos candidatos que<br />
figurarem no primeiro e segundo lugar da lista do<br />
partido ou coligação mais votado.<br />
Os partidos e coligações concorrentes às eleições<br />
gerais de setembro terão obrigatoriamente de<br />
apresentar um mínimo de 15 mil assi<strong>na</strong>turas, incluindo<br />
500 por cada uma das 18 províncias.<br />
Segundo o Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l, um total de 77<br />
partidos e seis coligações estão habilitados a<br />
concorrer, mas somente os que têm assento<br />
parlamentar - Movimento Popular de Libertação de<br />
Angola (MPLA), União Nacio<strong>na</strong>l para a Independência<br />
Total de Angola (UNITA), Partido da Renovação social<br />
(PRS), Frente Nacio<strong>na</strong>l de Libertação de Angola<br />
(FNLA) e a coligação Nova Democracia - e o Partido<br />
Democrático para o Progresso de Aliança Nacio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Angola<strong>na</strong> (PDP-ANA) e o Bloco Democrático estão<br />
isentos de apresentar as assi<strong>na</strong>turas exigidas.<br />
As candidaturas partidárias terão obrigatoriamente<br />
que ser apresentadas até 20 dias depois do anúncio<br />
da data pelo Presidente de Angola e deverão indicar<br />
claramente o candidato a Presidente, vice-presidente<br />
e os deputados.<br />
Atualmente está a decorrer a segunda fase de registo<br />
e atualização do recenseamento eleitoral, com as<br />
autoridades angola<strong>na</strong>s a preverem o anúncio do total<br />
de eleitores inscritos somente <strong>na</strong> próxima sessão<br />
plenária do parlamento, no dia 24 deste mês.<br />
Na primeira fase, que decorreu entre 29 de julho e 16<br />
de dezembro de 2011, foram registados 5 287 769<br />
eleitores em todo território <strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l, dos quais 493 383<br />
se recensearam pela primeira vez.<br />
A segunda fase, iniciada no passado dia 5 de janeiro,<br />
termi<strong>na</strong> domingo, e as autoridades angola<strong>na</strong>s<br />
esperam recensear mais de 9 milhões de eleitores.<br />
65
Denuncien a corruptos<br />
El Órgano de Control de la Magistratura (Ocma)<br />
exhortó a los ciudadanos que quejen los actos de<br />
corrupción de los que puedan ser víctimas por parte<br />
de algún juez y/o funcio<strong>na</strong>rio del Poder Judicial.<br />
Así, agrega, la ciudadanía debe comprometerse a<br />
seguir erradicando y sancio<strong>na</strong>ndo estas conductas<br />
incompatibles con la recta administración de justicia.<br />
El Peruano/ - Noticia, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
66
A 24 horas de jugarse el clásico, Alianza Lima parece<br />
encontrar u<strong>na</strong> salida a su profunda crisis económica.<br />
El Poder Judicial (PJ) declaró infundado el recurso<br />
de anulación del laudo arbitral que determi<strong>na</strong>ba que<br />
Guillermo Alarcón no era más presidente de Alianza<br />
Lima.<br />
Con este fallo se confirma que Alarcón no es más el<br />
titular de la institución victoria<strong>na</strong>. El dirigente presentó<br />
un recurso para anular el laudo que lo suspende de<br />
sus funciones; sin embargo, el Poder Judicial lo<br />
declaró infundado, por lo que la sentencia arbitral se<br />
mantiene.El socio y exdirigente de Alianza Lima,<br />
Fer<strong>na</strong>ndo Farah, señaló que "hace tiempo que Alarcón<br />
no es presidente y la nulidad que presentó le fue<br />
negada. La Federación reconoce a Julio Arango y los<br />
contactos que hacen son con él", enfatizó Farah."Los<br />
socios están contentos porque Alarcón ya no es<br />
presidente y hay más tranquilidad porque ya no<br />
maneja las cuentas del club", fi<strong>na</strong>lizó.La<br />
Superintendencia Nacio<strong>na</strong>l de Adua<strong>na</strong>s y de<br />
Administración Tributaria (Su<strong>na</strong>t) negó que haya<br />
Sí habrá cambios<br />
El Peruano/ - Noticia, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
notificado el embargo de la taquilla del clásico del<br />
maña<strong>na</strong> entre Alianza Lima y Universitario. La Su<strong>na</strong>t<br />
señaló que los derechos laborales son irrenunciables y<br />
no pueden ser afectados por u<strong>na</strong> medida de<br />
cobranza.<br />
ADFP asume los gastosEl presidente de la Asociación<br />
Deportiva del Fútbol Profesio<strong>na</strong>l (ADFP), Luis de<br />
Souza Ferreira, anunció que esta entidad se hará<br />
cargo de la deuda que le tiene el equipo íntimo al IPD<br />
y que suma 20 mil dólares por el alquiler del Estadio<br />
Nacio<strong>na</strong>l."La asociación pagará la deuda que tenía<br />
Alianza con el IPD para que se juegue ahí el clásico.<br />
Yo me voy a encargar de todos los compromisos,<br />
incluso de los jugadores, con lo que salga de la<br />
taquilla", anunció Luis de Souza Ferreira. El IPD<br />
reclamaba su dinero por el alquiler del coloso para el<br />
partido de Copa Libertadores.<br />
DatoPaolo Hurtado pidió a la CJ-FPF desvincularse<br />
del cuadro blanquiazul debido a las deudas.<br />
67
El Peruano/ - Noticia, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Erradicarán corrupción en PJ<br />
Facultades extraordi<strong>na</strong>rias por 60 días con el fin de<br />
combatir las redes de corrupción que existirían en el<br />
Poder Judicial se otorgarán al presidente de la Corte<br />
Suprema, según proyecto de ley sustentado ayer por<br />
el titular de ese poder del Estado, César San Martín,<br />
ante la Comisión de Justicia.<br />
Dijo que en esa “corrupción colectiva,<br />
desafortu<strong>na</strong>damente, también pueden encontrarse<br />
jueces y juezas, así como auxiliares jurisdiccio<strong>na</strong>les<br />
que por temor o por falta de compromiso con su<br />
delicada labor le hacen el juego a estas redes de<br />
corrupción”.<br />
Distrito judicialEl proyecto de ley tiene por objeto<br />
habilitar y regular las facultades extraordi<strong>na</strong>rias al<br />
titular del Poder Judicial, las cuales deberá ejecutar<br />
previo informe del jefe de la Ocma y la autorización de<br />
la Sala Ple<strong>na</strong> de la Corte Suprema.Actuará, frente a<br />
situaciones que revelen la existencia de graves casos<br />
de mala conducta funcio<strong>na</strong>l o crisis institucio<strong>na</strong>l o<br />
administrativa en algún distrito judicial, en los casos en<br />
que ponga en riesgo el normal y debido<br />
funcio<strong>na</strong>miento de las instituciones judiciales.<br />
68
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/ - Politik, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (EuGH)<br />
Inflation Kleingläubige EZB-Beamte<br />
Der Führung der Europäischen Zentralbank in<br />
Frankfurt ist das Thema spürbar u<strong>na</strong>ngenehm. Denn<br />
die Mitarbeiter der Institution machen mit einem<br />
Vorstoß deutlich, dass sie am Erfolg der Bewältigung<br />
ihrer Ker<strong>na</strong>ufgabe zweifeln: Für Geldwertstabilität zu<br />
sorgen. Die Perso<strong>na</strong>lvertretung der Notenbank fordert<br />
jetzt, die Pensionen der Mitarbeiter müssten gegen die<br />
Inflation geschützt werden. Sie verlangt damit einen<br />
Versicherung gegen das eigene Versagen.<br />
„Unglücklicherweise sind die Pensionen der<br />
EZB-Beschäftigten nicht gegen Inflation geschützt“,<br />
sagte Carlos Bowles, ein Sprecher der<br />
Perso<strong>na</strong>lvertretung, der F.A.S. Die Altersvorsorge der<br />
EZB-Mitarbeiter sei über eine Art Pensionsfonds<br />
organisiert. „Deshalb sollte es normalerweise möglich<br />
sein, die Risiken über geeignete Fi<strong>na</strong>nzinstrumente<br />
abzusichern - etwa inflationsindexierte Anleihen.“<br />
Solche geschützten Anleihen bringen zwar in der<br />
Regel etwas weniger Rendite als normale Anleihen.<br />
Aber selbst diesen Preis wären die EZB-Beschäftigten<br />
zu tragen bereit - so groß ist die Furcht der Eurohüter<br />
vor einem Geldwertverlust des Euro.<br />
„Wir verstehen nicht, warum die Führung der EZB es<br />
ablehnt, unsere Pensionen gegen die Inflation zu<br />
schützen“, schimpft die Perso<strong>na</strong>lvertretung. Sogar ein<br />
Verfahren vor dem Europäischen Gerichtshof sei in<br />
dieser Sache anhängig: Ein Pensionär habe mit<br />
Unterstützung der Perso<strong>na</strong>lvertretung und der<br />
Notenbanker-Gewerkschaft IPSO geklagt.<br />
Der ganze Streit wäre vermutlich nicht weiter<br />
bemerkenswert, wäre die Inflation, vor der sich die<br />
Mitarbeiter der EZB so fürchten, nicht ge<strong>na</strong>u jene<br />
Erscheinung, die zu verhindern oder zumindest<br />
gehörig einzudämmen der Sinn der ganzen<br />
Einrichtung ist.<br />
Die Belegschaftsvertreter argumentieren, es dürfte für<br />
EZB-Präsident Mario Draghi und sein Direktorium doch<br />
kein Problem sein, einen wirksamen Inflationsschutz<br />
für die Pensionen einzuführen - weil sie die Inflation<br />
schließlich selbst beeinflussen könnten. Und wenn die<br />
Inflation niedrig bleibe, wie es der gesetzliche Auftrag<br />
ihrer Chefs doch vorsehe, dann dürfte der<br />
Inflationsschutz über geeignete Fi<strong>na</strong>nzinstrumente<br />
auch keine allzu teure Angelegenheit werden.<br />
Offiziell wollte die Europäische Zentralbank dazu nicht<br />
Stellung nehmen. Sie verwies auf ihre<br />
Anstellungsbedingungen, die eine regelmäßige<br />
Überprüfung und Anhebung der Pensionen vorsehen.<br />
Eine Sprecherin sagte, das laufende Verfahren vor<br />
dem EuGH kommentiere man nicht.<br />
Die Perso<strong>na</strong>lvertretung meint, die Notenbankchefs<br />
wollten sich nicht <strong>na</strong>ch außen blamieren: Wie sähe<br />
das aus, wenn eine Institution antritt, Europa vor der<br />
Inflation zu schützen - auf die eigene Arbeit aber so<br />
wenig vertraut, dass sie für die Pensionen der eigenen<br />
Mitarbeiter lieber von Banken einen Inflationsschutz<br />
konstruieren lässt?<br />
Vertreter der Stabilitätslehre in der EZB<br />
argumentieren, es sei gut, wenn diejenigen, die über<br />
die Geldwertstabilität zu wachen hätten, die Folgen der<br />
Inflation am eigenen Leibe spürten. „Das setzt die<br />
richtigen Anreize.“ Ein Inflationsschutz für Pensionen<br />
gehe deshalb „ge<strong>na</strong>u in die falsche Richtung“.<br />
Auch über die Wirkung einer solchen Entscheidung auf<br />
einige Mitgliedsländer im Euroraum ist offenbar in der<br />
EZB diskutiert worden. In einige europäischen Ländern<br />
wie Belgien sind Löhne und Gehälter zum Teil<br />
inflationsindexiert - sie steigen also mit zunehmender<br />
Inflation. Mehrere frühere EZB-Präsidenten haben<br />
solche Regelungen kritisiert, weil sie die Inflation<br />
insgesamt hochtreiben können. Wie aber sollte die<br />
EZB ihren Mitgliedsländern die Inflationsindexierung<br />
austreiben, wenn sie ge<strong>na</strong>u das für die Pensionen der<br />
eigenen Mitarbeiter einführt?<br />
69
Le Figaro/ - Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (La Cour Suprême)<br />
Vauzelle au Mexique: Juppé "scandalisé"<br />
Le ministre des Affaires étrangères Alain Juppé s'est<br />
dit aujourd'hui à Bordeaux "scandalisé" par le voyage<br />
de Michel Vauzelle (PS) au Mexique et dénonce "une<br />
instrumentalisation politique et électorale" de la<br />
situation de Florence Cassez a huit jours du premier<br />
tour de l'élection présidentielle.<br />
"Je suis scandalisé par cette initiative", a-t-il dit à des<br />
jour<strong>na</strong>listes tout en se disant "préoccupé par cette<br />
instrumentalisation politique et électorale de la<br />
situation de notre compatriote", en référence à la<br />
française condamnée à 60 ans de prison au Mexique<br />
pour des enlèvements. "Il y a un processus judiciaire<br />
en cours, la Cour suprême du Mexique s'est<br />
prononcée et elle a constaté que Florence Cassez<br />
n'avait pas eu droit à un procès équitable. Donc il faut<br />
tout faire pour éviter une interférence politique dans ce<br />
processus et laisser fonctionner la justice mexicaine.<br />
C'est la position que la diplomatie française a prise",<br />
a-t-il dit.<br />
"Ce qui me préoccupe c'est que cette<br />
instrumentalisation politique et électorale de la<br />
situation de notre compatriote Florence Cassez risque<br />
d'être dangereuse", a-t-il ajouté, en référence au<br />
premier tour de l'élection présidentielle, le 22 avril,<br />
notant que "l'avocat de Florence Cassez et sa famille<br />
ont réagi exactement dans les mêmes termes". Alain<br />
Juppé a estimé "déplorable qu'à quelques jours du<br />
premier tour on essaie de récupérer cette situation<br />
personnelle extrêmement traumatisante pour Florence<br />
et sa famille".<br />
Le président PS de la région Paca et ancien garde des<br />
Sceaux, Michel Vauzelle, en partance aujourd'hui pour<br />
le Mexique, a déclaré qu'il y allait "pour des raisons<br />
diplomatiques" et non pas pour évoquer l'affaire<br />
Florence Cassez. L'équipe du candidat François<br />
Hollande a pour sa part démenti dans un communiqué<br />
toute "initiative parallèle politique ou diplomatique",<br />
expliquant qu'elle s'inscrivait dans le cadre de la<br />
préparation d'un sommet du G20 en juin. Si François<br />
Hollande est élu il devrait y participer en tant que chef<br />
d'Etat français. Arrêtée en novembre 2005, accusée<br />
d'enlèvements, de délinquance organisée et port<br />
d'armes prohibé, Florence Cassez, origi<strong>na</strong>ire du<br />
Nord/Pas-de-Calais, a été condamnée par la justice<br />
mexicaine à 60 ans de prison.<br />
70
Reuters General/ - Article, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Democratic Super PACs off to modest<br />
2012 start<br />
By Ali<strong>na</strong> Selyukh and Alexander Cohen<br />
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fundraising by Democratic<br />
"Super PACs" is off to a slow start for the 2012<br />
campaign season, compared with aggressive efforts<br />
by Republican groups that plan to spend hundreds of<br />
millions of dollars in fights for congressio<strong>na</strong>l seats and<br />
the White House.<br />
Three major Democratic groups said on Friday they<br />
raised a total of about $5.7 million in the first three<br />
months of the year, buoyed largely by do<strong>na</strong>tions from<br />
labor unions and hedge fund ma<strong>na</strong>gers but far behind<br />
rival Republican groups.<br />
Majority PAC, focused on preserving Democratic<br />
control of the U.S. Se<strong>na</strong>te, received $1.6 million in<br />
contributions in the first quarter of 2012, according to<br />
fi<strong>na</strong>ncial filings with the Federal Election Commission.<br />
House Majority PAC, which aims to help Democrats<br />
regain control of the House of Representatives that<br />
they lost in 2010, received $1.5 million. American<br />
Bridge, a group that does research on rival<br />
Republicans, raised $2.6 million together with its<br />
non-profit arm.<br />
The Democratic groups are working in tandem against<br />
several behemoth Republican groups such as<br />
American Crossroads, run by Karl Rove, a former top<br />
aide to President George W. Bush.<br />
American Crossroads alone plans to spend more than<br />
$250 million on congressio<strong>na</strong>l and presidential<br />
campaigns for the November 6 election. Such<br />
independent Super PACs - which unlike campaigns<br />
have no limits on individual do<strong>na</strong>tions - will allow very<br />
wealthy donors to have a big say in shaping this year's<br />
elections.<br />
Republican Super PACs, inspired by the emergence of<br />
the conservative Tea Party movement, led to painful<br />
losses for Democrats in 2010, when Republicans took<br />
control of the House.<br />
The American Crossroads Super PAC reported having<br />
$23.6 million on hand at the end of February, its FEC<br />
filings show.<br />
American Crossroads also has a non-profit arm that is<br />
not legally required to disclose its fundraising to the<br />
FEC. According to tax forms cited on Friday by The<br />
Washington Post, the non-profit group had raised more<br />
than $76 million by the end of 2011 after launching in<br />
May 2010.<br />
The three Democratic Super PACs had a total of $5.4<br />
million in cash on hand at the end of March, their FEC<br />
filings showed.<br />
"As the presidential primary and races up and down<br />
the ballot have unfolded, one thing is clear:<br />
Republicans and their outside groups are going to<br />
spend an unprecedented amount of money to advance<br />
their right wing ideology," the Democratic groups said<br />
in a joint statement on Friday. "We are confident we<br />
will provide a countervailing force to these extreme<br />
agendas."<br />
UNIONS, HEDGE FUNDS STEP UP<br />
The largest share of contributions to the three<br />
Democratic PACs in the first three months of this year about $1.4 million - came from labor unions, a<br />
traditio<strong>na</strong>l source of support for the party.<br />
The biggest union do<strong>na</strong>tion was $500,000 from the<br />
Committee on Letter Carriers, which represents Postal<br />
Service workers, to the House Majority PAC. The PAC<br />
also received $125,000 from the Laborers'<br />
Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l Union and $100,000 from the American<br />
Federation of Teachers.<br />
American Bridge received $100,000 each from the<br />
Service Employees Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l Union (SEIU); the<br />
Natio<strong>na</strong>l Education Association (NEA), the biggest<br />
educators' union; and public sector union the American<br />
Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees<br />
(AFSCME).<br />
AFSCME and SEIU gave another $10,000 and<br />
$20,000 to House Majority, respectively.<br />
The biggest individual donor was James Simons, a<br />
billio<strong>na</strong>ire hedge fund ma<strong>na</strong>ger, who gave $1 million to<br />
Majority PAC.<br />
Another hedge fund ma<strong>na</strong>ger, S. Do<strong>na</strong>ld Sussman,<br />
who is married to Democratic Representative Chellie<br />
Pingree of Maine, became the biggest donor to House<br />
Majority with his $250,000 do<strong>na</strong>tion.<br />
American Bridge's top contributor was Anne Earhart,<br />
who gave $400,000 to the Super PAC. Earhart is the<br />
granddaughter of J. Paul Getty, the oil baron and<br />
founder of Getty Oil.<br />
71
LAGGING BEHIND REPUBLICANS<br />
Many Democrats staunchly opposed the controversial<br />
2010 Supreme Court decision that paved the way for<br />
Super PACs by removing limits on how much<br />
corporations, unions and other outside groups could<br />
spend on helping politicians.<br />
Many Democrats' disdain for the court ruling - along<br />
with their dismay at the barrage of PAC-funded attack<br />
ads that fed into the bitter campaign for the Republican<br />
presidential nomi<strong>na</strong>tion - put Democrats behind<br />
fundraising for PACs.<br />
Leaders of Democratic PACs say many potential<br />
donors have not yet realized the urgency being felt by<br />
groups that support Democratic candidates.<br />
That complacency has also haunted another major<br />
Democratic PAC - Priorities USA Action, which backs<br />
President Barack Obama - as Obama himself did not<br />
support Super PACs until February.<br />
Priorities had $2.8 million in the bank at the end of<br />
February, according to its latest filing. The group is due<br />
to report its March numbers on April 20.<br />
Priorities shares a fund with Majority PAC and House<br />
Majority PAC, called Unity 2012, giving donors a single<br />
place to send checks. At the end of March, this<br />
month-old PAC had just one do<strong>na</strong>tion, $100,000 from<br />
Reuters General/ - Article, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Florida-based law firm Morgan & Morgan, which was<br />
split between Priorities and Majority PAC.<br />
REPUBLICANS STEP UP<br />
The Republican Natio<strong>na</strong>l Committee, another engine<br />
of Republican Party fundraising for congressio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
races, on Friday marked its best fundraising month of<br />
the campaign season.<br />
The committee, which has been digging itself out of a<br />
multimillion-dollar debt, said it raised $13.7 million in<br />
March, with debts declining by $1 million from<br />
February to $9.9 million at the end of last month.<br />
The committee started fundraising jointly this month<br />
with Mitt Romney, the party's likely presidential<br />
nominee. It had $32.7 million in cash on hand at the<br />
end of March.<br />
Its counterpart across the party line, the Democratic<br />
Natio<strong>na</strong>l Committee, received $7.1 million in<br />
contributions in February, with $21.2 million left in cash<br />
on hand at the end of that month. The DNC had $5.8<br />
million in debt.<br />
The RNC and the DNC are also due to file their official<br />
March fundraising reports with the FEC on April 20.<br />
(Editing by David Lindsey, Peter Cooney and Eric<br />
Beech)<br />
72
The Economic Times/ - News, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Mayawati warns Akhilesh Yadav from<br />
making changes in parks, statues<br />
LUCKNOW: BSP chief Mayawati, who had drawn flak<br />
from the Supreme Court for wasting taxpayers' money<br />
by building parks and installing her statues, today<br />
warned the ruling SP in Uttar Pradesh that any move<br />
to make changes in the memorials erected during her<br />
regime could create law and order problem.<br />
"The ruling SP should take a lesson from the BSP<br />
government which did not make any dent in the honour<br />
and prestige of the various parks and memorials set up<br />
by the Mulayam Singh Yadav government in the <strong>na</strong>me<br />
of its ideologues and great men," she said at a function<br />
after paying floral tributes to Dr B R Ambedkar here.<br />
The former chief minister warned against any move to<br />
make changes in the parks saying "it would create a<br />
law and order problem not only in the state but also in<br />
the country".<br />
"The SP government should not indulge in any act<br />
which could create a problem in the country and their<br />
government could also face serious problem," she<br />
said.<br />
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday had<br />
announced that while the previous regime had built<br />
parks and statues, his government will set up IT park<br />
in Lucknow to attract companies to the state capital.<br />
73
The Economic Times/ - News, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
UP government promises strict action<br />
against schools violating RTE<br />
Ballia: Uttar Pradesh Government today said strict<br />
action would be taken against schools overlooking the<br />
order of the Supreme Court on Right to Education.<br />
Basic Education Minister Ram Govind Chaudhary said<br />
strict implementation of the SC order would be<br />
ensured in the state and recognition of schools<br />
violating it could be cancelled.<br />
He told reporters as per the order, the schools would<br />
not only be required to give admission to 25 per cent<br />
poor children, but also provide them facilities like other<br />
students.<br />
Chaudhary said that emphasis would be given that<br />
schools run as per the schedule and an environment of<br />
education and discipline was created.<br />
74
The New York Times/ - Politics, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Why Medical Bills Are a Mystery<br />
RISING health care costs are busting the federal<br />
budget as well as those of states, counties and<br />
municipalities. Policy makers and health care leaders<br />
have spent decades trying to figure out what to do<br />
about this.<br />
Yet their solutions are failing because of a fundamental<br />
and largely unrecognized problem: We don’t know<br />
what it costs to deliver health care to individual<br />
patients, much less how those costs compare to the<br />
outcomes achieved.<br />
When insurance companies or government bodies try<br />
to control costs, they usually make across-the-board<br />
reimbursement cuts that ultimately are unsustai<strong>na</strong>ble<br />
because they have no connection to the true costs of<br />
delivering care. Providers themselves do not measure<br />
their costs correctly. They assign costs to patients<br />
based on what they charge, not on the actual costs of<br />
the resources, like personnel and equipment, used to<br />
care for the patient. The result is that attempts to cut<br />
costs fail, and total health care costs just keep rising.<br />
Regardless of what decision the Supreme Court<br />
reaches on the legality of the Affordable Care Act,<br />
measuring outcomes and costs is indispensable to<br />
driving improvements.<br />
Because health care charges and reimbursements<br />
have become disconnected from actual costs, some<br />
procedures are reimbursed very generously, while<br />
others are priced below their actual cost or not<br />
reimbursed at all. This leads many providers to expand<br />
into well-reimbursed procedures, like knee and hip<br />
replacements or high-end imaging, producing huge<br />
excess capacity for these at the same time that<br />
shortages persist in poorly reimbursed but critical<br />
services like primary and preventive care.<br />
The lack of cost and outcome information also<br />
prevents the forces of competition from working:<br />
Hospitals and doctors are reimbursed for performing<br />
lots of procedures and tests regardless of whether they<br />
are necessary to make their patients get better.<br />
Providers who excel and achieve better outcomes with<br />
fewer visits, procedures and complications are<br />
pe<strong>na</strong>lized by being paid less.<br />
Our research and executive workshops show that<br />
many sites are already improving their measurements<br />
of patient outcomes. But they have done little to<br />
measure the actual costs of achieving those outcomes.<br />
We are currently working with several health care<br />
organizations, including MD Anderson Cancer Center<br />
in Houston, Children’s Hospital Boston, Partners<br />
Healthcare in Boston and Schön Klinik in Germany,<br />
that are beginning to figure out how to measure costs.<br />
They use teams of clinicians and administrators to<br />
identify all the processes involved in care, from a<br />
patient’s first contact with a health care provider<br />
through his or her inpatient stay and outpatient<br />
follow-up care. The teams then identify the quantity<br />
and unit cost of each resource — clinical staff,<br />
equipment, supplies, devices and administrative<br />
support — used in each process and add these<br />
together to learn the total cost of a patient’s care.<br />
The information helps them discover immediate and<br />
significant opportunities for improvements in care and<br />
reduced spending. MD Anderson, for example, has<br />
studied its evaluation process for new head and neck<br />
cancer patients. By substituting trained staff members<br />
for physicians, standardizing processes and improving<br />
information technology, it has been able to make care<br />
more efficient without any adverse effect on patient<br />
outcomes. It has made changes that reduced total<br />
costs by 36 percent, and freed employees to serve<br />
more patients without adding to costs.<br />
A surgeon repairing cleft palates at Children’s Hospital<br />
Boston discovered that 40 percent of the total cost of<br />
an 18-month-care process was due to the time a child<br />
spent in the intensive care unit before and after<br />
surgery. By using a far less intensively staffed and<br />
equipped observation room, the hospital could achieve<br />
equivalent quality and safety at much lower costs.<br />
Most health care providers have hundreds of these<br />
opportunities to use time, equipment and facilities<br />
more intelligently. These opportunities have been<br />
obscured by existing costing systems that have little<br />
connection to the processes actually performed.<br />
With accurate information on outcomes and costs,<br />
providers can improve care and save money by<br />
elimi<strong>na</strong>ting things that don’t help the patient, like<br />
multiple check-ins and medical histories, tests that<br />
provide little new information and long waiting times.<br />
Many routine tasks are performed today by highly<br />
trained doctors and nurses. These tasks can be shifted<br />
to others, freeing the most skilled clinicians for far<br />
more productive work.<br />
Health care providers with expensive and poorly<br />
utilized equipment, space and staff can see the<br />
benefits of consolidating services to improve utilization<br />
75
and reduce some existing capacity. They can also<br />
perform routine services in lower-cost locations,<br />
reserving expensive medical centers for complex care.<br />
These opportunities will allow the health care needs of<br />
an aging population to be met with little need to<br />
increase spending. Understanding costs could be the<br />
single most powerful lever to transform the value of<br />
health care.<br />
The New York Times/ - Politics, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
This would give payers and providers the data they<br />
need to improve patient care, and to stop arbitrary cuts<br />
and counterproductive cost shifting.<br />
Robert S. Kaplan and Michael E. Porter are professors<br />
of accounting and strategy, respectively, at Harvard<br />
Business School.<br />
76
BY the standards of Hilary Rosen, whose <strong>na</strong>me and<br />
swipe at Ann Romney just possibly crossed your radar<br />
last week, my mother also never worked a day in her<br />
life, at least not after she delivered the first of four<br />
epically needy, fiercely loved and ferociously grateful<br />
children.Like Romney, Mom didn’t punch a clock or get<br />
a paycheck or any of that. She might have endured<br />
less stress and fi<strong>na</strong>gled more sleep if she had. But her<br />
arrangement with Dad was traditio<strong>na</strong>l: he sweated the<br />
income, she sweated the rest. Actually, it wasn’t so<br />
traditio<strong>na</strong>l, because the rest included the bill paying,<br />
the checkbook balancing, the wrangling with the<br />
roofer, the wrangling with the electrician, the car<br />
selection, the school selection, you <strong>na</strong>me it.<br />
The major decisions were all hers. While Dad<br />
playacted the part of president, Mom was both House<br />
and Se<strong>na</strong>te, with supermajorities that could override all<br />
vetoes. She was also Supreme Court, poised to strike<br />
down any of his individual mandates.<br />
He had whole days off. She had the stray episode of<br />
“Mannix,” “Kojak” and — equal opportunist and Angie<br />
Dickinson aficio<strong>na</strong>da that she was — “Police Woman.”<br />
Then it was back to the pinpoint ma<strong>na</strong>gement of six<br />
lives, only one of them her own.<br />
I don’t mean to romanticize her lot. Quite the opposite.<br />
And I worry to this day that she didn’t really choose it,<br />
i<strong>na</strong>smuch as she and Dad were products of a different<br />
generation, when too many women were prodded in<br />
too preordained a direction.<br />
But I know that she was proud of how she spent her<br />
time and chafed mightily at any career woman who in<br />
any way insinuated that she was performing a servile<br />
or trivial function. And since she’s no longer around, I’ll<br />
chafe for her. What Rosen said was i<strong>na</strong>ccurate,<br />
gratuitous and a sad example of the way politics is<br />
practiced today.<br />
Has too much been made of it? That was Stage 2 or 3<br />
of the commentary, during which it was rightly noted<br />
that Rosen, a Democratic consultant, wasn’t speaking<br />
for the Obama administration or even the Democratic<br />
Natio<strong>na</strong>l Committee. In fact the president, his advisers<br />
and the D.N.C. quickly distanced themselves from her.<br />
Even Michelle Obama tweeted a tsk-tsk.<br />
It was also said that the news media was tumbling<br />
headlong into a noncontroversy and that we should all<br />
be talking instead about the economy, the debt and<br />
health care, as if those topics had gone unplumbed<br />
and Democrats and Republicans alike hadn’t turned<br />
Working and Women<br />
The New York Times/ - Politics, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
isolated outbursts or gaffes into major hullabaloos<br />
before.<br />
But Rosen’s words warrant attention for several<br />
reasons, the most significant of which I’ll save for last.<br />
She may not reflect the prevailing Democratic thinking,<br />
but she does reflect the way partisan sniping aims too<br />
broadly and claims needless casualties. These days<br />
it’s seldom enough to question the opposing side; you<br />
have to discredit anyone associated with it, even if that<br />
person has done little to draw such withering fire.<br />
In assessing Mitt Romney’s appeal to women, we<br />
should by all means look carefully at his hiring record<br />
at Bain Capital; at how well women were represented<br />
in Massachusetts government under his watch; at<br />
whether his current policy prescriptions square with<br />
many women’s needs; at his positions (they change)<br />
on reproductive choice. Relevant material, all of it.<br />
But Ann Romney? Rosen claimed that she was fair<br />
game because her husband had cited her as an<br />
adviser of sorts on women’s issues, but that doesn’t<br />
justify the perso<strong>na</strong>l <strong>na</strong>ture of Rosen’s gibe. And<br />
tagging Ann Romney as sheltered and old-fashioned is<br />
such an obvious, facile and reductive putdown, just as<br />
the Catholic League’s subsequent derision of Rosen’s<br />
sexuality and family — she’s lesbian, with adopted kids<br />
— is cheap and gross. We have to be better than this.<br />
Rosen also said that she wasn’t critiquing Ann<br />
Romney’s role as a homemaker but, rather, her<br />
charmed isolation from — and thus presumed<br />
insensitivity to — the fi<strong>na</strong>ncial hardships of mothers<br />
who must work.<br />
WHEN did it become axiomatic that to care about<br />
people in economic distress you have to be perso<strong>na</strong>lly<br />
familiar with it? This notion has been one of the most<br />
frequently used cudgels against Mitt Romney, who has<br />
abetted it with his near-pathological k<strong>na</strong>ck for awkward<br />
invocations of wealth. He has somehow ma<strong>na</strong>ged to<br />
create such an easy-street image for himself that John<br />
Kerry’s breezy windsurfing seems, in retrospect, like a<br />
slog in a dinghy with one oar.<br />
But if privilege equals an i<strong>na</strong>bility to relate, then we<br />
apparently misjudged and must reappraise many<br />
politicians from the past, including the Roosevelts, the<br />
Kennedys and even George Washington.<br />
What’s most bothersome about Rosen’s comment,<br />
though, was its betrayal of what the Democratic Party<br />
77
and feminism at their best are supposed to be about:<br />
recognizing the full diversity of human experience and<br />
empowering everyone along that spectrum to walk<br />
successfully down the path of his or her choosing, so<br />
long as it poses no clear harm to anyone else.<br />
Does Ann Romney’s path make sense to me?<br />
Marriage at 19, with a special, separate Mormon<br />
ceremony the next day that excluded her non-Mormon<br />
parents? No. But I respect her right to it. I admire her<br />
resilience in the face of breast cancer and then<br />
multiple sclerosis. And I think that Rosen’s dig not only<br />
violated the very idea of inclusiveness but also had the<br />
sort of judgmental ring for which many of us justly<br />
excoriate certain institutions and figures on the right:<br />
the Catholic League, Rick Santorum, Rush Limbaugh.<br />
That sort of censure used to make my mother livid. In<br />
1970 she wrote that some feminist rhetoric of that time<br />
“practically accuses you of crimi<strong>na</strong>l negligence<br />
The New York Times/ - Politics, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
because you have turned your back on your<br />
college-trained mind.” This was in an essay in the<br />
jour<strong>na</strong>l of the Woman’s Club of White Plains, N.Y.<br />
“I haven’t turned my back on my education,” she<br />
continued, adding that she used it daily “to make my<br />
home the center of learning it should be.” I indeed<br />
remember talking about fiction with her. About science.<br />
About current events, too.<br />
But mostly I remember her at her computer well past<br />
10 p.m., stealing the last hours of the day to do<br />
administrative work for some volunteer project she’d<br />
been drawn into or for the 60-member competitive<br />
swimming club that she and Dad had founded and that<br />
she ran largely by herself.<br />
I wish I knew how to work even half that hard.<br />
78
The New York Times/ - Politics, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
When Is a Flip Not a Flop?<br />
At the end of January, New York’s Conservative Party,<br />
the most influential of the minor parties that complicate<br />
the state’s politics, celebrated its 50th anniversary at a<br />
Holiday Inn near the Albany airport, a vast and dingy<br />
venue that reminded me of athlete housing left over<br />
from the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Politicians like<br />
former Gov. George Pataki, who owed his election to<br />
the Conservatives, came to pay homage to the party<br />
for its record of steering the state’s politics to the<br />
right.But one calamity darkened the mood of nostalgia<br />
and self-congratulation: the passage last summer of a<br />
law legalizing same-sex marriage. For many New<br />
Yorkers, the June 24 marriage vote was a rare<br />
moment of goosebump drama from a capital better<br />
known for tedious dysfunction. For the Conservatives,<br />
and in particular for Mike Long, the ex-marine who has<br />
been the party’s chairman for nearly half of its history,<br />
the vote was a triple humiliation.<br />
It was, first, a defining triumph for the state’s ambitious<br />
new Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo. Second, it<br />
was an abandonment by Republican leaders, who had<br />
invoked party discipline to kill similar legislation in<br />
2009. This time the Republican leaders publicly<br />
opposed gay marriage, but knowing that both public<br />
opinion and lobbying muscle were coalescing on the<br />
other side, they freed their members to vote as they<br />
wished. And that led to what was, for Mike Long, an<br />
unforgivable betrayal. All four of the Republican<br />
se<strong>na</strong>tors who voted for the bill and provided the<br />
necessary margin for it to pass had been elected with<br />
the Conservative endorsement, a prize for which<br />
opposition to gay marriage was an essential litmus<br />
test. Two of those wayward se<strong>na</strong>tors would not have<br />
won their seats without the Conservative boost.<br />
Try as they might to explain away the defections —<br />
perhaps it was the lure of money from gay hedge-fund<br />
billio<strong>na</strong>ires, or some devilish deal with Cuomo — the<br />
Conservatives feared that this defeat, if not punished,<br />
could mean an ominous loss of influence.<br />
The four Republican apostates now had targets on<br />
their backs.<br />
It is difficult to construct an argument against marriage<br />
rights for gay people that doesn’t sound like an<br />
argument against gay people. Mike Long and his<br />
fellow partisans, like many conservatives <strong>na</strong>tionwide,<br />
build their case on what they call “the defense of<br />
traditio<strong>na</strong>l marriage.” No society in history, they told me<br />
repeatedly, has extended marriage rights to<br />
homosexuals, and so we shouldn’t risk the unraveling<br />
of civilization by starting now. (Apparently they don’t<br />
count the 10 countries, from Ca<strong>na</strong>da to South Africa,<br />
where gays may legally marry and civilization<br />
endures.) I’ve had a few conversations with Long,<br />
trying to understand what harm they think they are<br />
defending marriage from. In one conversation I<br />
recounted my own classic wedding at the Holy Name<br />
of Jesus church, and wondered how somebody else’s<br />
less conventio<strong>na</strong>l marriage could diminish the joy of it.<br />
“Well, I don’t think it hurts anybody,” Long replied, “but<br />
I think a society has to have certain standards, and<br />
since the beginning of time, marriage has been<br />
between a man and a woman.” Marriage, he<br />
elaborated, is about children. “You’re not going to<br />
procreate children with same-sex couples.”<br />
I told him that would be news to my daughters’ school<br />
classmates, the ones with two moms or two dads. And<br />
by the way, we don’t prohibit elderly, infertile or just<br />
plain procreation-averse couples from marrying.<br />
“I know plenty of gay couples, O.K.?” he s<strong>na</strong>pped<br />
back. “Some of them, if not all of them, are very good<br />
people, O.K.? I just don’t believe that society needs to<br />
change what the definition of marriage is to<br />
accommodate their lifestyle. That’s all. You know, that<br />
may be old-school. But I think Western civilization has<br />
done pretty good old-school.”<br />
The quartet of dissident Republicans are themselves<br />
fairly old-school, at least when it comes to the rest of<br />
their conservative credentials. They come not from<br />
liberal Manhattan or the upscale suburbs of<br />
Westchester County. They are upstate guys, from<br />
struggling former mill towns and diminished Rust Belt<br />
cities. So while the se<strong>na</strong>tors’ political calculus differs<br />
from district to district, their experiences give us a<br />
glimpse into how this issue is likely to play out in “real<br />
America,” as conservatives are fond of calling it, and<br />
not just in the coastal metropolises. Which is why the<br />
fates of these four are being watched intently by<br />
<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l lobbies and wavering politicians across the<br />
country.<br />
Bill Keller is a former executive editor of The Times. He<br />
writes a column for the Op-Ed page.<br />
EDITOR: Greg Veis<br />
The least vulnerable of the four is probably Stephen M.<br />
Saland, a patrician-looking lawyer whose<br />
Poughkeepsie district sits about a two-hour drive north<br />
of New York City. A Capitol fixture since 1980 and a<br />
conscientious legislative technician, Saland negotiated<br />
79
with Cuomo the details of a shrewd compromise that<br />
assured religious organizations that they would not be<br />
compelled to participate in gay marriages, giving a bit<br />
of shelter to lawmakers worried about religious<br />
blowback. Saland agonized over this issue with his<br />
gay-marriage-supporting wife, but one acquaintance<br />
said his decision seemed to grow out of his immersion<br />
in the legislative language. He refused to talk for this<br />
article because of an old grudge against The Times<br />
over what an aide described as “an out-of-context<br />
quote.”Roy J. McDo<strong>na</strong>ld, who represents former mill<br />
towns like Troy and Mechanicville, didn’t see much<br />
percentage in reminiscing about his vote, either. He<br />
literally backpedaled as I interviewed him in the Se<strong>na</strong>te<br />
lobby. “I did what I thought was right,” he told me. The<br />
voters “understand that,” but now they want to talk<br />
about jobs and foreclosures, not marriage. “I can’t<br />
dwell on this stuff.” McDo<strong>na</strong>ld is a Viet<strong>na</strong>m veteran<br />
and former steelworker. Though he is now a banker,<br />
he retains a bluff manner, but with a compassio<strong>na</strong>te<br />
streak when it comes to those born different. Friends<br />
say he has two autistic grandsons, and watching the<br />
insensitivity the boys endured gave him a kind of<br />
collateral distaste for those who would margi<strong>na</strong>lize<br />
gays. McDo<strong>na</strong>ld, entirely in character, responded to<br />
criticism by announcing that if doing the right thing<br />
costs him his seat, “They can take the job and shove<br />
it.” That did not sit well with some local Republican<br />
leaders, but it’s the kind of directness his constituents<br />
seem to like.<br />
Jim Alesi, who formerly had a business operating<br />
laundry rooms in apartment buildings and dormitories,<br />
has been in politics for 23 years. He represents a<br />
swath of the Rochester area that’s more white-collar<br />
than blue-. When the Se<strong>na</strong>te rejected gay marriage in<br />
2009, Alesi toed his party’s line, but he held his head<br />
in visible distress, in part because it felt like a betrayal<br />
of his friend Thomas Duane, the Se<strong>na</strong>te’s only openly<br />
gay member. “I promised myself then that I would<br />
never vote no on this issue again,” he told me. And<br />
because his relatively affluent electorate leans<br />
moderate on social issues, the vote was not likely to<br />
fire up a huge reaction. Unfortu<strong>na</strong>tely for Alesi, he has<br />
other liabilities — more on those later — and he knows<br />
that some in his own party, not just the Conservatives,<br />
would like to throw him overboard.<br />
Mark Grisanti should be the most endangered<br />
Republican in the Se<strong>na</strong>te. He is a freshman, an Italian<br />
Catholic Republican in a slice of the Buffalo region that<br />
is five-to-one Democratic and nearly 40 percent black.<br />
He won his seat by a mere 519 votes over an<br />
incumbent African-American Democrat, Antoine<br />
Thompson. Thompson supported gay marriage, not a<br />
popular view in the black churches of Buffalo.<br />
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Grisanti didn’t make a big deal of marriage in his<br />
campaign, but he told people he was in the<br />
man-and-a-woman camp, which probably bought him<br />
a smattering of black support. Moreover, Grisanti was<br />
listed on the ballot as the candidate of the<br />
Conservative Party in addition to being the Republican<br />
nominee, and he reaped 4,368 votes on the<br />
Conservative line.<br />
So it is not a stretch to suggest that, between<br />
Conservative and black votes, Mark Grisanti owes his<br />
seat to the fact that he identified himself as a “no” vote<br />
on gay marriage. It is also not a stretch, as you will<br />
see, to say that if he wins re-election, it will be because<br />
he changed his mind.<br />
The choice of a gay rights tour guide in Buffalo was<br />
obvious. Kitty Lambert and her partner were the state’s<br />
first gay newlyweds. When the law went into effect,<br />
she and Cheryle Rudd — both longtime gay rights<br />
activists and, as Lambert likes to say, “two fat<br />
grandmothers” — drove from their home in Buffalo up<br />
to Niagara Falls for a midnight ceremony. Lambert<br />
grew up Mormon, endured a series of husbands in the<br />
effort to live up to her religion’s expectations and came<br />
out as a lesbian in her 30s. Between them, she and<br />
Rudd have five grown children and 15 grandchildren.<br />
Bill Keller is a former executive editor of The Times. He<br />
writes a column for the Op-Ed page.<br />
EDITOR: Greg Veis<br />
Kitty Lambert, who now goes by Lambert-Rudd, got to<br />
know Grisanti pretty well during months of lobbying<br />
him on the marriage bill, as he struggled with the<br />
tension between his Catholic faith and his lawyer’s<br />
reverence for equality. The lawyer won. (“I swore with<br />
my hand on the Bible to uphold the Constitution,” he<br />
told me. “I didn’t swear with my hand on the<br />
Constitution to uphold the Bible.”) Lambert-Rudd<br />
became so protective of the se<strong>na</strong>tor that she began a<br />
campaign to register like-minded Buffalo residents as<br />
members of the Conservative Party, hoping they could<br />
fend off Mike Long’s reprisals. She signed up about<br />
300. This, someone joked, was like getting rabbis to<br />
enroll in Hamas to make it less hostile to Israel.I<br />
wondered how she felt about laboring to save the<br />
political skin of a conservative Republican who<br />
disagreed with her on abortion rights and a slew of<br />
other issues.<br />
“Mark’s politics,” she said. “Wow. But I made a<br />
commitment to support anyone who recognized my<br />
rights as a gay person. Because that is my calling right<br />
now, it tends to be my full focus.”<br />
Not surprisingly, gay marriage is more likely to be a<br />
decisive issue for gays than for opponents. But if you<br />
80
parse public opinion, you find the acceptance of gay<br />
marriage is not just growing; it is accelerating. This is<br />
driven, of course, by the overwhelming support of<br />
young voters, but also by white Catholics, who have<br />
grown more open-minded on gay rights as they have<br />
become more affluent and educated, and as their<br />
children return from college with more liberal attitudes.<br />
Adding to the inexorability is a factor pollsters refer to<br />
as “salience,” a measure of how much an issue means<br />
to you. It figures heavily in what politicians decide is<br />
safe to do. Most Americans favor restrictions on guns,<br />
for example, but gun control is stymied by salience: the<br />
people who want full gun rights care far more about<br />
the issue than those who oppose them. Opponents of<br />
gay marriage used to hold their opinion more<br />
passio<strong>na</strong>tely than supporters. But as more Americans<br />
have openly gay children, siblings, friends and<br />
neighbors, the supporters feel just as strongly. Another<br />
sign of seismic change: civil unions, once regarded by<br />
gay-marriage supporters as a best-we-can-hope-for<br />
compromise, have become a fallback position of the<br />
anti-marriage camp.<br />
African-American support for gay marriage has<br />
remained stubborn, hovering around 30 percent for<br />
years, for reasons of class and education and because<br />
of the centrality of church in their lives. According to<br />
inter<strong>na</strong>l memos of the Natio<strong>na</strong>l Organization for<br />
Marriage, the anti-gay-marriage lobby sees an<br />
opportunity to play on the fact that some blacks resent<br />
hearing gay marriage likened to their own civil rights<br />
struggle.<br />
Fortu<strong>na</strong>tely for Grisanti, black congregations will not<br />
have much of a chance to register their disapproval in<br />
November. The legislators who have designed a<br />
statewide redistricting plan took extraordi<strong>na</strong>ry pains to<br />
protect Grisanti by sculpturing him a friendlier district.<br />
The redrawn district cuts Grisanti’s black constituency<br />
to 5 percent from 37 percent and reduces the<br />
Democrat-to-Republican ratio to less than two to one.<br />
To accomplish this, the designers took two distant<br />
swatches of friendly territory and attached them by a<br />
long thin strand of Lake Erie shoreline where the only<br />
constituents are fish.<br />
Indeed, Grisanti and the other three are in the<br />
improbable position of having grateful support both<br />
from the state G.O.P. leaders and from the Democratic<br />
governor. Cuomo, whose popularity is high, has<br />
lavished praise on the Republican Four for their<br />
courage. And Republican leaders are delighted that<br />
gay donors — who might, in the wake of a defeat,<br />
have mounted jihad against the state’s Republicans —<br />
are instead contributing generously to save these four<br />
Republican seats. Each raised between $400,000 and<br />
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CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
$540,000 in the 10 months after the vote, mighty war<br />
chests for State Se<strong>na</strong>te races. Discreetly, because<br />
local party officials resent being leaned on, state<br />
Republican leaders have tried to wave off strong<br />
challengers from filing in the Republican primaries of<br />
the four defectors.<br />
Bill Keller is a former executive editor of The Times. He<br />
writes a column for the Op-Ed page.<br />
EDITOR: Greg Veis<br />
Daisies Cafe sits on a block of Lackawan<strong>na</strong> between<br />
the baroque immensity of Our Lady of Victory basilica<br />
and the storefront office of the Erie County<br />
Conservative Party. It is home to something called the<br />
“Lard-ass Omelet” (which contains “every single meat<br />
we serve,” a waitress explained) and to a Saturday<br />
political breakfast that has been going on for 13 years.<br />
It draws Buffalo pols from all parties but is long on<br />
Conservatives.The Saturday I arrived, the county<br />
Conservative Party had just voted to deny Grisanti the<br />
party’s ballot line this year in favor of a conservative<br />
(and anti-gay-marriage) Democrat. A month earlier the<br />
Erie County Conservative chairman, Ralph Lorigo, laid<br />
out for me a pretty convincing case for forgiving<br />
Grisanti. The se<strong>na</strong>tor is pro-gun, anti-abortion,<br />
pro-business on taxes and regulation, a champion of<br />
charter schools — a budding star by most<br />
Conservative measures. And importantly, Grisanti’s<br />
victory gave the Republicans their single-member<br />
margin of control in the Se<strong>na</strong>te, making it a far more<br />
congenial environment for issues that matter to<br />
Conservatives. Why put that at risk for a little payback<br />
on gay marriage?<br />
Around the long table at Daisies, that sort of<br />
pragmatism could no longer be found. The<br />
gay-marriage issue had now been rebranded as an<br />
“integrity issue.” It wasn’t so much that Grisanti had<br />
voted for marriage, the breakfasting pols said. It’s that<br />
when he changed his mind he should have announced<br />
that to voters and then submitted himself to another<br />
election before casting such an important vote.<br />
The rebranding suggested to me that the anti-marriage<br />
camp is aware of its salience problem. Lashing<br />
Grisanti for a vote of conscience could be<br />
counterproductive, so the hunt is under way for<br />
nonmarriage reasons to dump him. One that may get<br />
some mileage is the se<strong>na</strong>tor’s recent involvement in a<br />
bar brawl at an Indian-owned casino in his district.<br />
According to Grisanti’s account, he went to watch his<br />
daughter fill in for the lead singer of a Rat Pack-era<br />
cover band called the Scintas. While waiting in the bar,<br />
he tried to verbally defuse an argument between two<br />
drinkers; before he knew it fists were flying, someone<br />
had knocked his wife to the floor and he was wading in<br />
to save her. The district attorney has chosen to close<br />
81
the case, but Grisanti’s opponents won’t.<br />
What it comes down to is that the Conservatives need<br />
to prove they can still flex their political muscles. I got a<br />
candid lesson in realpolitik from Jason J. McGuire, the<br />
acting Livingston County chairman: “You think we’re<br />
going to talk marriage, marriage, marriage all of the<br />
time? No. In any campaign you find the weakness, and<br />
you exploit that. These people betrayed their base.”<br />
Like New York’s Conservatives, the <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l lobbies<br />
for and against marriage equality see the fate of these<br />
four New York Republicans as bearing heavily on their<br />
future influence in states where marriage is still<br />
undecided. If marriage supporters can’t protect their<br />
friends, if opponents can’t mete out punishment to the<br />
defectors, who will pay attention to them next time?<br />
“The price is going to be paid by turncoats like Grisanti<br />
and the rest,” declared Brian Brown, president of the<br />
Natio<strong>na</strong>l Organization for Marriage, who claims to have<br />
$2 million earmarked for the defeat of the New York<br />
Four.<br />
So far, the most significant N.O.M. reprisals in New<br />
York have been billboards briefly erected in the four<br />
districts, with a me<strong>na</strong>cing but oddly nonspecific<br />
message addressed to each se<strong>na</strong>tor: “You’re Next.”<br />
When I asked Conservative politicians in New York<br />
what part the <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l lobby would play, most tended<br />
to agree with Thomas D. Cook, chairman of the<br />
Monroe County party organization: “I think they’re full<br />
of smoke.”<br />
The Sunday morning after my breakfast at Daisies, I<br />
drove an hour past rolling dairy pastures to Rochester<br />
to attend church with Se<strong>na</strong>tor Alesi, the only one of the<br />
four who state Republican leaders believe is in real<br />
peril. A few days earlier, the Conservative Party<br />
announced that Alesi ranked lowest of all Se<strong>na</strong>te<br />
Republicans (52 percent) on its key-vote scorecard;<br />
the Monroe County chairman declared that Alesi would<br />
not get the Conservative line this year. The county<br />
Republican chairman was meeting with local party<br />
leaders to discuss backing someone else.<br />
Bill Keller is a former executive editor of The Times. He<br />
writes a column for the Op-Ed page.<br />
EDITOR: Greg Veis<br />
Alesi is enjoying the fi<strong>na</strong>ncial largess that has accrued<br />
to other gay-marriage supporters, but he has not been<br />
helped by redistricting. And where Grisanti is seen by<br />
party leaders as an up-and-comer, Alesi is considered<br />
unpredictable — as one prominent Republican put it,<br />
“a character.”When I met with the se<strong>na</strong>tor, his mood<br />
verged on fatalism. The club his enemies would use to<br />
pummel him, he surmised, would not be gay marriage<br />
but a loopy episode known in his district as “the<br />
lawsuit.” Back in 2008, Alesi was exploring houses for<br />
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CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
sale in a new development called Trolley Brook<br />
Estates. Finding one house locked, he went in the<br />
basement door. The house was still under<br />
construction, so he climbed up a ladder being used as<br />
a makeshift stairway, fell and injured his leg. It turned<br />
out this house had already been sold, but the owners<br />
agreed not to press trespassing charges. Then last<br />
year, a day before the statute of limitations was set to<br />
expire, Alesi sued the homeowners, a retired couple,<br />
for his injuries. A few days later, realizing that this was<br />
a boneheaded bit of public relations, he dropped the<br />
suit and apologized. I don’t think I encountered a voter<br />
in Rochester who hadn’t followed the story.<br />
Anyone who was surprised by Alesi’s vote for gay<br />
marriage has never been to services at Spiritus Christi<br />
Church, where Alesi has been a parishioner for a<br />
half-dozen years. The 9:30 Mass was offered at a<br />
former Presbyterian sanctuary, and the 850 seats were<br />
filled with a cheerful mix of multigeneratio<strong>na</strong>l families<br />
and gay couples. The Mass featured a choir that could<br />
hold its own in a gospel sing-off (the associate pastor<br />
calls it “our mostly white black choir”) and a homily that<br />
turned Noah’s tale into a parable of inclusiveness and<br />
second chances. Alesi seemed to take real joy and<br />
comfort from the service, at one point leaning over to<br />
tell me: “This is a safe place. It feels so different from<br />
the world I work in.”<br />
Spiritus Christi bills itself as “a Catholic church, not a<br />
Roman Catholic church.” It was expelled by the<br />
Vatican for, among other deviations, favoring the<br />
ordi<strong>na</strong>tion of women and an inclusive view of gay<br />
people. The clergy members began performing gay<br />
marriages long before the Legislature gave them legal<br />
status. Alesi has become something of a hero to the<br />
congregation.<br />
“When he voted against it the first time,” Jim Callan,<br />
the associate pastor, told me, “they grouped against<br />
him at the church.” Last year when he voted in favor,<br />
the Rev. Mary Ramerman announced it during Mass,<br />
and he got a standing ovation.<br />
After Mass I drove around Alesi’s district and was<br />
struck by two things: first, most people I spoke to knew<br />
the <strong>na</strong>me of their state se<strong>na</strong>tor, which — trust me — is<br />
nowhere close to normal. And second, the prevailing<br />
popular view was admiration and shared pride that a<br />
politician had not followed the path of least resistance.<br />
I found people who disagreed with his vote, and a few<br />
who said they might hold it against him in November.<br />
But there was none of the vehemence I heard around<br />
the pols’ table at Daisies.<br />
Many gays still experience America as intolerant, even<br />
me<strong>na</strong>cing. But if the experience of New York’s<br />
Republican dissenters teaches us anything, it is how<br />
82
quickly the political tide is turning, how quickly the<br />
“untraditio<strong>na</strong>l” is becoming normal. Is it moving quickly<br />
enough that the Supreme Court, where the issue may<br />
be headed via a California test case, will decide the<br />
country is ready to accept gay marriage as a<br />
constitutio<strong>na</strong>l right? Quickly enough that the issue<br />
could be an asset, or at least not a liability, if Cuomo<br />
runs for president in 2016? Neither would surprise me.<br />
At the very least, voting for gay marriage, even if you<br />
are a Republican politician from the heartland, is not<br />
the risk it would have been just a couple of years ago.<br />
The four defectors aren’t guaranteed re-election. But if<br />
they lose, it is likely to be in spite of their marriage<br />
vote, not because of it.<br />
“The earth didn’t stop spinning,” Alesi said. “The moon<br />
didn’t fall into the pond. The people who live across the<br />
street are still the same people, except that they’re<br />
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CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
married.”<br />
Alesi is not the type to echo McDo<strong>na</strong>ld’s chorus of<br />
“Take the job and shove it,” but he clings to something<br />
that lawmakers rarely get from working in Albany, a<br />
sense of having done something worthwhile and a little<br />
brave.<br />
“At the end of the day, wherever I end up, we’ll have<br />
marriage equality in New York State,” he told me.<br />
“There isn’t anything you can point to in a political<br />
career, if you’re just looking over the years you served,<br />
that you can say was as big as this.”<br />
Bill Keller is a former executive editor of The Times. He<br />
writes a column for the Op-Ed page.<br />
EDITOR: Greg Veis<br />
83
The New York Times/ - Politics, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
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Cotton Fields and Brownfields<br />
I’M the oldest of 12 children. My father emigrated from<br />
Mexico to the United States in the late 1930s as an<br />
undocumented worker. He joined the U.S. Army when<br />
the country needed soldiers for World War II but was<br />
quickly discharged for health reasons. We still have his<br />
discharge papers. He eventually became a <strong>na</strong>turalized<br />
citizen.My mater<strong>na</strong>l grandfather fled the 1910 Mexican<br />
revolution and settled in Texas, where my mother was<br />
born and met and married my father. During the<br />
summers, my siblings and I worked in the fields. We<br />
picked tomatoes for 10 cents a crate in May and then<br />
cotton in July and August at $1.75 for every 100<br />
pounds. After high school, I paid for my college<br />
education by working a 16-hour shift during the<br />
summers at a processing plant for cotton, making<br />
$1.10 an hour.<br />
My friends and I car-pooled to the University of<br />
Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, and in 1965 I<br />
graduated with a B.A. in political science. The civil<br />
rights movement had reached our state, and<br />
Mexican-Americans were becoming more active in<br />
politics. Many of us had been motivated by the Viva<br />
Kennedy-Viva Johnson clubs that formed in Texas in<br />
support of John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign.<br />
During my junior year in college, there was an open<br />
slot in the Democratic primary in my county for a<br />
justice of the peace. Several friends in the Political<br />
Association of Spanish-Speaking Organizations said<br />
our community needed to field someone and urged me<br />
to run. I was still in school, but I jumped at the chance<br />
to get into politics.<br />
I won the November election and took office in January<br />
1965, just as I was starting my last semester of<br />
college. I juggled school and my judicial duties until I<br />
graduated.<br />
In the late 1960s, Raul Yzaguirre (now United States<br />
ambassador to the Dominican Republic), Rick Bela<br />
and I started the nonprofit Interstate Research<br />
Associates, which provided training and technical<br />
assistance to social service organizations.<br />
In 1971, with increased government support for<br />
minority enterprises, we changed our focus and started<br />
InterAmerica Research Associates, which contracted<br />
with various federal agencies. We worked on projects<br />
like bilingual education. Around 1987, we began<br />
providing I.T. services to Congress under the <strong>na</strong>me<br />
Inter-America Technologies.<br />
In 1983, the president of Wapora, an environmental<br />
consulting firm owned by Kemron, approached my<br />
chief fi<strong>na</strong>ncial officer about my interest in buying<br />
Wapora from its parent.<br />
I discovered that both companies were in fi<strong>na</strong>ncial<br />
difficulty, but saw a great business opportunity. I took<br />
the risk and acquired Kemron, and with it Wapora. I<br />
placed the company into bankruptcy the next day and<br />
started rebuilding.<br />
Today, we have about 175 employees, five offices and<br />
various projects around the country and in Puerto<br />
Rico. Kemron cleans many types of contami<strong>na</strong>ted<br />
sites. We helped clean the Hart Se<strong>na</strong>te Office Building<br />
when anthrax was found there in 2001, and were<br />
involved in the cleanup of the BP oil spill in Louisia<strong>na</strong><br />
and in the environmental cleanup in Mississippi after<br />
Hurricane Katri<strong>na</strong>.<br />
One of my sisters belongs to the Missio<strong>na</strong>ry Catechists<br />
of Divine Providence, a congregation of<br />
Mexican-American nuns in San Antonio. In the early<br />
1980s, the convent became too costly to maintain, so<br />
the group sold it and moved to surplus military<br />
barracks. Around 1990, I learned that the building was<br />
going into foreclosure, worked with the nuns to buy it<br />
back, and helped organize a fund-raiser. The Benitia<br />
Humanitarian Award Dinner, <strong>na</strong>med for the<br />
congregation’s founder, has become an annual event<br />
for the convent.<br />
As told to Patricia R. Olsen.<br />
84
ON the last night of February, Arthur Sando was<br />
having a drink at the Brentwood Restaurant and<br />
Lounge in Los Angeles when a bearded silver-haired<br />
man took a seat next to him, ordered a glass of pinot<br />
noir and began typing into his BlackBerry.Mr. Sando<br />
quickly realized he was sitting next to Andrew<br />
Breitbart, the conservative blogger and author, and the<br />
two began to chat. As with almost any encounter with<br />
Mr. Breitbart, the next 90 minutes between the former<br />
strangers was punctuated by laughs, some outrageous<br />
political assertions and repeated interruptions as Mr.<br />
Breitbart checked his smartphone.<br />
“We talked politics, television, college and living in Los<br />
Angeles,” Mr. Sando said, adding that Mr. Breitbart<br />
had a single glass of wine during the conversation and<br />
seemed to be in both good spirits and good health. “He<br />
said that conversations like ours were why he liked to<br />
go to bars and talk with people who had different<br />
political beliefs.”<br />
Mr. Sando paid his tab and left. Not long after, Mr.<br />
Breitbart, 43, settled his own bill and apparently<br />
headed to the nearby home he shared with his wife,<br />
Susie Bean Breitbart, and their four young children.<br />
Minutes after exiting the bar, he collapsed in front of a<br />
Starbucks like a “sack of potatoes,” one witness said.<br />
Paramedics were u<strong>na</strong>ble to revive him. Later, his<br />
father-in-law, the actor Orson Bean, said that Mr.<br />
Breitbart had a history of heart ailments. (A fi<strong>na</strong>l<br />
coroner’s report, with the official cause of death, is<br />
expected this month.)<br />
The following morning, Mr. Sando, a marketing<br />
executive from Los Angeles whose encounter with Mr.<br />
Breitbart was first reported in The Hollywood Reporter,<br />
grabbed his iPhone. The first thing he saw was a<br />
headline saying Mr. Breitbart had died.<br />
“I thought it was a prank,” he said in a recent<br />
telephone interview. “I thought he might have been in<br />
the habit of sending fake headlines to people he had<br />
encountered with different political opinions.”<br />
It was a common response, particularly among people<br />
who knew him well. After a lifetime of pranks, capers<br />
and so many people wishing him dead, it would have<br />
been just like Mr. Breitbart to stage his own demise.<br />
“I kept thinking, he is going to pull something off here,”<br />
said Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of<br />
Texas, at a memorial held at the Newseum in<br />
Washington three weeks later. “He’s going to find out<br />
who hates his guts and who loved him, and I kept<br />
The Provocateur<br />
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CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
wanting to hear back, ‘O.K., the gag’s up.’ ”<br />
On the Web, there was a huge outpouring of both<br />
invective and grief. Dark, unsubstantiated theories that<br />
he was murdered mushroomed immediately, while 24<br />
of his friends used the hashtag DJBreitbart on Twitter<br />
to offer a playlist of his beloved ’80s music. His own<br />
Twitter account (which included more than 80 tweets<br />
sent on the day before his death) now sits as a frozen<br />
memorial.<br />
In the days following the death of Mr. Breitbart, many<br />
of his admirers adopted a meme of “I am Breitbart,”<br />
and vowed to continue his work. But even though his<br />
Web site, run by his business partner and lifelong<br />
friend Larry Solov, is fully staffed and unveiled a<br />
redesign after his death, there could be no real<br />
replacement.For good or ill (and most would say ill), no<br />
one did it like Mr. Breitbart.<br />
ANDREW BREITBART jacked into the Web early and<br />
never unplugged. As someone who worked on the<br />
Drudge Report and The Huffington Post in the early<br />
days and was busy building his own mini-empire of<br />
conservative opinion and infotainment at<br />
Breitbart.com, he understood in a fundamental way<br />
how discourse could be profoundly shaped by the<br />
pixels generated far outside the mainstream media he<br />
held in such low regard.<br />
Mr. Breitbart, as much as anyone, turned the Web into<br />
an assault rifle, helping to bring down Acorn, a<br />
community organizing group, with the strategic release<br />
of undercover videos made by James O’Keefe, a<br />
conservative activist; forcing Shirley Sherrod, an<br />
Agriculture Department official, out of her job with a<br />
misleadingly edited clip of a speech; and flushing out<br />
Representive Anthony D. Weiner, Democrat of New<br />
York, when he tried to lie about lewd pictures he had<br />
sent via Twitter.<br />
Less watchdog than pit bull (and one who, without the<br />
technology of the 21st century, might have been just<br />
one more angry man shouting from a street corner),<br />
Mr. Breitbart altered the rules of civil discourse.Mark<br />
Feldstein, a jour<strong>na</strong>lism professor at the University of<br />
Maryland, said that Mr. Breitbart “used the tools of<br />
invective and polemic to change the conversation, to<br />
try to turn it to his advantage.”<br />
Mr. Breitbart was a ubiquitous presence on and off the<br />
Web, though not one who ever ma<strong>na</strong>ged to have<br />
significant business success there. His star rose along<br />
85
with the Tea Party, of which he was an early and<br />
frequent defender.<br />
But he cut an odd figure for a conservative, holding<br />
forth with lectures on political theory that<br />
<strong>na</strong>me-dropped Michel Foucault and other leftist<br />
thinkers. He could also be mordantly funny. (His<br />
Twitter avatar was an echo of the apocryphal Jesus<br />
imprint on a piece of toast.) Matt Labash, senior editor<br />
at The Weekly Standard, described him as “half right<br />
wing Yippie, half Andy Kaufman,” in his column after<br />
Mr. Breitbart died.<br />
In 2011, while various religious groups boycotted the<br />
Conservative Political Action Conference because of<br />
the inclusion of gay Republican groups, he helped hold<br />
a party for the gay groups.<br />
He was conversant in pop culture — the Cure and<br />
New Order were particular musical favorites — and<br />
thought nothing of wearing in-line skates, his longish<br />
hair trailing behind him, as he confronted protesters at<br />
a rally outside a conservative event hosted by David<br />
and Charles Koch in Palm Springs, Calif., in 2011.<br />
Once he was done berating the protesters, he took<br />
some of them to dinner at Applebee’s.<br />
Mr. Breitbart took in life in big gulps, but he spat out<br />
even bigger portions of bile. The day that Se<strong>na</strong>tor<br />
Edward M. Kennedy died, he called him “a special pile<br />
of human excrement” and tweeted, “Rest in<br />
Chappaquiddick.” Matt Yglesias of Slate returned the<br />
favor after Mr. Breitbart died, tweeting: “Conventions<br />
around dead people are ridiculous. The world outlook<br />
is slightly improved with @AndrewBreitbart dead.”<br />
Many of his familiars called him a “happy warrior,” but<br />
worried about his health because he never seemed to<br />
unplug.<br />
“If Twitter ever killed anyone, it was Andrew,” said Mr.<br />
Labash of The Weekly Standard. “Andrew was a<br />
magnet for hatred, and he used Twitter for a full frontal<br />
assault, a tool of combat,”<br />
Friends and colleagues described Mr. Breitbart as both<br />
jester and provocateur, one who enjoyed soy lattes (a<br />
family friend sprinkled coffee grounds from Starbucks<br />
onto his grave) almost as much as waging war on what<br />
he saw as Democratic hypocrisy.<br />
“Andrew was a kind of human pinball, always doing<br />
something while doing something else, but he never<br />
took himself all that seriously,” said Greg Gutfeld, the<br />
host of “Red Eye” on Fox News, who frequently<br />
booked Mr. Breitbart as a guest. “He was the least<br />
serious, serious person I ever met.”<br />
A student of the tactics of the leftist organizer Saul<br />
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Alinsky (if not his politics), Mr. Breitbart played defense<br />
by giving offense, subscribing to Alinsky’s theorem that<br />
“the real action is in the enemy’s reaction.” He wielded<br />
a network of conservative sources, including a number<br />
of members of Congress, four of whom spoke at his<br />
Washington memorial, to sow mayhem<br />
opportunistically.<br />
As is often the case, there is no more ferocious<br />
advocate than a convert.<br />
“He rejected the culture that produced him, and once<br />
that process began, it could not be reversed,” said<br />
Tucker Carlson, the founder of the Daily Caller, a<br />
conservative Web site. “My strong sense was that he<br />
loved the performance aspect, the drama of it all, and<br />
lived for those moments of provocation.”<br />
WITH piercing blue eyes and ruddily handsome Celtic<br />
features, Mr. Breitbart looked more like a<br />
fresh-off-the-boat Irish storyteller than the son of a<br />
banker mother and restaurateur father in Brentwood.<br />
Adopted (along with a sister of Mexican descent), he<br />
was raised Jewish, and went to college at Tulane in<br />
New Orleans. He majored in American studies, and<br />
began a period of heavy drinking and drug use that he<br />
described as “debauched” in his 2011 book,<br />
“Righteous Indig<strong>na</strong>tion.”<br />
After college, he bounced between Los Angeles and<br />
Austin, Tex., without much direction, but discovered a<br />
kind of religion and purpose after idly tuning in to talk<br />
radio and finding himself nodding in agreement to<br />
Rush Limbaugh and others.Mr. Breitbart was activated<br />
as a conservative for good by the 1991 Supreme<br />
Court confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas, a<br />
process he believed was filled with politically motivated<br />
innuendo.<br />
But his ferocious adoption of conservative values<br />
found real traction in his first true love, the early<br />
Internet. In a letter from his wife, Susie, that was read<br />
at his memorial by Mr. Solov, she suggested that her<br />
husband took one look at the Web and moved right in.<br />
It read: “To Andrew, the Internet was a portal into the<br />
future. It works the way his mind worked — go here,<br />
turn left, click on this, go right, over here, back here,<br />
back where you started. Like one of those ‘choose<br />
your own adventure’ books from childhood. It all just<br />
made sense to him.”<br />
After the Drudge Report all but tipped over President<br />
Clinton by pushing the Monica Lewinsky scandal into<br />
plain view, Mr. Breitbart realized that the Web had<br />
moved beyond a curio for techies.<br />
“Andrew recognized very early on, before many people<br />
did, that the conversation was moving onto the Web,”<br />
86
said Arian<strong>na</strong> Huffington, who saw him in the weeks<br />
before his death. In the late ’90s, when he was her<br />
research assistant in her home, he happily pretended<br />
to dine on the mud pies that Ms. Huffington’s<br />
daughters made for him, and after he began having<br />
children, the two families, who lived near each other,<br />
remained close.<br />
“He brought two things to the blog,” Ms. Huffington<br />
said of their early working relationship. “He knew when<br />
a big story was about to happen. But more important,<br />
he could find stories buried in the 13th paragraph, link<br />
them with other things and put a spotlight on them.”<br />
His expertise was less technical than intuitive, with a<br />
mad scientist’s touch for curating and packaging news<br />
that made it especially clickable.<br />
“He didn’t have a deep understanding of technology,”<br />
said Jo<strong>na</strong>h Peretti, who also worked on the start-up<br />
and now runs BuzzFeed. “He was a Web news junkie<br />
from the very beginning, with a quickness and<br />
obsessiveness that kept him up all hours.”<br />
Although Mr. Breitbart helped start The Huffington<br />
Post, it became apparent within a month that the<br />
political chasm between him and Ms. Huffington was<br />
too great, and his attention span for office matters far<br />
too short.<br />
Mr. Breitbart saw infinite possibilities on the Web,<br />
starting a series of Web sites — Big Government, Big<br />
Hollywood, Big Jour<strong>na</strong>lism — under the banner of<br />
Breitbart.com.<br />
“I think that he took the guidelines and principles of talk<br />
radio, where you could say almost anything and get<br />
away with it, and applied it to the Internet,” said Eric<br />
Boehlert, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America,<br />
a liberal research center on the media, who battled<br />
constantly with Mr. Breitbart.<br />
Mr. Breitbart specialized in teasing a small ember of a<br />
story, whether it was an inconsistency or a gaffe, and<br />
dumping gasoline on it until it blew up — sometimes<br />
on him, sometimes on others. “If you do a good<br />
enough job, you can force them to make a mistake,”<br />
he wrote in his book. “When they do, you must be<br />
ready to exploit it.”<br />
Through a carefully ma<strong>na</strong>ged release of clips from Mr.<br />
O’Keefe, the undercover conservative operative, he<br />
brought down Acorn, a huge nonprofit that found itself<br />
summarily defunded by Congress after its<br />
representatives appeared to offer help to Mr. O’Keefe<br />
and a colleague when they showed up posing as a<br />
pimp and a prostitute.<br />
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When there were rumors that Representative Weiner<br />
had sent sexually suggestive photos over his Twitter<br />
account, Mr. Breitbart pushed the story along with new<br />
revelations and eventually hijacked the podium at Mr.<br />
Weiner’s news conference to suggest that the<br />
congressman was lying. Mr. Weiner resigned soon<br />
after.<br />
Working with Mr. O’Keefe, he also used heavily edited<br />
video clips to savage Ms. Sherrod, an obscure official<br />
at the Agriculture Department, by giving the<br />
appearance that she had made racially motivated<br />
fi<strong>na</strong>ncing decisions, when actually she had done the<br />
opposite.At the Conservative Political Action<br />
Conference in Washington in 2011, Mr. Breitbart was<br />
served papers for a lawsuit alleging that he had<br />
recklessly destroyed her reputation. A representative<br />
for Ms. Sherrod said settlement negotiations were<br />
continuing despite Mr. Breitbart’s death.<br />
THREE weeks before he died, Mr. Breitbart took the<br />
stage at CPAC, the jagged tip of the spear on all things<br />
conservative. He entered to the refrains of “Guerrilla<br />
Radio” from the band Rage Against the Machine and<br />
implored the crowd, “You need to join me in my war<br />
against the institutio<strong>na</strong>l left!”<br />
He went on to accuse the mainstream media of<br />
demonizing the Tea Party. At the end of his<br />
stem-winding summation of the recent history of the<br />
Democratic Party, he suggested that the election of<br />
President Obama was part of a putsch by the<br />
Democrats (“The rest of us slept while they plotted and<br />
they plotted and they plotted”) to seize the presidency.<br />
“This is not your mother’s Democratic Party!” he<br />
thundered, and then later added, “Barack Obama is a<br />
radical, and we should not be afraid to say that.”<br />
But he was not done. Mr. Breitbart was never done.<br />
The following day, angered by the Occupy Wall Street<br />
protesters who circled the event at the Marriott<br />
Wardman Park in Washington, he stepped out of the<br />
hotel armed with nothing more than a wineglass and<br />
began bellowing at them while the cameras rolled.<br />
“Behave yourselves! Behave yourselves! Behave<br />
yourselves!,” he shouted, 20 times in a row for over a<br />
minute. And then he got a little more specific, alluding<br />
to a report that women had been assaulted in various<br />
Occupy encampments. “Stop raping people! Stop<br />
raping people! Stop raping people! Stop raping the<br />
people! You freaks! You filthy, filthy, raping, murdering<br />
freaks!”<br />
The protesters surrounded Mr. Breitbart and began<br />
chanting back at him, while he seemed to bask in their<br />
umbrage. His work done, he was led back inside by<br />
87
hotel security officers, having started yet another viral<br />
storm on the Web. It turned out to be his last.<br />
Following his memorial, his colleagues and friends<br />
gathered in a house behind the Capitol — Mr. Breitbart<br />
had rented a huge, or<strong>na</strong>te house he called “the<br />
Embassy” that served as both salon and a Washington<br />
base for his media company — to tell stories and<br />
reminisce. A family friend remembered watching<br />
Andrew, at age 2, bang his head on a concrete floor<br />
when he did not get his way, foretelling a life of<br />
stubborn conflict.<br />
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At both the memorial and the after-party, stories about<br />
his relentlessness and love of argument were legion.<br />
In her note read at the memorial, his wife reminded the<br />
crowd that Mr. Breitbart was willing to engage and<br />
argue with anyone. “I came home one day to our first<br />
apartment to find a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses,”<br />
she wrote, “trying to wrap up the conversation and get<br />
out.”<br />
The people in the audience, many of whom had spent<br />
countless hours locked in conversatio<strong>na</strong>l combat with<br />
Mr. Breitbart, laughed long and hard at that one.<br />
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The Battle for a Comic-Book Empire<br />
That Archie Built<br />
MAMARONECK, N.Y. — The entry vestibule at Archie<br />
Comic Publications here is a glass portal to childhood<br />
innocence, sunny summer days and endless nostalgia:<br />
The back end of a vintage white Cadillac, circa 1948,<br />
with its killer shark-fin fenders and leather interior<br />
intact, has been retrofitted to function as a sofa. Two<br />
salvaged audio hookups from an extinct drive-in movie<br />
theater complete the Memory Lane montage. Framed<br />
posters of Archie, the gullible Riverdale High School<br />
redhead, and his equally colorful entourage invigorate<br />
the walls.But to gain access to the company’s<br />
administrative offices, you must pass through a<br />
reminder of its troubled present: double-locked doors<br />
and security cameras primarily installed to keep out a<br />
desig<strong>na</strong>ted intruder, the company’s co-chief executive,<br />
Nancy Silberkleit, who since January has been under<br />
court order to stay away from Archie.<br />
At this, the last of the privately run Mom-and-Pop<br />
comic book dy<strong>na</strong>sties, Ms. Silberkleit, 59, the<br />
daughter-in-law of a company founder, Louis H.<br />
Silberkleit, is deadlocked in a court battle for control of<br />
the company with Jo<strong>na</strong>than Goldwater, 52, a son of<br />
another founder, John L. Goldwater. Like Betty and<br />
Veronica, the two are feuding over Archie’s future, but<br />
there is nothing comic — or friendly — about their<br />
rivalry. Each accuses the other of endangering the<br />
family legacy, Mr. Goldwater by wanting to expand<br />
Archie into a megabrand with help from outside<br />
investors and the Hollywood uber-agent Ari Emanuel,<br />
Ms. Silberkleit by vowing to keep the company’s<br />
traditions intact and preserve family ownership,<br />
ostensibly leading to stag<strong>na</strong>tion.<br />
The hostilities are withering. She says he defamed her<br />
and conspired with their employees against her in<br />
order to steal control of the company. He says she<br />
poisoned the workplace by threatening longtime<br />
employees with termi<strong>na</strong>tion and spewing sexual<br />
insults. Meanwhile, they both claim to love Archie<br />
dearly, almost like a son — a son who is pushing 71<br />
yet retains a head of lush red hair, abundant freckles<br />
and the top spot in a famous love triangle.<br />
Competing lawsuits filed in State Supreme Court in<br />
Manhattan and State Supreme Court in Westchester<br />
County lay out a litany of bitter allegations. He<br />
punctured her car tires, destroyed her Web site and<br />
claimed that she sexually harassed employees. She<br />
ordered him to fire several longtime employees<br />
because they were too old, too fat or too buxom, and<br />
let her dog, Willow, roam the offices and defecate in<br />
the art department.<br />
In a suit where Archie Comic Publications was<br />
co-plaintiff, Mr. Goldwater sought and obtained a<br />
restraining order against Ms. Silberkleit in fall 2011 that<br />
limited her contact with Archie employees. When she<br />
failed to comply with its terms, the plaintiffs sought and<br />
obtained a prelimi<strong>na</strong>ry injunction, and in January she<br />
was banned outright from her own memorabilia-filled<br />
office by Justice Shirley Werner Kornreich of State<br />
Supreme Court.<br />
At stake is the future of a company that was<br />
established in 1939 and became renowned for<br />
emphasizing family values and enduring friendships.<br />
Archie’s fan club was a parent-endorsed bastion for<br />
children: even a 9-year-old Amy Carter, then the first<br />
daughter, sent in her quarter to join, listing the White<br />
House as her address. Over the decades Archie<br />
expanded into an inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l tee<strong>na</strong>ge symbol: in<br />
2008, the company published 10 million Archie-related<br />
comics in 12 languages. Its app has been downloaded<br />
four million times, suggesting that Archie, besides<br />
inspiring nostalgia, has 21st-century cred.<br />
Last week, the two sides began court-approved<br />
mediation, but it seems unlikely they will resolve their<br />
differences quickly or easily — if at all. If mediation<br />
fails, Mr. Goldwater will resume his quest to make Ms.<br />
Silberkleit’s absence permanent; she will presumably<br />
continue to pursue a $100 million defamation lawsuit<br />
against him and the company.<br />
“I have to wonder how much of a succession plan was<br />
in place,” said Johan<strong>na</strong> Draper Carlson, a comic book<br />
critic and blogger. “Two C.E.O.’s can be a recipe for<br />
disaster. There are rumors circulating: everybody’s<br />
talking about it, especially since it’s happening at<br />
Archie, which is supposed to be so good and<br />
wholesome. Suddenly we’re hearing talk of liquidation<br />
coming out of the courtroom. It’s unfortu<strong>na</strong>te because<br />
Archie really is a unique company.”<br />
Indeed, its historical peers, DC and Marvel, are now<br />
corporately owned: Warner Brothers Entertainment is<br />
the parent of DC and Marvel was acquired by Disney<br />
for $4 billion in 2008.<br />
89
Ms. Silberkleit’s lawyer, Howard Simmons, said the<br />
restraining order and injunction prohibited her from<br />
speaking publicly about Archie-related matters, but he<br />
emphasized that restoration of her reputation and<br />
preservation of the company was her only goal, not<br />
counting an apology from her co-chief.“I have to be her<br />
mouthpiece,” he said in a phone interview. “For the<br />
past three years, her co-C.E.O., Jon Goldwater, has<br />
done everything in his power to undermine her work.<br />
Slowly but surely she has been pushed out of the<br />
company: the bottom line is they want her out. She<br />
loves Archie Comic Publications, and she’s worried<br />
about Archie being forced to be sold if this dispute is<br />
not resolved. I’m glad it’s gone to mediation. She is in<br />
a desperate condition right now.”<br />
Mr. Goldwater had a different take. “I know she is<br />
trying to frame this as a power grab by Jon,” he said,<br />
as if distancing himself from an emotio<strong>na</strong>lly fraught<br />
situation by speaking of himself in the third person.<br />
“But for goodness sake, I didn’t go to this. This came<br />
to me.”<br />
Sketch of Childhood Friend<br />
In 1939, when John L. Goldwater, Louis H. Silberkleit<br />
and Maurice Coyne, Mr. Silberkleit’s accountant and<br />
partner in his pulp publishing business, Columbia<br />
Productions, decided to expand into comic books, their<br />
investment was $8,000 apiece. The company, called<br />
MLJ, was based in Lower Manhattan.<br />
Mr. Goldwater was the visio<strong>na</strong>ry who dreamed up<br />
superheroes like The Shield and The Wizard and<br />
decided, after a few years, that their Pep Comics<br />
series could use a few characters who were not<br />
superpowered or monsters. In 1941, he sketched the<br />
face of a childhood friend: it was Archie, a girl-crazy,<br />
pratfall-prone, boy-next-door type.<br />
The cartoonist Bob Monta<strong>na</strong> inked the origi<strong>na</strong>l<br />
likenesses of Archie and his pals and plopped them in<br />
an idyllic Midwestern community <strong>na</strong>med Riverdale<br />
because Mr. Goldwater, a New Yorker, had fond<br />
memories of time spent in Hiawatha, Kan. The Archie<br />
love triangle was another novelty Mr. Goldwater<br />
borrowed from his own past. The brand took a few<br />
years to catch on, but by 1943 there was an Archie<br />
radio program and, by 1946, an Archie comic strip.<br />
That year, with Archie selling a million copies an issue,<br />
the partners changed the company’s <strong>na</strong>me to Archie<br />
Comics in honor of their most popular creation, the<br />
gaptoothed tee<strong>na</strong>ger who made them all<br />
multimillio<strong>na</strong>ires.<br />
After Mr. Coyne retired in 1967, Archie was in its<br />
heyday with a television cartoon and a No. 1 pop hit,<br />
“Sugar, Sugar,” by the Archies (the record has sold 15<br />
The New York Times/ - Politics, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
million copies since its release in 1969; alas, Mr.<br />
Goldwater notes, the copyright is Sony’s).<br />
The elder Mr. Goldwater and Mr. Silberkleit led the<br />
company until 1983, when they were succeeded by<br />
their oldest sons, Richard and Michael, both from first<br />
marriages. The two heirs apparent had been friends<br />
since childhood, working their way up the ladder at<br />
Archie. One of their first decisions, besides moving the<br />
company, now known as Archie Comic Publications, to<br />
Westchester County, where both lived, was to regain<br />
control of its stock, made available to investors with an<br />
initial public offering in the 1970s. They bought it all<br />
back, each controlling 50 percent. Richard H.<br />
Goldwater was president, Michael I. Silberkleit was<br />
chairman, and they shared the title of publisher.<br />
They presented a united front, and their 25-year grip<br />
on the company was well documented. When their<br />
chief artist, Dan DeCarlo, sued over the rights to Josie<br />
and the Pussycats royalties in 2001, he was fired.<br />
When Warner Music Group introduced an Australian<br />
girl band called the Veronicas in 2005 without<br />
obtaining licensing permission, Archie sued for $200<br />
million. Michael Silberkleit was clear about his reasons<br />
for protecting the clean-cut Archie aura: “Without that<br />
image, we’re nothing.”<br />
Then, in an odd twist, both men died of cancer within<br />
months of each other: Mr. Goldwater in October 2007<br />
and Mr. Silberkleit in August 2008. Victor Gorelick, who<br />
joined Archie in 1958 and is still the editor in chief, took<br />
over on an emergency basis.<br />
Jo<strong>na</strong>than Goldwater, a son of John Goldwater and his<br />
second wife, Gloria, acknowledged that he was not<br />
predestined to inherit an executive role, or stock, in<br />
Archie. “In a family business there are a lot of<br />
dy<strong>na</strong>mics that aren’t on the surface,” he explained.<br />
He recalls working in the mailroom with “Uncle Louie”<br />
during summer vacations, but his involvement ended<br />
there.Instead, he worked as a concert promoter and<br />
music ma<strong>na</strong>ger, and by 2007 was the chief executive<br />
of AFA Music Group, a talent development and<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>gement agency based in New York City. Shortly<br />
before his half-brother’s death, they had a reunion<br />
lunch: Richard revealed that his illness was termi<strong>na</strong>l<br />
and told Jo<strong>na</strong>than the day might come when he would<br />
have an opportunity to buy into the company. Mr.<br />
Goldwater was u<strong>na</strong>ware of Michael Silberkleit’s death<br />
until he received a call from his mother several weeks<br />
afterward; he then phoned Mr. Gorelick to find out how<br />
the company was faring without the families in charge.<br />
“It turned out Victor was running the show at that<br />
point,” he said.<br />
In 2009, after buying half of the stock held by his<br />
half-brother’s estate for $2.5 million, Mr. Goldwater left<br />
the music business for the family business.<br />
90
“Unintentio<strong>na</strong>lly, I wound up following in my dad’s<br />
footsteps,” he said. “But I have to admit I felt at first<br />
that Archie had become a little irrelevant and fallen off<br />
the radar of the <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l consciousness.”<br />
Mr. Goldwater and Ms. Silberkleit, Michael’s widow,<br />
had never met until, in a move intended to preserve<br />
family control, they became co-chief executives. They<br />
both signed contracts that would run through 2013,<br />
with Ms. Silberkleit, who at the time was a third-grade<br />
art teacher in New Jersey, responsible for scholastic<br />
and theatrical ventures and Mr. Goldwater in control of<br />
everything else. They were supposed to consult on<br />
major decisions. But in an affidavit filed in support of<br />
the prelimi<strong>na</strong>ry injunction, Mr. Goldwater testified that<br />
their working relationship had soon atrophied: “All too<br />
often her reaction to any discussion at all which she<br />
does not understand or does not like is to become<br />
threatening and abusive.”<br />
New Directions, and Discord<br />
The company reported $40 million in sales for 2009<br />
but was, according to Mr. Goldwater, floundering<br />
fi<strong>na</strong>ncially and operatio<strong>na</strong>lly. The overhead was too<br />
high, the morale was too low. By 2010, Ms. Silberkleit<br />
was, he said, exerting an increasingly “toxic” influence<br />
on the employees and refusing to hold meaningful<br />
discussions with him about crucial upgrades like<br />
digitization.<br />
Nor was she receptive to two creative diversifications<br />
of the Archie story line: adding a gay character, Kevin<br />
Keller, and moving forward with plans for a spinoff<br />
series that projected Archie into fantasy marriages with<br />
both of his long-term love interests, Betty and<br />
Veronica, according to affidavits filed by Mr. Goldwater<br />
and Mr. Gorelick in State Supreme Court in<br />
Manhattan.<br />
The hugely enthusiastic response to Kevin Keller’s<br />
September 2010 debut in Veronica No. 202<br />
(Veronica’s crush is unrequited because of his being<br />
gay) necessitated a second printing, unprecedented in<br />
Archie history, and the Keller mini-series for 2011 sold<br />
out. So did the “Just Married” edition in the Life With<br />
Archie magazine series that chronicled Archie’s two<br />
possible marital futures. Suddenly Archie was<br />
generating buzz and celebrity blurbs again, the subject<br />
of segments on “The Colbert Report” and “The Rachel<br />
Maddow Show” and the recipient of Glaad Media<br />
Awards nomi<strong>na</strong>tions.<br />
In 2010, Ms. Silberkleit decided to leave teaching and<br />
join Archie full time. According to Mr. Goldwater, the<br />
complaints from the staff escalated; he said his<br />
attempts to mediate were futile and often ended up<br />
with them yelling at one another behind closed doors.<br />
The New York Times/ - Politics, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Mr. Gorelick, 70, said the staff “walked on eggshells”<br />
when Ms. Silberkleit was around, fearful of being<br />
insulted or castigated. She testified in January that she<br />
felt ostracized and disrespected by Mr. Goldwater and<br />
the staff; she denied the allegations of directing sexual<br />
slurs at employees, though Mr. Gorelick and Mr.<br />
Goldwater both described an episode in 2011 where<br />
she walked into a meeting, pointed in turn at each of<br />
the male editors present and said, “Penis, penis,<br />
penis.”<br />
What Mr. Goldwater refers to as “the boiling point” was<br />
reached in May 2011 when a female employee<br />
threatened to file a harassment complaint against Ms.<br />
Silberkleit with the Equal Employment Opportunity<br />
Commission. Mr. Goldwater hired a lawyer and<br />
commissioned a human resources consultant to<br />
investigate the accusations of workplace abuses; Ms.<br />
Silberkleit was the only member of the company who<br />
declined to be interviewed. The report, released in<br />
June 2011, concluded her absence or removal was<br />
advisable, and in July, Mr. Goldwater began legal<br />
action against her. According to Mr. Goldwater, all two<br />
dozen employees volunteered to supply affidavits<br />
bemoaning Ms. Silberkleit’s conduct; Ms. Silberkleit<br />
termed that proof of a Machiavellian palace coup<br />
engineered by Mr. Goldwater.After a series of court<br />
rulings against Ms. Silberkleit that included a $500 fine<br />
— for violating the temporary restraining order by twice<br />
showing up at the office in mid-December with a<br />
former football player in tow — and responsibility for<br />
$59,000 in legal expenses accrued by the company,<br />
last month the hostile parties agreed to take their<br />
problems to mediation. Ms. Silberkleit’s 50 percent<br />
share of the company is not in jeopardy, but her job<br />
may be.<br />
“The judge was very much against Nancy’s case,” Mr.<br />
Simmons, Ms. Silberkleit’s lawyer, said. “Mr. Goldwater<br />
defamed her, and Judge Kornreich has gone along<br />
with it. But the judge didn’t go to the length of removing<br />
Nancy as C.E.O., although that’s basically what<br />
Goldwater and his lawyer have been asking for.”<br />
Although Ms. Silberkleit testified that she brought the<br />
former football player, Howard Jordan, to the office to<br />
help her with an antibullying-themed comic book, the<br />
employees testified that he intimidated the accounting<br />
and art departments merely by his unsanctioned<br />
presence. It was the company’s position that Ms.<br />
Silberkleit was using the unsuspecting Mr. Jordan as<br />
“muscle.”<br />
In her testimony, Ms. Silberkleit denied ever<br />
mistreating her fellow Archie employees: “I’m the one<br />
being harassed and abused there.”<br />
Besides becoming what Mr. Simmons called “a<br />
perso<strong>na</strong> non grata” in the industry, where she no<br />
91
longer speaks at conventions, schools and libraries,<br />
Ms. Silberkleit is enjoined from having contact with any<br />
of the company’s employees except Mr. Goldwater.<br />
Their exchanges are mostly conducted by e-mail and<br />
are, he said, “strictly formal.”<br />
Her $100 million defamation suit filed in Westchester in<br />
January by Mr. Simmons accuses Mr. Goldwater and<br />
the company of ruining her credibility and preventing<br />
her from doing the job she was hired for. She claims<br />
Mr. Goldwater not only pulled the plug on her comic<br />
book fair programs, but also destroyed her Web site<br />
and excised her files.<br />
Each side dismisses the complaints filed by the other<br />
as “frivolous.”<br />
Meanwhile, Mr. Goldwater, a married father of two, is<br />
running Archie solo. An “Occupy Riverdale” comic and<br />
an animated “Sabri<strong>na</strong> the Tee<strong>na</strong>ge Witch” series are<br />
imminent.<br />
The New York Times/ - Politics, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
“In spite of all this litigation, Archie, for fiscal 2011, is<br />
going to turn a profit,” Mr. Goldwater said last month in<br />
an interview at his office. “There is no fi<strong>na</strong>ncial<br />
jeopardy. We’re leaders in everything digital. I think<br />
we’re feeling unchained creatively. Nancy was very<br />
resistant to change, but I am fearless. That’s how<br />
confident I am in this brand.”<br />
His confidence is outwardly expressed by the vanity<br />
license plate on his black Mercedes sedan: ARCHIE1.<br />
As the court hearings leading to Ms. Silberkleit’s<br />
banishment were winding down this winter, Mr.<br />
Gorelick was cross-examined by Mr. Simmons. Just<br />
before releasing him from the witness stand, Justice<br />
Kornreich posed a question of her own. “O.K., another<br />
question,” she asked. “Why did Archie marry<br />
Veronica?”<br />
Mr. Gorelick’s response was swift and succinct: “It<br />
made better news than this.”<br />
92
The New York Times/ - The Opinion Pages, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Should We End Life Tenure for Justices?<br />
Re “Bring the Justices Back to Earth,” by Paul D.<br />
Carrington (Op-Ed, April 10), proposing new<br />
appointments to the Supreme Court every two years:<br />
The framers were well aware of the arguments for and<br />
against life tenure for judges because state practices<br />
offered a variety of approaches to structuring judicial<br />
power. They expressly and unequivocally chose the<br />
life tenure route. This decision did not mean that they<br />
felt judges should be unconstrained. Rather, they<br />
believed, as Alexander Hamilton wrote in “The<br />
Federalist,” that impeachment is a “complete security”<br />
against “deliberate usurpations” of power by federal<br />
judges. In short, the system proposed by Professor<br />
Carrington that, he claims, would “capture the benefits<br />
of term limits” without the need to amend the<br />
Constitution is both unnecessary and a threat to<br />
judicial independence. SCOTT DOUGLAS GERBER<br />
Ada, Ohio, April 10, 2012 The writer is a professor of<br />
law at Ohio Northern University and the author of “A<br />
Distinct Judicial Power: The Origins of an Independent<br />
Judiciary, 1606-1787.” To the Editor: The average life<br />
expectancy in this country is twice as long as when the<br />
first Supreme Court justices began their tenure in<br />
1789. Of those appointed to that first court, only one<br />
sat for a decade; the others served for nine years or<br />
less. Of today’s bench, Justices Antonin Scalia,<br />
Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas are into<br />
their third decade on the highest court. The four most<br />
recent appointees, Ele<strong>na</strong> Kagan, John G. Roberts Jr.,<br />
Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Sonia Sotomayor, were all<br />
born in the 1950s or 1960s. The tenure of some or all<br />
of this foursome may be in its infancy. Clearly, the term<br />
lengths contemplated by the framers of the<br />
Constitution were vastly different from the reality of<br />
the present world. If the reaso<strong>na</strong>ble expectation in the<br />
late 1700s was that the court sit unimpeded by political<br />
tensions, what we have witnessed in recent years, with<br />
Bush v. Gore and Citizens United, is very far from that<br />
ideal. With the pending ruling on the Affordable Care<br />
Act, I fear this trend will continue, with devastating<br />
results. It is past time that we reform this system,<br />
where justices rule as virtual dictators, year after year,<br />
free from oversight or ethical restraint. We should<br />
apply 21st-century reality to an 18th-century document<br />
and restrict how long any of these justices can reign.<br />
ROBERT S. NUSSBAUM Fort Lee, N.J., April 10, 2012<br />
To the Editor: Paul D. Carrington’s proposal to revise<br />
the membership of the Supreme Court smacks of<br />
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s plan to pack the<br />
court. If the court does uphold the Affordable Care Act,<br />
will Mr. Carrington continue to champion his plan?<br />
PETE JONES Wabash, Ind., April 10, 2012<br />
93
USA Today/ - News, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
Trayvon's father says he warned son on<br />
stereotypes<br />
Years before the killing of Trayvon Martin grabbed the<br />
<strong>na</strong>tion's attention, the teen's father warned him that his<br />
race could make him a target of violence. The advice<br />
Tracy Martin gave his black son, that people veiled by<br />
racism and prejudices might see him as suspicious or<br />
violent, is a common and continuous warning in many<br />
black families, parents and experts say. In the<br />
aftermath of Trayvon's death, more families are having<br />
"the talk," teaching sons to be aware of their race,<br />
avoid confrontations with authority figures, and to<br />
remain calm in situations even if their rights are<br />
violated. "I've always let him know we as African<br />
Americans get stereotyped," Tracy Martin, Trayvon's<br />
father told USA TODAY three weeks after his son's<br />
death. "I told him that society is cruel." Trayvon, 17,<br />
was shot and killed on Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla., as he<br />
was returning to a gated community after buying candy<br />
at a nearby store. The gunman, George Zimmerman,<br />
whose father is white and mother is Hispanic, now<br />
faces a charge of second-degree murder. Trayvon was<br />
"profiled" by Zimmerman, who "falsely assumed<br />
(Trayvon) was going to commit a crime" as the teen<br />
was trying to get back to the home of his father's<br />
girlfriend, according to public filings by Florida special<br />
prosecutor Angela Corey.<br />
The documents portray Zimmerman as the aggressor<br />
throughout the incident, remarking to police at one<br />
point that people like Trayvon were "punks" causing<br />
trouble in his neighborhood. Family photo Trayvon<br />
Martin was shot and killed in February. After spotting<br />
Trayvon, Zimmerman called 911, got out of his vehicle,<br />
and followed the teen. Zimmerman then "disregarded<br />
the police dispatcher" and chased Trayvon as he was<br />
trying to return home, the records say. Trayvon's family<br />
and their supporters maintain that Zimmerman<br />
deemed Trayvon "suspicious" because the teen was<br />
black and wearing a hoodie.<br />
George Zimmerman: Zimmerman could face life in<br />
prison if convicted. He maintains he shot the youth in<br />
self-defense after he was attacked. The killing sparked<br />
dozens of rallies across the country, largely fueled by<br />
the belief of many that the case is the tip of the iceberg<br />
of a glaring problem of racial injustice in the USA.<br />
Reggie Bridges, a father of two young black boys,<br />
sees the Trayvon Martin case as an example of the<br />
type of racial profiling he has warned his sons about<br />
for years.<br />
"You stand out from the norm," Bridges, of Silver<br />
Spring, Md., said he often tells his children. "I try to<br />
heighten their awareness of what's going on in the<br />
world." Bridges, 44, an insurance agent, often stresses<br />
dressing nicely and speaking articulately to dissuade<br />
potential perceptions that his boys are thugs or<br />
gangsters, he said. Similar lessons have been passed<br />
down since just after the Civil War to ward off danger<br />
in an America that has for centuries perceived black<br />
men as threats, said Mark Anthony Neal, an African<br />
and African-American studies professor at Duke<br />
University.<br />
"This kind of parenting goes back to the black codes,"<br />
he said. "It's no different to the talk black parents had<br />
with black children, particularly black boys, prior to the<br />
civil rights movement, where the threat of real racial<br />
violence and lynching was always present. â¦<br />
Ultimately, what you are trying to do is keep them<br />
alive." Discussing racism with a child while not instilling<br />
fear or paranoia can be a delicate task. Those<br />
delivering the message â parents, extended family<br />
members, mentors or other older figures in<br />
communities â must be careful to also affirm<br />
blackness, experts say.<br />
"Watch out should be accompanied with you're<br />
beautiful and here's why," said Howard Stevenson, a<br />
psychology and education professor at the University<br />
of Pennsylvania. It's not enough to tell stories about<br />
Emmett Till or Rodney King to youngsters, said<br />
Stevenson, who has studied the racial awareness of<br />
children of color for several years. Kids must deal with<br />
their racial stress by understanding their feelings and<br />
practicing positive responses to potential racist<br />
situations, he said. Dionne Bensonsmith, 40, of<br />
Claremont, Calif., started talking to her first son, Jo<strong>na</strong>h,<br />
now 8, about race when he was 5 and 6. The<br />
youngster had already started saying "all police aren't<br />
your friends" and pointing out that officers stopped a<br />
lot of black people in their small Iowa city, she said. "I<br />
had the talk of how police target people around race,"<br />
said Bensonsmith, a professor at Scripps College. "I<br />
said if that ever happens to you, you have to remain<br />
respectful, you have to remain very calm."<br />
She and many parents see "the talk" as evolving<br />
lessons on racial consciousness that will cover more<br />
topics as children grow. But there are challenges to<br />
teaching kids to live within racial injustices. "It's really<br />
heartbreaking," said Bensonsmith, who also has<br />
94
another son, Akim Shklyaro, 2. "Sometimes I get really<br />
pissed off. Sometimes I don't want to do it. I feel like<br />
I'm crushing some sort of potential in him." "The talk" is<br />
one of several tips parents of all races hope will<br />
prepare and protect their children from danger,<br />
according to Gerald Koocher, a psychology professor<br />
at Simmons College. "<br />
The talk is probably going to be surprising to white<br />
Americans," he said. "The one that most closely aligns<br />
is don't take candy from a stranger or don't go<br />
anywhere with a stranger." When Steve Baker, who is<br />
white, decided to talk to his two half-black sons, now<br />
25 and 20, he admits he struggled to understand their<br />
place in society. He relied on his black wife, Pamela,<br />
and friends he made through an interracial family<br />
group to learn about what his sons may encounter.<br />
"There are certainly instances where they were<br />
identified by simply what they look like and perceived<br />
as a threat and ran into negative behavior based on<br />
that," said Baker, a university administrator who lives<br />
in Minneapolis. "<br />
There's real danger for young men of color in our<br />
society. ⦠As a white person, I didn't grow up having to<br />
think about that." Others also struggled. Trayvon's<br />
case led Melinda Anderson to talk to her son Colin, 11.<br />
USA Today/ - News, Sáb, 14 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
Both are black. Anderson had focused on making sure<br />
her son was successful in school and exposed to<br />
various cultures. Race wasn't at the forefront of her<br />
mind until Trayvon's case made her see her son as a<br />
potential victim. She took Colin to a Trayvon rally in<br />
Washington, D.C., and explained how she believes<br />
race played a part in Trayvon being deemed<br />
"suspicious."<br />
But, she's not teaching him to fear the police or expect<br />
racism at every step in his life, said Anderson, 48, a<br />
writer who lives in Silver Spring, Md. "I don't want to<br />
raise him to feel like he has to get out his 20 item<br />
checklist on how to be a black tee<strong>na</strong>ger," she said.<br />
"That's not the way I want him to live." Still, she said,<br />
there is a sense of hopelessness as she learns more<br />
about Trayvon's death. "I don't think I could prevent<br />
him from being another Trayvon Martin," she said.<br />
Tracy Martin, who maintains that his son was targeted<br />
because of his race, said he told the teen prejudices<br />
could lead to danger. "He knew that this type of thing<br />
did happen," Martin said of his son. "He knew to be<br />
aware of this type of atmosphere and that this<br />
atmosphere did exist."<br />
95
15/04/2012
Quinta-feira, 19 de Abril de 2012<br />
15/04/2012<br />
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Harte Bretter Irrweg in der Krise, 114<br />
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CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
El engañoso fin que justifica los medios, 116<br />
Los Angeles Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
When time allows, 1992 riots are poig<strong>na</strong>nt lesson in L.A. schools, 117<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
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At U.S. gun convention, many see rush to judgment in Trayvon Martin case, 119<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung - Politik<br />
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Quinta-feira, 19 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Verfassungsgericht<br />
Wie man den Bundestag kaputtmacht, 120<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung - Politik<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Verfassungsgericht<br />
Abgeordnete wehren sich gegen Maulkorb , 121<br />
The Economic Times - News<br />
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India won't be able to store another bumper crop, 122<br />
USA Today - News<br />
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Number of African-American baseball players dips again, 123<br />
USA Today - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
African Americans in MLB: 8%, lowest since integration era, 125<br />
98
ABC Digital/ - Nacio<strong>na</strong>les, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Decisión del Se<strong>na</strong>do violenta la<br />
Constitución Nacio<strong>na</strong>l, dicen<br />
“Si en contra el poder Judicial el Se<strong>na</strong>do comete este<br />
atropello, la ciudadanía se encuentra totalmente<br />
indefensa y sin garantías”, dijo Llano.Añadió que no<br />
puede primar la decisión política por encima de la<br />
Constitución Nacio<strong>na</strong>l. Según Llano con esta<br />
determi<strong>na</strong>ción de la Cámara de Se<strong>na</strong>dores atropelló a<br />
uno de los poderes del Estado como en este caso el<br />
poder judicial.Llano quien a su vez es uno de los<br />
postulantes a defensor del pueblo cuestionó al<br />
se<strong>na</strong>dor Tito Saguir por hacer un llamado a la<br />
violencia para remover a los ministros por medio de la<br />
fuerza pública.“De qué fuerza puede hablar si la fuerza<br />
pública está para proteger la Constitución Nacio<strong>na</strong>l”,<br />
dijo. Agregó que un político en nombre del pueblo<br />
hacer un llamado a la violencia, reiteró, al tiempo de<br />
señalar que los ministros afectados tienen que sentar<br />
postura y rechazar esta resolución que viola los<br />
preceptos constitucio<strong>na</strong>les.<br />
99
Bloomberg/ - Politics, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Pakistan Spring Emerging From Winter<br />
of Discontent<br />
About Vali Nasr Vali Nasr is a professor of<br />
inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l politics at the Fletcher School of Law and<br />
Diplomacy of Tufts University. From 2009 to 2011, he<br />
was an advisor to the U.S. Special Representative for<br />
Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke. More<br />
about Vali Nasr The s<strong>na</strong>rling between the U.S. and<br />
Pakistan won’t let up. The battle began, of course,<br />
when U.S. forces sneaked into Pakistan to kill Osama<br />
bin Laden last May. Last week, the U.S. upped the<br />
ante, announcing a $10 million reward for information<br />
leading to the arrest of notorious terrorist Hafiz<br />
Muhammad Saeed, who is thought to be close to<br />
Pakistani intelligence. Things are so bad, Pakistani<br />
author Ahmed Rashid pronounced in his recently<br />
published book, “The United States and Pakistan are<br />
just short of going to war.” America’s greater fear is<br />
that Pakistan will get in the way of war. Pakistan’s<br />
Parliament last week u<strong>na</strong>nimously voted to forbid the<br />
U.S. from conducting drone strikes inside Pakistani<br />
territory. If the measure is implemented, it will deny the<br />
U.S. its most effective weapon against al-Qaeda and<br />
other militant groups. Yet, as worrisome as the trend in<br />
bilateral relations is, other developments within<br />
Pakistan sig<strong>na</strong>l that the country may be changing for<br />
the better, in terms of the military’s role, democratic<br />
tendencies and relations with India. By focusing on the<br />
security dimension of its relationship with Pakistan, the<br />
U.S. risks missing these currents and thus the<br />
opportunity to engage with the country in fruitful new<br />
ways. Unexpected Turn One new twist that should be<br />
particularly gratifying to the U.S. is the Pakistani<br />
public’s unexpected turn against the military. Popular<br />
anger at the U.S. for swooping into the country to kill<br />
bin Laden was matched by outrage that the military<br />
was caught snoozing by U.S. commandos. Pakistanis<br />
asked: Why do we need such an expensive military if it<br />
can’t even protect the country’s borders and doesn’t<br />
know that the world’s most wanted man is hiding in a<br />
garrison town? If that weren’t enough, three weeks<br />
later, extremists attacked the <strong>na</strong>val base in Karachi,<br />
which houses nuclear warheads. They destroyed a<br />
helicopter and two advanced P-3C Orion patrol<br />
aircraft. Pakistani special forces lost 10 men and had<br />
to fight for 16 hours to end the siege. More<br />
embarrassments followed. Impassioned appeals to the<br />
Supreme Court to find President Asif Ali Zardari a<br />
traitor backfired on the army and intelligence chiefs<br />
when the credibility of their witness, who had claimed<br />
that Zardari was colluding with the U.S. against the<br />
military, dissolved amid the man’s ever-changing story<br />
and his cameo in a mud-wrestling video. Next, the<br />
Supreme Court opened hearings in a case alleging<br />
that the military bought votes in the 1990 election. The<br />
televised spectacle of generals hauled to court to<br />
answer judges has mesmerized Pakistanis. The<br />
humbling of the military is good news for democracy in<br />
Pakistan. Natio<strong>na</strong>l elections may take place as early<br />
as October and must occur by February. With the<br />
military restrained, there is hope that voting will be free<br />
and fair, and that the outcome may further strengthen<br />
civilian rule. There are signs that democracy already is<br />
budding in what may prove to be a Pakistani Spring.<br />
Amid widespread disenchantment with corruption and<br />
government misma<strong>na</strong>gement, the young and the<br />
middle class are restless. Many have flocked to<br />
anti-establishment politician Imran Khan, a former<br />
cricket hero, and his Movement for Justice. Khan isn’t<br />
friendly to the U.S.; he promises to stand up to<br />
America. But in other ways his campaign has<br />
enhanced the political debate. He regularly addresses<br />
the need to earnestly battle corruption and to reform<br />
the woefully i<strong>na</strong>dequate tax system. Questioning the<br />
Rolls Also, at Imran’s request, the Supreme Court in<br />
February reviewed the electoral rolls and questioned<br />
the validity of 35 million <strong>na</strong>mes, about 44 percent of<br />
the 80 million registered. Given that 32 million new<br />
young voters will be added to the rolls, Pakistan may<br />
have its cleanest -- and most unpredictable -- election<br />
since the 1970s. At the same time, Pakistan’s relations<br />
with India have mellowed. With Pakistan’s economy in<br />
poor shape -- growth was 2.4 percent in 2011 and<br />
there is little foreign investment or aid -- its business<br />
community has convinced the military that expansion<br />
can come only through increased trade with India.<br />
Pakistan’s government has agreed to remove<br />
restrictions on the import of most goods from India by<br />
year’s end. Liberated from military pressure and eager<br />
to add momentum to the cross-border commerce,<br />
Zardari went to New Delhi on April 8, the first Pakistani<br />
head of state to visit in seven years. There is now talk<br />
of even more trade and greater cooperation on other<br />
fronts. A humbled military, a resurgent democracy and<br />
better ties with India are all things the U.S. wants to<br />
see in Pakistan. Together they present hope, however<br />
slight, for a more stable, constructive Pakistan. In<br />
responding to the Pakistani Parliament’s new security<br />
demands, the Obama administration should consider<br />
these developments rather than answering on purely<br />
military grounds. The U.S. should be careful not to<br />
derail these positive trends, for instance by provoking<br />
100
popular resentments about sovereignty breaches, and<br />
risk restoring credibility to the military. In the long run,<br />
these developments may matter more than drone<br />
attacks anyway. (Vali Nasr is a Bloomberg View<br />
columnist, a professor of inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l politics at the<br />
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts<br />
University and a senior fellow in foreign policy at the<br />
Brookings Institution. The opinions expressed are his<br />
own.) Read more opinion online from Bloomberg View.<br />
Today’s highlights: The View editors on signs Iraq is<br />
veering away from democracy and the Natio<strong>na</strong>l Rifle<br />
Association’s role in encouraging gun sales and use;<br />
William D. Cohan on restoring faith in Wall Street as<br />
Bloomberg/ - Politics, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
the key to an economic recovery; Simon Johnson on<br />
why long-term budget projections get too much<br />
attention; Kellie McElhaney on how Apple should<br />
change its behavior; Albert R. Hunt on Mitt Romney’s<br />
potential vice presidential choices; and Iain Begg on<br />
redefining Europe’s social safety net. To contact the<br />
writer of this article: Vali Nasr at vali.<strong>na</strong>sr@tufts.edu.<br />
To contact the editor responsible for this article: Lisa<br />
Beyer at lbeyer3@bloomberg.net. Tweet LinkedIn<br />
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Bloomberg/ - Politics, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
History Won’t Help Pick Romney’s<br />
Running Mate<br />
About Albert R Hunt Albert R. Hunt is the executive<br />
editor of Bloomberg News, directing coverage of the<br />
Washington bureau, which includes more than 250<br />
reporters and editors. He hosts the weekly television<br />
show "Political Capital with Al Hunt" and writes a<br />
weekly column for Bloomberg and the Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Herald Tribune. More about Albert R Hunt The media<br />
is rife with speculation about Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan,<br />
Chris Christie, Susa<strong>na</strong> Martinez, Bob McDonnell or<br />
Rob Portman, as possible running mates for Mitt<br />
Romney. It’s the time of the political season when<br />
conjecture runs wild, much of it ill-informed. Romney’s<br />
choice of a vice- presidential candidate is likely to<br />
evolve, in ways unforeseeable today, over the next<br />
four months. In weighing the reliability of columns or<br />
stories that tell you Romney is most comfortable with<br />
Ryan, the Wisconsin congressman and budget policy<br />
wonk, or that Rubio, the young Cuban-American<br />
freshman se<strong>na</strong>tor from Florida, is the linchpin to the<br />
Latino vote, consider these examples from recent<br />
elections: In April 2000, the leading Democratic<br />
contenders were supposed to be Se<strong>na</strong>tors John Kerry<br />
of Massachusetts or John Edwards of North Caroli<strong>na</strong>.<br />
The nominee, Vice President Al Gore did pick a<br />
Democratic se<strong>na</strong>tor: Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.<br />
There was a longer list of Republican contenders that<br />
year, though Pennsylvania’s popular governor, Tom<br />
Ridge, shot to the top after former Congressman and<br />
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney was tapped to head a<br />
search committee. Right before the summer<br />
convention, George W. Bush instead selected Cheney.<br />
Unknown Palin Four years ago, Se<strong>na</strong>tor Joe Biden of<br />
Delaware was considered one of the leading<br />
contenders. But on the Republican side, John McCain<br />
couldn’t have picked Sarah Palin out of a lineup in<br />
April 2008. He barely knew who she was when he<br />
selected her four months later. Then there’s the<br />
supposed electoral weight some candidates bring:<br />
Rubio in Florida or Portman in Ohio. Yet over the past<br />
40 years and 10 presidential elections, no running<br />
mate has made the difference in carrying a state. (Vice<br />
President Walter Mondale, running with President<br />
Jimmy Carter in 1980, is a debatable exception.)<br />
Devotees of the Electoral College love to point to<br />
Lyndon Johnson of Texas winning the presidency for<br />
John F. Kennedy in 1960. Johnson almost surely<br />
carried his home state for Kennedy, but JFK would<br />
have won in any case. And there have been highly<br />
praised vice presidential choices that couldn’t even<br />
make a difference even in their home states: Texas<br />
Democrat Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 and New York<br />
Republican Jack Kemp in 1996. So much for that<br />
theory. That isn’t to say that Romney’s selection is<br />
unimportant. It will help shape what the campaign<br />
hopes is a reset -- or a shaking of the etch-a-sketch -of<br />
the nominee as he faces a different electorate. It<br />
can send a message. Both George W. Bush, with<br />
Cheney, and Barack Obama, by picking Biden,<br />
reassured voters about their relative inexperience. Bill<br />
Clinton and Gore symbolized a new generation ready<br />
to take charge after the fall of communism. Ro<strong>na</strong>ld<br />
Reagan made a bow to the center and gover<strong>na</strong>nce by<br />
selecting George H.W. Bush, though he did so only<br />
after the dubious “co-presidency” dream ticket with<br />
Gerald Ford collapsed. The chief consideration, people<br />
who’ve been through the process agree, is do no<br />
harm. Running mates can help margi<strong>na</strong>lly; they can<br />
hurt substantially. Some previous exposure to the<br />
<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l limelight is helpful; it’s a tough vetting league<br />
for rookies. That’s why the Romney team needs to ask<br />
hard questions of the more appealing choices. Rubio’s<br />
telegenic youth and his ethnicity provide an attractive<br />
balance to Romney’s awkward, corporate perso<strong>na</strong>. Yet<br />
the 40-year-old Florida lawmaker is inexperienced,<br />
hasn’t impressed Washington heavyweights with his<br />
substance or readiness to be president, and still faces<br />
some controversies in his home state. Fiscal<br />
Conservative Ryan, 42, is the poster child for the<br />
conservative economic establishment. He’s a policy<br />
expert who they see as the heir- apparent to the late<br />
Jack Kemp. He’s also never run outside his small<br />
congressio<strong>na</strong>l district and has never shown any of<br />
Kemp’s passion for equal opportunities and civil rights.<br />
The House Budget Committee chairman’s fiscal plan<br />
could be politically perilous and substantively<br />
questio<strong>na</strong>ble: He won’t say how he would pay for his<br />
$4.6 trillion tax cuts, which principally go to the<br />
wealthy. The economic-conservative wing has a big<br />
bullhorn in the party. That might deter Romney from<br />
considering Mike Huckabee, the ex-Arkansas governor<br />
and 2008 presidential aspirant with an<br />
economic-populist streak that appeals to evangelicals.<br />
Other candidates who might be acceptable to<br />
evangelicals and economic conservatives could<br />
complicate Romney’s problems with women voters;<br />
such is the case with former Pennsylvania Se<strong>na</strong>tor<br />
Rick Santorum, who has said he’d like contraception to<br />
be outlawed, or Virginia Governor McDonnell, who<br />
signed legislation requiring women to undergo an<br />
ultrasound before an abortion. Romney could turn to<br />
102
women such as Governors Martinez of New Mexico or<br />
Nikki Haley of South Caroli<strong>na</strong>. They both have the<br />
same experience -- or lack thereof -- as then-Alaska<br />
Governor Palin did four years ago; that memory is too<br />
fresh and painful for most Republicans. Governors with<br />
a little more seasoning such as Louisia<strong>na</strong>’s Bobby<br />
Jindal or Brian Sandoval of Nevada have other<br />
problems. Sandoval favors abortion rights, a<br />
disqualifier for many Republicans; Jindal signed a<br />
measure encouraging the teaching of creationism in<br />
the Louisia<strong>na</strong> schools, which wouldn’t play well with<br />
independent suburbanites. Most important will be the<br />
conditions of the race. This summer, will Romney be<br />
10 points behind the president or a few points ahead?<br />
Will the economic recovery be stalled or taking root?<br />
Will the Republican Party conservative base’s hatred<br />
of Obama overcome weak enthusiasm for a Mormon<br />
nominee, who is suspected of moderate political<br />
tendencies? The most often-cited vice-presidential<br />
candidates are above. The odds are four-to-one that<br />
on Wednesday, Aug. 29, a person who isn’t on this list<br />
will be anointed at the Republican convention in<br />
Bloomberg/ - Politics, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
Tampa. With the last two Republican running mates<br />
that would have been a winning bet. (Albert R. Hunt is<br />
the executive editor for Washington at Bloomberg<br />
News. The opinions expressed are his own.) Read<br />
more online from Bloomberg View. Today’s highlights:<br />
The View editors on signs Iraq is veering away from<br />
democracy and the Natio<strong>na</strong>l Rifle Association’s role in<br />
encouraging gun sales and use; William D. Cohan on<br />
restoring faith in Wall Street as the key to an economic<br />
recovery; Simon Johnson on why long-term budget<br />
projections get too much attention; Kellie McElhaney<br />
on how Apple should change its behavior; Vali Nasr on<br />
positive developments in Pakistan; and Iain Begg on<br />
redefining Europe’s social safety net. To contact the<br />
writer of this column: Albert Hunt in Washington at<br />
ahunt1@bloomberg.net To contact the editor<br />
responsible for this column: Max Berley at<br />
mberley@bloomberg.net. Tweet LinkedIn Google +1<br />
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Business Insurance/ - Article, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
COMMENTARY: Court"s ultimate<br />
health care reform ruling still unclear<br />
Just before the Supreme Court began oral arguments<br />
on the health care reform law last month, I thought<br />
back to the last time I covered an oral argument before<br />
the high court.<br />
It was in February 1990. The issue before the<br />
Supreme Court was whether the Pension Benefit<br />
Guaranty Corp. had the right to return to a company a<br />
pension plan the agency previously had taken over.<br />
The case involved several massively underfunded<br />
pension plans sponsored by LTV Corp., a fi<strong>na</strong>ncially<br />
distressed steel producer. In 1987, the PBGC took<br />
over three LTV plans and their $2 billion in unfunded<br />
liabilities after the company said it no longer could<br />
afford to make contributions.<br />
A few months later, LTV and the United Steelworkers<br />
union reached an agreement on a new low-cost<br />
pension program that would guarantee to pay most of<br />
the difference between benefits promised by LTV and<br />
those guaranteed by the PBGC.<br />
Soon thereafter, the PBGC returned the termi<strong>na</strong>ted<br />
plans to LTV, contending that the new LTV plans were<br />
an illegal continuation of the old plans with benefits<br />
now largely paid by the PBGC. In returning the plans<br />
to LTV, the PBGC said it would not pay benefits to<br />
plan participants. LTV immediately filed suit to stop the<br />
PBGC"s action.<br />
A multiyear court battle followed, with the case<br />
ultimately going to the Supreme Court. Twenty-two<br />
years have passed, but I still can vividly recall what<br />
then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist said as LTV"s<br />
attorney began his arguments.<br />
Justice Rehnquist cut off the attorney and suggested<br />
that LTV"s action"s were an attempt to “fob-off” the<br />
pension plan liabilities onto the PBGC. In a few words,<br />
Justice Rehnquist got to the heart of the issue and<br />
made a comment that indicated how he would later<br />
rule. A few months later, the Supreme Court, in an 8-1<br />
ruling, sided with the PBGC.<br />
But in the roughly six hours of oral arguments on the<br />
health care reform law, I didn"t hear any one-liners that<br />
definitively indicated how any justice will rule on two<br />
key issues before the court: Is the law"s individual<br />
mandate unconstitutio<strong>na</strong>l? And, if it is, is the mandate<br />
so intertwined with the broader law that the entire law<br />
would fall if the court rules the mandate is<br />
unconstitutio<strong>na</strong>l?<br />
The justices asked many tough questions, but I don"t<br />
have any more of a clue to what their ruling on those<br />
issues will be than I did before the arguments.<br />
The question I kept asking myself was why the law<br />
was before the Supreme Court. How was it the law<br />
was drafted in such a way that critical provisions were<br />
vulnerable to legal attack?<br />
The answer to that question is clear and it speaks to<br />
the breakdown of our political system. The legislation<br />
did not go through what was once the traditio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
extended review process. For the most part, committee<br />
consideration was hasty, and there wasn"t even a joint<br />
conference committee to resolve differences between<br />
House- and Se<strong>na</strong>te-passed bills and pass a carefully<br />
reviewed and crafted fi<strong>na</strong>l bill.<br />
Both parties share in the blame. Unless the two parties<br />
can once again try to work together, more of our<br />
laws—the few that are passed—will end up being<br />
challenged in court.<br />
104
Business Insurance/ - Article, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Workers denied comp benefits can sue for<br />
RICO violations<br />
CINCINNATI—An appeals court ruling that allows<br />
injured workers to sue their former employer for<br />
alleged racketeering could have a chilling effect on<br />
how employers and third-party administrators decide<br />
workers compensation claims, observers say.<br />
A panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled<br />
2-1 in Paul Brown et al. vs. Cassens Transport Co. et<br />
al. that several Michigan transportation workers can<br />
sue Edwardsville, Ill.-based Cassens Transport Co.<br />
and Atlanta-based third-party administrator Crawford &<br />
Co. for allegedly violating the Racketeer Influenced<br />
and Corrupt Organizations Act after their workers<br />
comp claims were denied or settled.<br />
However, an attorney for the auto transportation<br />
company and the TPA said the defendants will seek a<br />
rehearing of the ruling by the full 6th Circuit.<br />
The workers allege that Cassens, which is self-insured,<br />
conspired with the TPA and Dr. Saul Margules, a<br />
Michigan physician who evaluated and often testified<br />
against injured Cassens workers.<br />
The plaintiffs allege that the defendants"<br />
communications among themselves constituted mail<br />
and wire fraud under RICO and furthered the<br />
conspiracy that included using “fraudulent medical<br />
reports” and ignoring medical evidence to deny or limit<br />
benefits.<br />
In its April 6 decision, the appeals court said<br />
Michigan"s exclusive remedy workers comp provisions<br />
do not bar the workers from alleging that Cassens and<br />
Crawford committed RICO violations—which are<br />
separate from the workers" injury claims.<br />
“A federal civil RICO claim and a state claim for<br />
workers compensation are legally distinct, even though<br />
they share factual underpinnings,” the majority ruled.<br />
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Julia Smith Gibbons<br />
said RICO laws shouldn"t apply because the workers<br />
didn"t suffer damage to “business or property” as<br />
required by RICO regulations.<br />
Marshall Lasser, a Southfield, Mich.-based attorney<br />
who represents the former Cassens workers and is<br />
litigating other similar cases, said such suits will help<br />
injured workers receive benefits that were unjustly<br />
denied.<br />
“I"ve alleged that these employers and the insurance<br />
companies or the third-party administrators know that<br />
these doctors lie,” Mr. Lasser said.<br />
In another suit he filed alleging RICO violations in<br />
Michigan workers comp decisions, Christine Jackson<br />
et al. vs. Sedgwick Claims Ma<strong>na</strong>gement Services Inc.<br />
et al., former employees of Atlanta-based Coca-Cola<br />
Enterprises Inc. allege that the company and TPA<br />
conspired with Dr. Paul Drouillard to deny or termi<strong>na</strong>te<br />
their claims. Argued last summer in the 6th Circuit, the<br />
case still is awaiting a decision.<br />
Cases such as those filed by Mr. Lasser could<br />
undermine insurers" and employers" ability to<br />
effectively ma<strong>na</strong>ge medical treatment and benefit<br />
payments for injured workers, said Bruce Wood,<br />
Washington-based associate general counsel and<br />
director of workers compensation for the American<br />
Insurance Assn.<br />
“What the cases essentially do is use the cover of<br />
RICO—a federal civil and crimi<strong>na</strong>l statute—to<br />
undermine and to subvert a state"s workers<br />
compensation system,” Mr. Wood said.<br />
Denis Juge, an insurance defense attorney in Metairie,<br />
La., contends that RICO litigation in workers comp<br />
cases could result in a flood of such suits and hurt<br />
employers" ability to defend themselves against<br />
disputed claims, because doctors could fear being<br />
<strong>na</strong>med in RICO suits.<br />
“If you allow the suits in the other states, you"re going<br />
to find it very difficult as a defense attorney to get a<br />
physician willing to give a second medical opinion,”<br />
said Mr. Juge, a director at law firm Juge, Napolitano,<br />
Guilbeau, Ruli, Frieman & Whiteley L.L.C.<br />
Janet Lanyon, an attorney for Cassens and Crawford,<br />
said her clients later this month plan to seek an en<br />
banc rehearing of the Brown ruling. Cassens, Crawford<br />
and Dr. Margules deny the workers" claims, said Ms.<br />
Lanyon, a shareholder with Troy, Mich.-based Dean &<br />
Fulkerson P.C.<br />
Brown vs. Cassens has been in the courts for years.<br />
The 6th Circuit initially affirmed a federal judge"s 2005<br />
dismissal of the plaintiffs" RICO claims. But the U.S.<br />
Supreme Court vacated the 6th Circuit"s ruling in<br />
2008 and remanded the case, citing precedent in a<br />
separate RICO lawsuit.<br />
The 6th Circuit allowed the workers" RICO claims to<br />
move forward in a subsequent 2008 decision, but the<br />
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan<br />
dismissed it again in 2010 citing the state"s exclusive<br />
remedy provisions concerning workers comp.<br />
“I believe that the case presents novel issues of law,”<br />
Ms. Lanyon said. “So I think anytime a court is<br />
presented with something where there isn"t a lot of<br />
precedent, the possibility of having differing views is<br />
greater.”<br />
RICO lawsuits in workers comp could open the door<br />
for more litigation and delay injured workers receiving<br />
105
enefits, said Larry Holt, executive director of the<br />
Natio<strong>na</strong>l Council of Self-Insurers in New Providence,<br />
N.J. The organization filed a joint amicus brief in<br />
Brown with the AIA and the U.S. Chamber of<br />
Commerce.<br />
“Employees who say they"re injured at work will be<br />
able to prosecute RICO actions in state and federal<br />
courts, as well as workers compensation actions,” Mr.<br />
Holt said.<br />
While there have been a handful of RICO-related<br />
Business Insurance/ - Article, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
workers comp lawsuits in other federal courts, the<br />
AIA"s Mr. Wood said those cases were resolved<br />
without a decision on whether RICO law can trump the<br />
exclusive remedy of state workers comp laws.<br />
With the 6th Circuit set to determine legal precedent in<br />
Brown and Jackson, Mr. Wood said industry observers<br />
will watch the cases closely.<br />
“It"s a significant challenge, because it"s undermining<br />
state law,” he said.<br />
106
Business Line/ - Markets, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
‘Preventive properties of a product can<br />
qualify it as medicine'<br />
When a product in addition to having cleansing<br />
properties also keeps diseases and harmful bacteria at<br />
bay, it qualifies as medicine even if the medical<br />
component in the product is minuscule in terms of<br />
quantity or value or both, said the Supreme Court.In<br />
the case of Commissioner of Central Excise vs.<br />
Wockhardt Life Sciences Ltd, the issue was whether<br />
the product manufactured by the respondent was<br />
detergent or medicament.The Revenue's contention<br />
was that it was detergent on the basis of ?common<br />
parlance test' and ?commercial usage test' as<br />
bolstered by the fact that the medici<strong>na</strong>l properties in it<br />
were miniscule and incidental, with its predomi<strong>na</strong>nt<br />
use being cleansing.Pigeonholing its product into<br />
ayurvedic begot the manufacturer nil tax status<br />
whereas as detergent, it attracted an 18 per cent<br />
excise duty.The Supreme Court, while holding the<br />
cleanser in question a medicament, pointed out that<br />
the common parlance test and commercial usage test<br />
are not sacrosanct and infallible.It was also not<br />
necessary, the Court added, that a product must have<br />
curative properties to be labelled a medicine; even<br />
preventive properties would do.(The author is a<br />
NewDelhi-based chartered accountant.)<br />
107
El País/ - España, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Un exjuez del Supremo propone querellas<br />
contra los jueces que no vayan a las fosas<br />
El magistrado retirado del Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Supremo José<br />
Antonio Martín Pallín animó ayer a presentar querellas<br />
en cade<strong>na</strong> contra todos los jueces territoriales que no<br />
acudan a las fosas del franquismo durante las<br />
exhumaciones. “Cuando se le dice al juez ‘venga a ver<br />
este cráneo con un agujero de bala’ y no va, está<br />
prevaricando”, aseguró durante un acto de apoyo a<br />
Baltasar Garzón en el auditorio Marcelino Camacho,<br />
en Madrid.<br />
“Incluso los franquistas iban. Recuerdo que llamaban<br />
muchas veces desde la Casa de Campo de Madrid<br />
porque gente que había salido a buscar setas se<br />
encontraba restos humanos (de muertos durante la<br />
Guerra Civil). Y los jueces franquistas iban, al menos<br />
cumplían la ley. Los demócratas no lo están<br />
haciendo”, añadió.<br />
Un auto del Supremo del pasado 28 de marzo<br />
establece que la competencia sobre las fosas del<br />
franquismo es de los tribu<strong>na</strong>les territoriales. Sin<br />
embargo, ningún juez ha acudido a las dos primeras<br />
exhumaciones realizadas en España tras ese auto: la<br />
primera, la pasada sema<strong>na</strong> en Espinosa de los<br />
Monteros (Burgos), con 13 fusilados, y la última el<br />
pasado 9 de abril en Montenegro de Cameros (Soria),<br />
con nueve. Los 22 esqueletos recuperados tenían<br />
signos evidentes de muerte violenta, como cráneos<br />
agujerados por balas.<br />
En su intervención, Martín Pallín se refirió a la<br />
represión franquista como “el primer holocausto” y<br />
añadió que España “corre el riesgo de vivir en la<br />
amnesia democrática”.<br />
“Gremialismo”<br />
La abogada Cristi<strong>na</strong> Almeida anunció el envío al<br />
Consejo General del Poder Judicial de dos escritos<br />
firmados por víctimas del franquismo solicitando u<strong>na</strong><br />
investigación de los magistrados que juzgaron a<br />
Garzón. “Viven de cursos pagados por bancos,<br />
empresas y grandes despachos de abogados”, dijo<br />
Almeida, quien se refirió al exjuez como “u<strong>na</strong> oveja<br />
perdida en el gremialismo judicial”.<br />
Julián Rebollo, de la Plataforma contra la Impunidad<br />
del Franquismo, anunció que se concentrarán frente a<br />
la Delegación del Gobierno en Madrid para protestar<br />
por las multas (4.400 euros en total) que han impuesto<br />
a nueve miembros del colectivo por manifestarse<br />
frente al Supremo durante los juicios contra Garzón.<br />
“Ni acatamos ni respetamos al Supremo. Estamos en<br />
lucha. Y vamos a conseguir 500.000 firmas para pedir<br />
u<strong>na</strong> comisión de la verdad de los crímenes del<br />
franquismo”.<br />
108
Expresso OnLine Lisboa / - Atualidade, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
CDS propõe Fátima Mata Mouros para<br />
Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
CDS irá propor o nome da juíza Fátima Mata Mouros<br />
para uma das três vagas a preencher no Tribu<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l.<br />
O líder parlamentar do CDS, Nuno Magalhães,<br />
afirmou hoje à agência Lusa que irá propor o nome de<br />
Fátima Mata Mouros para uma das três vagas a<br />
preencher no Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l, cuja eleição<br />
se realizará <strong>na</strong> sexta-feira.<br />
Os nomes dos três juízes a indicar para o Tribu<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l têm de ser eleitos com uma maioria<br />
de dois terços, o que obriga a um entendimento entre<br />
a maioria gover<strong>na</strong>mental PSD/CDS e PS.<br />
Na sexta-feira passada, o PSD propôs para o Tribu<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l o nome de Paulo Saragoça da Matta,<br />
enquanto o PS escolheu o ex-secretário de Estado da<br />
Justiça Conde Rodrigues.<br />
Em declarações à agência Lusa, o líder da bancada<br />
do CDS referiu que o nome de Fátima Mata Mouros já<br />
tinha sido colocado de forma oficiosa.<br />
"Mas agora confirmamos a nossa escolha" de Fátima<br />
Mata Mouros, juíza "com um currículo sólido e<br />
significativo, com vasta experiência da magistratura e<br />
com grande prestígio", declarou Nuno Magalhães.<br />
Para o líder parlamentar do CDS, a juíza Fátima Mata<br />
Mouros representará uma escolha que "reunirá<br />
seguramente grande consenso".<br />
109
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/ - Politik, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Europäischen Gerichtshof )<br />
Tabu verträgt keine Begründung<br />
Das Inzest-Urteil des Europäischen Gerichtshofes wirft<br />
mehr Probleme auf, als es zu lösen vorgibt.<br />
Deutschland muss zu einer eigenen Regelung im<br />
Umgang mit einem kaum mehr begründbaren Tabu<br />
finden.<br />
Von Oliver Tolmein<br />
Am leichtesten hatten es die Leser der „Bild“-Zeitung:<br />
In einer Blitzumfrage befanden 87 Prozent der 32.000<br />
Teilnehmer: „Ja, das Urteil ist richtig. Inzest soll tabu<br />
bleiben.“ Dass sie keine Argumente brauchten,<br />
sondern nur ein starkes Gefühl, war dem Thema<br />
angemessen.<br />
Eine der Besonderheiten des Tabus ist ja gerade, dass<br />
es keiner Begründung bedarf; für die, die unter seiner<br />
Herrschaft stehen, verbietet sich der Tabubruch von<br />
selbst. Der Tabubruch bedarf, zumindest ursprünglich,<br />
auch keiner gesellschaftlichen Sanktion, weil sich das<br />
verletzte Tabu selbst rächt. Reden und argumentieren<br />
darf nur, wer das Tabu brechen will.<br />
Wer das Tabu in eine strafrechtliche Vorschrift<br />
überführt, in der ein Verhalten überprüfbar unter<br />
Tatbestandsmerkmale subsumiert werden muss, hat<br />
damit das Seine dazu beigetragen, es zu zerstören und einer Entscheidung den Weg zu ebnen, wie der 4.<br />
Strafse<strong>na</strong>t des Bundesgerichtshofes sie vor anderthalb<br />
Jahren (richtigerweise) getroffen hat, als er einen<br />
Vater vom Vorwurf des Verstoßes gegen Paragraph<br />
173 Strafgesetzbuch freisprach, weil „der Angeklagte<br />
die Geschädigte ausschließlich gezwungen hat, an<br />
ihm Oralverkehr auszuüben; dies genügt für den<br />
Tatbestand des Beischlafs zwischen Verwandten aber<br />
nicht“. Mit einer mehrjährigen Freiheitstrafe bestraft<br />
wurde der Angeklagte damals selbstverständlich<br />
dennoch - aber eben wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs<br />
von Schutzbefohlenen und nicht wegen Verstoßes<br />
gegen das Inzestverbot.<br />
Strasburger Zurückhaltung<br />
Der Europäische Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte<br />
konnte es sich in seiner aktuellen Entscheidung in<br />
Sachen „Stübing gegen Deutschland“ nicht so einfach<br />
machen wie der Boulevard und seine Leser. Er musste<br />
Gründe dafür anführen, dass die Verurteilung des<br />
Klägers wegen des Verstoßes gegen Paragraph 173<br />
des deutschen Strafgesetzbuches einer drängenden<br />
gesellschaftlichen Notwendigkeit entsprach und<br />
deswegen keinen Verstoß gegen Artikel 8 der<br />
Europäischen Menschenrechtskonvention darstellt.<br />
Wie zu erwarten, sind die Straßburger Richter bei<br />
ihrem Versuch gescheitert, eine Vorschrift zu<br />
begründen, die in erster Linie ein gesellschaftliches<br />
Tabu wahren soll. Also haben sie es sich so leicht wie<br />
möglich gemacht, indem sie sich auf die vier Jahre alte<br />
Entscheidung des Bundesverfassungsgerichts im<br />
selben Fall gestützt und dessen These übernommen<br />
haben, dass die strafrechtliche Verfolgung des Inzests<br />
aus einer Reihe von Gründen angemessen sei: sie<br />
diene nämlich dem Schutz der Familie, des<br />
Selbstbestimmungsrechts und der öffentlichen<br />
Gesundheit.<br />
Tatsächlich ging es den Straßburger Richtern wohl<br />
auch weniger um die Aufrechterhaltung des Tabus als<br />
darum, sich in einem Konflikt, in dem es auch um<br />
grundlegende moralische und ethische Fragen geht,<br />
zurückzuhalten. In solchen Fällen, so argumentieren<br />
sie überzeugend, könnten <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>le Autoritäten<br />
grundsätzlich besser als ein inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>les Gericht<br />
beurteilen, was die jeweiligen moralischen<br />
Erfordernisse sind. Bemerkenswerterweise haben die<br />
Straßburger Richter sich in ihrer aktuellen<br />
Entscheidung über den deutschen Inzestfall daher<br />
gleich mehrfach auf ihr zehn Jahre zurückliegendes<br />
Urteil in der Sache Diane Pretty bezogen, eine<br />
Engländerin, die in Straßburg ebenfalls erfolglos<br />
gegen das in England geltende Verbot der Beihilfe<br />
zum Suizid stritt.<br />
Ein kaum begründbares Tabu<br />
Damit ist aber auch die Grenze der Straßburger<br />
Entscheidung markiert, die gerade nichts darüber<br />
besagt, ob Paragraph 173 des deutschen<br />
Strafgesetzbuches eine gute oder angemessene<br />
Regelung ist, die bestehen bleiben sollte. Festgestellt<br />
haben die von der Parlamentarischen Versammlung<br />
des Europarates gewählten Richter lediglich, dass die<br />
Regelung nicht gegen die Europäische<br />
Menschenrechtskonvention verstößt.<br />
Dem deutschen Gesetzgeber bleibt es dennoch<br />
unbenommen, wie jetzt der Grünen-Politiker Christian<br />
Ströbele vorgeschlagen hat, dem Beispiel Frankreichs,<br />
der Niederlande, Spaniens, der Türkei, Luxemburgs,<br />
Sloweniens oder der Ukraine zu folgen und das<br />
Inzestverbot aus dem Strafgesetzbuch zu streichen,<br />
da er ratio<strong>na</strong>l so wenig begründbar wie angesichts der<br />
wenigen, zudem fast immer auch durch andere,<br />
erheblich besser zu begründende Vorschriften unter<br />
Strafe gestellten Fälle erforderlich ist: Wieso soll<br />
beispielsweise einem Mann in der Patchwork-Familie<br />
der Beischlaf mit der Stieftochter erlaubt, der Beischlaf<br />
110
mit der leiblichen Tochter aber verboten sein? Oder<br />
wie soll man begründen, dass der Kläger im aktuellen<br />
Verfahren straffrei geblieben wäre, wenn er die Kinder<br />
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/ - Politik, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Europäischen Gerichtshof )<br />
mit seiner Schwester in vitro gezeugt und statt mit ihr<br />
zu schlafen, mit ihr nur Oralverkehr gehabt hätte?<br />
111
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/ - Politik, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Verfassungsgericht)<br />
Locker bleiben, gut aussehen<br />
Unter allen Spitzenkandidaten in Schleswig-Holstein<br />
ist der Liberale der bekannteste: Wolfgang Kubicki soll<br />
nicht weniger als die ganze FDP retten. Vor zwölf<br />
Jahren gelang ihm das schon einmal.<br />
Von Frank Pergande, Norderstedt<br />
Wolfgang Kubicki gibt eine Currywurst aus für seine<br />
Wahlkampfbegleitung, auch ein paar Jour<strong>na</strong>listen<br />
gehören zu den Glücklichen. Es ist - kaum zu glauben<br />
- fünf Minuten vor 12 Uhr. Der Magen dürfte dem<br />
FDP-Spitzenkandidaten im Landtagswahlkampf von<br />
Schleswig-Holstein zu dieser Uhrzeit noch nicht<br />
knurren, und erkennbar schmeckt ihm dann die rote<br />
Wurst auf dem Pappteller nicht. Auch muss er beim<br />
Essen auf Anzug und Krawatte aufpassen. Aber die<br />
Gelegenheit ist zu günstig. Er kann am Stehtisch ein<br />
paar Botschaften loswerden. Und dem Ort dafür<br />
mangelt es nicht an Symbolgehalt. „Franki’s<br />
Bratwurst“-Stand auf dem Wochenmarkt in Norderstedt<br />
erstreckt sich nämlich über zwei Bundesländer, halb<br />
Schleswig-Holstein, halb Hamburg, jedenfalls über<br />
Schleswig-Holstein hi<strong>na</strong>us.<br />
Der Wochenmarkt gilt als der einzige<br />
länderübergreifende. So erzählen es jedenfalls die<br />
Einheimischen. Kubicki also, zufällig dabei in Hamburg<br />
stehend, legt los über die schleswig-holsteinische<br />
Landespolitik. Die FDP habe die CDU in der Kieler<br />
Koalition zur Schuldenbremse und damit zu einer<br />
Umkehr in der Haushaltspolitik gedrängt. Die FDP<br />
wisse ge<strong>na</strong>u, was bis 2020 zu tun sei. Die anderen<br />
Parteien wüssten es nicht. Der öffentliche Dienst im<br />
Land begreife dank der FDP langsam, dass eine<br />
bessere Wirtschaftspolitik mehr Steuerein<strong>na</strong>hmen<br />
bringe und damit mehr berufliche Sicherheit auch für<br />
die Landesbediensteten.<br />
Drei Schwerpunkte müsse die künftige Landespolitik<br />
haben: die Bildungschancen der jungen Leute<br />
erhöhen, die „Energiewende“ vor allem als<br />
Netzausbau begreifen und der weitere Ausbau des<br />
Straßennetzes, vor allem der Weiterbau der Autobahn<br />
20: „Mecklenburg-Vorpommern hat seinen<br />
Autobahnteil bis fast <strong>na</strong>ch Polen längst übergeben, wir<br />
haben in zwanzig Jahren gerade mal 27 Kilometer<br />
geschafft.“ Und wenn der Netzausbau nicht als<br />
Hauptaufgabe verstanden werde, könne<br />
Schleswig-Holstein zwar jede Menge Strom<br />
produzieren, werde ihn aber nicht los. „Den können wir<br />
dann in die Ostsee schicken.“<br />
Dass die Partei im Überlebenskampf steckt, wird nicht<br />
erwähnt<br />
Wolfgang Kubicki liebt die Pointe. Und wenn sein<br />
Publikum lacht, freut er sich mit einem breiten Grinsen.<br />
Die Lachfältchen an seinen Augen sind dauernd in<br />
Bewegung. Mit Peer Steinbrück, erzählt er launig<br />
weiter, habe er studiert. „Aber der hat sein Leben<br />
verhauen und ist zur SPD gegangen.“ Das Publikum<br />
lacht, Kubicki grinst. Der Spitzenkandidat<br />
schwadroniert über seine U<strong>na</strong>bhängigkeit. Er habe<br />
seine Arbeit als Anwalt, die könne er nicht eben mal<br />
vier, fünf Jahre ruhen lassen. Deswegen sei er auch<br />
nicht Minister geworden, als 2009 CDU und FDP ein<br />
Bündnis eingingen.<br />
An dieser Currywurststelle angelangt, zielt denn doch<br />
mal eine Frage wie ein Pfeil auf ihn: „Aber Sie haben<br />
doch erklärt, <strong>na</strong>ch der Wahl Fi<strong>na</strong>nzminister sein zu<br />
wollen?“ Kubicki braucht einen Augenblick, ehe auch<br />
da die Pointe aufleuchtet: „In fünf Jahren bin ich 65<br />
Jahre alt. Für einen Rentner spielt das alles keine<br />
Rolle mehr.“<br />
Dieses Grinsen. Die Leute auf dem Markt erkennen<br />
ihn: „Das ist doch der Kubicki.“ Einer sagt: „Der macht<br />
doch nur Wahlpropaganda.“ Eine Frau tritt an ihn<br />
heran: „Sie sind doch der Beste.“ Kubicki verteilt<br />
Handküsse an die Damen. Er würde zwar nicht einfach<br />
so auf die Leute zugehen, aber wenn diese schon<br />
stehenbleiben, ist er sogleich bei ihnen - und bestens<br />
im Bilde, um ein Gespräch zu führen. Seine<br />
Parteifreunde haben ihn gut vorbereitet auf die<br />
Probleme, über die man sich im eigentlich so<br />
prosperierenden Norderstedt sehr erregt: dass durch<br />
die Baustelle mitten in der Stadt die Zufahrt zum<br />
Einkaufszentrum Schmuggelstieg immer schwieriger<br />
wird und dass der Ochsenzoll, die Hauptstraße, auf<br />
der Holsteiner Seite vierspurig ausgebaut wird, in<br />
Hamburg aber hinter der Kreuzung einspurig bleibt.<br />
Kubicki findet es witzig, dass ein Liberaler wie er<br />
ausgerechnet auf dem Schmuggelstieg Wahlkampf<br />
macht. Wieder sein Grinsen.<br />
Ob es am Wahltag, dem 6. Mai, zum Wiedereinzug in<br />
den Landtag reicht, ist ungewiss. Während er noch mit<br />
den Leuten parliert, kommt gerade die neue Umfrage<br />
auf die Mobiltelefone seiner Umgebung: vier Prozent<br />
für die FDP. Dabei hatte Kubicki bei seiner<br />
Spitzenkandidatenwahl im Januar versprochen, die<br />
Partei werde fortan Mo<strong>na</strong>t für Mo<strong>na</strong>t einen<br />
Prozentpunkt hinzugewinnen. Aber es ist wie immer:<br />
Der Spitzenkandidat verspricht viel, hat schon immer<br />
viel versprochen, muss aber kein Versprechen halten.<br />
Auch in Norderstedt verbreitet der blendend<br />
112
aussehende, perfekt gekleidete, amüsant erzählende<br />
Mann allein durch seine Aura Zuversicht. Über künftige<br />
Minister- und Ressortverteilung wird an diesem Tag<br />
gesprochen, über Koalitionen und die nächsten<br />
Aufgaben der Regierung. Dass die Partei, wie zuletzt<br />
im Saarland, untergehen könnte, dass sie im<br />
Überlebenskampf steckt und Kubicki vor der größten<br />
Herausforderung seiner politischen Laufbahn steht das alles wird auf dem Schmuggelstieg nicht einmal<br />
erwähnt.<br />
Kubicki ist jedes Mittel recht, um Stimmen zu holen<br />
Auch später nicht in einem Einkaufszentrum neben der<br />
Autobahn 7 bei Kaltenkirchen, das riesig ist und noch<br />
riesiger werden will, was bisher allerdings durch die<br />
Landesplanung verhindert wird. Hier hält Kubicki ein<br />
Plädoyer für mehr Liberalismus und mehr Wettbewerb.<br />
Diesmal findet er seine Pointe auf Kosten von<br />
CDU-Innenminister Klaus Schlie, weil Landesplanung<br />
Sache des Kieler Innenministeriums ist: „Nun, er ist<br />
Lehrer. Lehrer sind Besserwisser.“ Und damit es nicht<br />
ganz so scharf ankommt, setzt er hinzu: „Anwälte sind<br />
es auch.“ In den Koalitionsverhandlungen werde er<br />
darauf dringen, die Landesplanung dem<br />
Wirtschaftsministerium anzugliedern, verspricht er.<br />
Glaubt Wolfgang Kubicki ernsthaft daran, <strong>na</strong>ch dem 6.<br />
Mai an Koalitionsverhandlungen teilzunehmen? Sagen<br />
darf er jedenfalls nichts anderes. Denn Kubicki ist die<br />
FDP in Schleswig-Holstein, obwohl er in seiner<br />
Laufbahn nur einmal eine kurze Zeit lang<br />
Parteivorsitzender war. Auch Minister ist er nie<br />
geworden, nicht nur wegen seiner oft beschworenen<br />
fi<strong>na</strong>nziellen U<strong>na</strong>bhängigkeit. Er hätte seine<br />
Pointenproduktion einschränken müssen und wäre<br />
auch mal in die Verantwortung genommen worden. So<br />
blieb er als ewiger Fraktionsvorsitzender im Landtag<br />
der glänzende Redner, dem alles zugetraut wird - auch<br />
mehr als fünf Prozent bei der Landtagswahl im Norden<br />
und damit gleich die Rettung der ganzen FDP.<br />
Kubicki ist indes nicht der heiter-ironische<br />
Wahlkämpfer mit Currywurst und Handkuss, als der er<br />
wirken will. Ihm ist vielmehr jedes Mittel recht, um<br />
Stimmen zu holen. Ein bewährtes ist es, über die<br />
Berliner Parteiführung herzuziehen. Schon immer galt<br />
er als der freie Radikale unter den Freien Demokraten.<br />
Erfolgreich war einst die Achse Kubicki-Möllemann,<br />
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/ - Politik, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Verfassungsgericht)<br />
Schleswig-Holstein-Nordrhein-Westfalen. Da ging es<br />
2000 schon einmal um die Rettung der Partei. Sie<br />
gelang. Kubicki, gerade 60 Jahre alt geworden, ist<br />
noch immer da. In Nordrhein-Westfalen heißt sein<br />
Partner jetzt Christian Lindner. Der ist ein<br />
Vierteljahrhundert jünger als der Meister aus dem<br />
Norden und wurde deshalb von ihm früher „Bambi“<br />
ge<strong>na</strong>nnt.<br />
Er braucht den zweiten Blick<br />
Kubicki setzt sich in jedes Fernsehstudio und geht in<br />
jede Talkrunde. Er wird gern eingeladen, weil er so<br />
pointiert spricht und dabei gut aussieht. Er nutzt aus,<br />
dass er unter allen Spitzenkandidaten in<br />
Schleswig-Holstein der bekannteste ist, weit über das<br />
Land hi<strong>na</strong>us. Er ist - den Südschleswigschen<br />
Wählerverband einmal ausgenommen - der einzige<br />
Landespolitiker, der auch schon früher mehrmals<br />
Spitzenkandidat seiner Partei war.<br />
Er macht aus der verzweifelten Lage der Partei sogar<br />
noch ein Marketing-Ereignis. „Wählen Sie doch, was<br />
Sie wollen“ steht auf den FDP-Plakaten. Nämlich:<br />
Schulde<strong>na</strong>bbau, bessere Bildungschancen, eine<br />
bessere Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf. Zu<br />
diesem spielerischen Wörtlichnehmen gibt es Kubicki<br />
zu sehen mit grauem Haar und grauem Anzug vor<br />
grauer Wand. Auf den ersten Blick sieht so der<br />
Untergang aus, auf den zweiten ist es ein<br />
bemerkenswertes Design. Als zu intellektuell wurde<br />
der Wahlkampfauftritt schon kritisiert. Aber Kubicki<br />
muss auch nicht die Massen erreichen, ihm reichen<br />
fünf Prozent der Wählerstimmen, gern <strong>na</strong>türlich auch<br />
etwas mehr.<br />
Er braucht den zweiten Blick, er braucht die<br />
Zweitstimme der Schleswig-Holsteiner. Zweieinhalb<br />
Jahre lang saß die FDP in der Kieler Regierung - <strong>na</strong>ch<br />
mehreren gescheiterten Anläufen zuvor, zuletzt 2005.<br />
Die Neuwahl schon <strong>na</strong>ch der Hälfte der<br />
Legislaturperiode hatte das Verfassungsgericht<br />
angeordnet. 2009 erreichte die FDP fast 15 Prozent<br />
der Wählerstimmen. Diesmal wäre ein Drittel ein<br />
ungleich größerer Erfolg. Es sieht nicht gut aus für die<br />
Partei. Aber: Ist der Kieler Landtag ohne Kubicki<br />
überhaupt vorstellbar?<br />
113
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/ - Politik, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Verfassungsgericht)<br />
Harte Bretter Irrweg in der Krise<br />
Ein Begriff geistert durch die Kritik der deutschen<br />
Euro-Krisenpolitik: die „marktkonforme Demokratie“. Er<br />
wird Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel (CDU)<br />
zugeschrieben und brachte es 2011 fast zum „Unwort<br />
des Jahres“. Die bemerkenswerte Begründung dafür<br />
war, die Wortverbindung „marktkonforme Demokratie“<br />
relativiere auf unzulässige Weise das Prinzip, dass<br />
Demokratie eine „absolute Norm“ sei. In diesem Sinne<br />
drehten die SPD und die Linkspartei die<br />
Wortverbindung einfach um und fordern seither flankiert durch Globalisierungskritiker und die<br />
„Occupy“-Bewegung - einen „demokratiekonformen<br />
Markt“.Den Ausdruck „marktkonforme Demokratie“ hat<br />
die Kanzlerin indessen nie benutzt. Anlässlich eines<br />
Besuchs des portugiesischen Ministerpräsidenten<br />
Pedro Passos Coelho im September 2011 sagte sie<br />
auf die Frage, ob sie um die Schlagkraft des<br />
Rettungsschirms fürchte, wenn der Bundestag und alle<br />
anderen <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>len Parlamente in Europa bei<br />
wichtigen Entscheidungen vorab mitbestimmen wollen:<br />
„Wir leben ja in einer Demokratie und sind auch froh<br />
darüber. Das ist eine parlamentarische Demokratie.<br />
Deshalb ist das Budgetrecht ein Kernrecht des<br />
Parlaments. Insofern werden wir Wege finden, die<br />
parlamentarische Mitbestimmung so zu gestalten,<br />
dass sie trotzdem auch marktkonform ist, also dass<br />
sich auf den Märkten die entsprechenden Sig<strong>na</strong>le<br />
ergeben.“Gemeint war also, dass sich der Bundestag<br />
mit Entscheidungen der Regierung, die den<br />
Rettungsschirm betreffen, so beschäftigt, dass die<br />
Absicht, nämlich eine Stabilisierung und Beruhigung<br />
der Märkte, nicht konterkariert wird. Das betraf und<br />
betrifft Schnelligkeit und Vertraulichkeit, also vor allem<br />
die Arbeit des dafür eingerichteten Ausschusses, der<br />
sich auf Rettungsmaß<strong>na</strong>hmen spezialisieren<br />
(“Neuner-Sondergremium“) und so schnell wie möglich<br />
- schneller und vertraulicher als das Plenum -<br />
Entscheidungen herbeiführen sollte, dann aber vom<br />
Bundesverfassungsgericht in seinem Urteil vom 28.<br />
Februar verworfen wurde.Mit „marktkonform“ war also<br />
nicht etwa gemeint, dass die Demokratie zum Spielball<br />
der Märkte wird, sondern im Gegenteil, dass die Arbeit<br />
des Parlaments so ausgerichtet wird, dass sie die<br />
Möglichkeit hat, die Märkte überhaupt zu beeinflussen.<br />
Alles andere wäre auch verwunderlich gewesen, da<br />
sich die CDU-Vorsitzende in einem großen Schwenk<br />
von ihrem Marktkonformismus zu Oppositionszeiten<br />
längst verabschiedet hatte.Im Oktober 2010 sagte die<br />
Kanzlerin etwa vor der IG Metall: „Ansonsten wird die<br />
Politik der Verantwortung nicht gerecht, den Märkten<br />
Leitplanken zu errichten. Das aber ist unser<br />
Verständnis von Sozialer Marktwirtschaft. Sonst<br />
beherrschen die Märkte uns; und das wird nicht<br />
gutgehen.“ Oder davor, im Juni auf einem Kongress<br />
zur Fi<strong>na</strong>nzmarktregulierung: „Als Politiker müssen wir<br />
den Anspruch haben, dass wir den<br />
Gestaltungsrahmen setzen und dass wir nicht immer<br />
Getriebene von irgendwelchen Marktkräften<br />
sind.“Gerade weil aber Regierung und Parlament nicht<br />
Getriebene sein sollen, müssen ihre Entscheidungen<br />
„marktkonform“ sein - im Sinne einer Regulierung, die<br />
tatsächlich greift. Die Sätze der Kanzlerin wurden aber<br />
stattdessen ins Gegenteil verkehrt und als Symptome<br />
der „Postdemokratie“ interpretiert. Auch das ist ein<br />
Begriff, der durch die Kritik der Fi<strong>na</strong>nzmarktkrise<br />
geistert. Der britische Sozialwissenschaftler Colin<br />
Crouch prägte ihn 2004 durch sein gleich<strong>na</strong>miges<br />
Buch, dem er 2011 eine Fortsetzung widmete. Beide<br />
Bücher sind gegen den Neoliberalismus gerichtet, weil<br />
er den demokratischen Staat zum<br />
Selbstbedienungsladen von Wirtschafts- und<br />
Fi<strong>na</strong>nzeliten degradiere.Symbol dieses Niedergangs<br />
war für Crouch Silvio Berlusconi. Durch Politiker wie<br />
ihn droht Demokratie in Crouchs Sze<strong>na</strong>rio zur leeren<br />
Hülle zu degenerieren, in denen Berufspolitiker,<br />
Lobbyisten und Wirtschaftsverbände die Interessen<br />
von Konzernen bedienen, die Bürger hingegen durch<br />
Brot und Spiele abgespeist, die Ingredienzen der<br />
Volksherrschaft mithin nur noch vorgetäuscht werden.<br />
Die perfekte „marktkonforme Demokratie“? Crouch<br />
nennt die von ihm beschriebene Illusion von<br />
Demokratie gerade nicht „marktkonforme Demokratie“,<br />
weil sein Bild der Dekadenz auf eine Plutokratie<br />
hi<strong>na</strong>usläuft, in der die Regeln der Demokratie vor<br />
allem deshalb ausgehöhlt werden, weil auch die<br />
Regeln der Marktwirtschaft zugunsten weniger<br />
mächtiger Akteure außer Kraft gesetzt werden.Doch in<br />
der Kritik an der „marktkonformen Demokratie“ ist das<br />
noch nicht das letzte Missverständnis und noch nicht<br />
das größte. Denn die Kritik richtet sich eigentlich<br />
dagegen, dass Demokratie überhaupt für irgendetwas<br />
„konform“ sein müsse, und sieht in ihr deshalb jene<br />
anfangs erwähnte „absolute Norm“, die nicht relativiert<br />
werden dürfe. Doch Demokratie als Selbstzweck ist<br />
schon deshalb fragwürdig, weil nicht alles, was sich<br />
Demokratie nennt (und was nennt sich heutzutage<br />
nicht alles Demokratie?), auch tatsächlich im<br />
freiheitlichen Sinne „demokratisch“ sein<br />
muss.Gehorcht eine Demokratie gleichsam nur sich<br />
selbst, also dem Mehrheitswillen des Volkes, ist sie auf<br />
dem Weg, totalitär zu werden - und deshalb von einer<br />
gelenkten „Postdemokratie“ so weit nicht entfernt.<br />
Denn sie setzt den Gemeinwillen mit Volkes Wille<br />
immer und unkontrolliert gleich. In einer heterogenen<br />
und pluralistischen Gesellschaft, die den „Markt der<br />
Möglichkeiten“ für die politische Willensbildung<br />
114
aucht, ist das der beste Weg in die<br />
Verknöcherung.Diesem Irrweg, der auf die<br />
Demokratietheorie Rousseaus zurückgeht, folgt das<br />
Grundgesetz deshalb ausdrücklich nicht. Dort wird<br />
Demokratie durch die Prinzipien des Rechtsstaats, des<br />
Sozialstaats und der Republik nicht nur ergänzt,<br />
sondern auch eingeschränkt. Die Marktwirtschaft<br />
gehört nicht zu diesen Prinzipien. Doch seit ihrer<br />
Einführung in Deutschland gilt die Marktwirtschaft<br />
wiederum als die am besten geeignete Vermittlerin<br />
zwischen den im Rechtsstaat garantierten<br />
Freiheitsrechten und dem sozialen Staatsziel des<br />
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/ - Politik, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Verfassungsgericht)<br />
Grundgesetzes.Nur eine wettbewerbsgetriebene<br />
Marktwirtschaft, so die Lehre aus mehr als sechzig<br />
Jahren Bundesrepublik, sichert die Ressourcen des<br />
Sozialstaats. Eine Demokratie, die nicht<br />
„marktkonform“ ist, muss sich deshalb fragen lassen,<br />
woher sie die Kraft und die Mittel nehmen will, ihre<br />
Ziele zu erreichen. Da hat es der „demokratiekonforme<br />
Markt“ der SPD und der Linkspartei viel leichter. Denn<br />
dort bestimmt einfach Volkes Wille und die Mehrheit,<br />
was auf den Markt gehört und was nicht. Basta.<br />
115
La Nacion/ - noticia, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
El engañoso fin que justifica los medios<br />
Más notas para entender este temaAcoso estatal:la<br />
mano del Gobierno avanza sobre la economía y<br />
asfixia la libertad de las perso<strong>na</strong>s y de las<br />
empresas Gran parte de las medidas que conforman<br />
el acoso estatal no gozan de sustento constitucio<strong>na</strong>l,<br />
por lo que los ciudadanos podrían interponer amparos<br />
tendientes a hacer cesar sus efectos. Pero en la<br />
Argenti<strong>na</strong> actual, eso no ocurre, un poco por<br />
desconocimiento y otro poco por la poca confianza<br />
que se tiene en un Poder Judicial, que también es<br />
acosado por el Ejecutivo.<br />
El constitucio<strong>na</strong>lista Daniel Sabsay explica que las<br />
reglas de la Constitución Nacio<strong>na</strong>l se enmarcan en el<br />
principio de legalidad, sobre el que tiene que reposar<br />
todo acto guber<strong>na</strong>mental. "Además, toda decisión de<br />
autoridad debe ser razo<strong>na</strong>ble y tratarse de un medio<br />
que lleve a un fin justificado, si no, se entra en la<br />
arbitrariedad", comenta.<br />
Por ejemplo, señala el jurista, para el pago de<br />
impuestos, la privacidad sobre la propiedad, debe<br />
ceder, pero eso no debe implicar u<strong>na</strong> irrupción abrupta<br />
en la vida privada de u<strong>na</strong> perso<strong>na</strong>. Ni tampoco debe<br />
significar, como expresa un reconocido tributarista,<br />
u<strong>na</strong> invasión emocio<strong>na</strong>l.<br />
El politólogo Sergio Berenstein, de la consultora<br />
Poliarquía, dice que el problema es que se esgrime un<br />
fin que en su enunciado es loable, como el del reparto<br />
más equitativo de la riqueza o el desarrollo de la<br />
industria <strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l, para lograr objetivos políticos de<br />
corto plazo. "El Estado se usa como un instrumento de<br />
todos, pero en el fondo lo que hay es un gobierno<br />
depredador", opi<strong>na</strong> Berenstein.<br />
El politólogo dice que hacer esa distinción entre<br />
Estado y Gobierno es crucial, porque la Presidenta se<br />
sirve de esta confusión para sostener sus medidas y<br />
cualquiera que esté en contra queda tildado de<br />
antiestatista. "El Gobierno se cree el Estado y actúa<br />
desde el Estado. Cuando Cristi<strong>na</strong> dice: «Me hacen<br />
esto» expresa esa simbiosis. Eso es un error", señala<br />
Berenstein..<br />
116
Los Angeles Times/ - Politics, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
When time allows, 1992 riots are<br />
poig<strong>na</strong>nt lesson in L.A. schools<br />
They were not even born at the time their city erupted<br />
in flames, violence and rage against a system that<br />
would not convict Los Angeles police officers of<br />
brutally beating a black man.But high school students<br />
Jiaya Ingram, Ashley Torres and Jessica Maldo<strong>na</strong>do<br />
have been gripped by accounts of the 1992 Los<br />
Angeles riots as they learn about them through poetry<br />
and plays, readings and recollections of their parents<br />
and others.They say they felt shock over police<br />
actions, horror over the mob violence and an uneasy<br />
feeling that it could happen again, particularly as<br />
u<strong>na</strong>rmed African Americans are killed, most recently in<br />
Florida, Oklahoma and Pasade<strong>na</strong>. Yet these<br />
tee<strong>na</strong>gers also express hope that they can make a<br />
difference through perso<strong>na</strong>l action - education about<br />
stereotypes, for instance, or peaceful protests. "I've<br />
learned that you have to be the change you want to<br />
see in the world," said Jessica, a junior at the Social<br />
Justice Leadership Academy, a small school at the<br />
Torres High School campus in East Los Angeles.<br />
"History is not wars and dates; it's about the choices<br />
you make."But two decades after the riots sparked<br />
massive violence that would leave dozens dead and<br />
thousands injured, lessons about them appear to be<br />
limited in Southern California classrooms. For many<br />
teachers, the pressure to teach content that will be<br />
tested in state standardized tests and Advanced<br />
Placement exams next month has crowded out time<br />
for the riots, however crucial they are to city history<br />
and the <strong>na</strong>tion's larger civil rights struggle.The Los<br />
Angeles Unified School District has not formally<br />
included the riots in its history curriculum because it is<br />
not part of the California social studies standards. The<br />
district plans to post material on its website for optio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
teacher use, however.Michael Reed, the district's<br />
history specialist, said the push to raise test scores<br />
has made principals "hawkish" about directing<br />
teachers to focus on the areas that will be tested. Test<br />
questions from the state's eighth- and 11th-grade U.S.<br />
history exams released by state officials don't stretch<br />
beyond the 1960s, although Reed said the latest tests<br />
included a question from the Nixon era of the 1970s."If<br />
students are taught what they will be held responsible<br />
for on tests, they do much better," he said. "I<br />
remember teachers who would close their doors and<br />
teach whatever their pet era was. It's fine, but<br />
California test scores go down the drain."At King Drew<br />
Medical Magnet High School, teachers focus on the<br />
1965 Watts riots because the school was founded in<br />
part to prepare students for medical and scientific<br />
careers, a community need at the time. The school<br />
does not expect to cover the 1992 riots because of<br />
time constraints, according to Karl Graeber, the social<br />
studies department chairman.Carson High School<br />
teacher Merri Weir also feels those pressures. But she<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>ges to squeeze the riots into her U.S. history<br />
section on the move to the suburbs, exploring how<br />
redlining created the kind of ethnic ghetto that<br />
exploded after Simi Valley jurors chose not to convict<br />
four Los Angeles police officers in the beating of<br />
Rodney King. Her students create a memorial about<br />
the riots - one pair of students, for instance,<br />
constructed one from burned plywood to symbolize the<br />
vast destruction the violence caused."The riots and<br />
1992 feel like a time period we can never get to<br />
because there are just not enough hours in the day,"<br />
she said. "But it's really important for my students to<br />
learn about what happens when a community breaks<br />
down or has no hope and no sense of<br />
justice."Teachers who work at private, charter, magnet<br />
or other nontraditio<strong>na</strong>l campuses may have more<br />
flexibility.Dorsey High School teacher Do<strong>na</strong>ld<br />
Singleton, for instance, is able to cover the riots as part<br />
of the school's law magnet program. In his introduction<br />
to law class, he explores the King case as part of an<br />
exami<strong>na</strong>tion of civil rights and related U.S.<br />
constitutio<strong>na</strong>l amendments.Ninth-graders at<br />
Gertz-Ressler High School, a charter campus, are<br />
creating multimedia poetry and photography<br />
presentations about the riots in Crystal Greene's<br />
elective English and math class.Greene, like many<br />
teachers, uses materials from Facing History and<br />
Ourselves, an inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l educatio<strong>na</strong>l organization<br />
that has trained more than 1,700 Los Angeles-area<br />
teachers in the last 17 years on how to teach about<br />
tolerance through case studies of the Holocaust, the<br />
Armenian genocide, the L.A. riots and the eugenics<br />
movement. The group, started in 1976, aims to present<br />
history not as an inevitable chain of events but as a<br />
series of choices by ordi<strong>na</strong>ry people that can produce<br />
great evil or tremendous good, according to Mary<br />
Hendra, the associate program director.The group's<br />
curriculum is used at such schools as St. John<br />
Chrysostom School in Inglewood. Through an<br />
assignment to interview their parents about the event,<br />
13-year-old Nahom Seifu learned for the first time that<br />
his mother was caught in the streets with no<br />
transportation and survived the violence only because<br />
a stranger invited her to spend the night at her<br />
home.At Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences in<br />
117
Santa Monica, seniors in Stephanie Carrillo's elective<br />
class on cultural diversity are embodying those who<br />
lived through the riots by acting out the roles of African<br />
American victim, white juror, police officer, Korean<br />
immigrant and others from the play "Twilight: Los<br />
Angeles." The play gives students multiple<br />
perspectives to help them understand the complex<br />
forces underlying the riots, Carrillo said.Carrillo<br />
teaches the riots every year because, she said, they<br />
marked a watershed moment in her life. Then a<br />
college student two weeks from graduation, she said<br />
the King verdict shattered her faith in the justice<br />
system. But they also impassioned her to become a<br />
teacher to arm her students with the education to<br />
Los Angeles Times/ - Politics, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
control their own lives, she said.One of them is Jiaya.<br />
The Crossroads senior, the daughter of musician<br />
James Ingram, was raised in tony Hancock Park, but<br />
she said she identified with her "Twilight" character, an<br />
impoverished preg<strong>na</strong>nt mother who was shot in the<br />
riots. She said she remains troubled by racism<br />
today.To make change, she said she will push for<br />
educatio<strong>na</strong>l semi<strong>na</strong>rs about stereotypes in her student<br />
leadership group in high school and, later, at<br />
college."I'm motivated to tell people how far we still<br />
need to go to live with true peace and no prejudice,"<br />
she said.teresa.wata<strong>na</strong>be@latimes.com<br />
118
Reuters General/ - Article, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
At U.S. gun convention, many see rush to<br />
judgment in Trayvon Martin case<br />
By Greg McCune ST. LOUIS, Missouri | Sun Apr 15,<br />
2012 3:49am EDT ST. LOUIS, Missouri (Reuters) -<br />
Gun-rights activists at a Natio<strong>na</strong>l Rifle Association<br />
convention said on Friday that protesters who<br />
demanded the arrest of George Zimmerman for the<br />
shooting death of u<strong>na</strong>rmed tee<strong>na</strong>ger Trayvon Martin<br />
were ignoring the U.S. legal principle of innocent until<br />
proven guilty. They said the protesters and the media<br />
had rushed to judge Zimmerman, a white and Hispanic<br />
neighborhood watch volunteer, as guilty in the death of<br />
17-year-old Martin, who was black, without having<br />
been convicted."I wish all those folks demonstrating<br />
and making the inflammatory statements would keep<br />
their powder dry," said Owen Mills, an NRA board<br />
member, who runs a firearms training facility in<br />
Paulden, Arizo<strong>na</strong>. Mills said he was not speaking for<br />
the NRA as an organization.Martin's shooting in<br />
February sparked a <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l debate about "Stand Your<br />
Ground" laws permitting the use of deadly force in<br />
self-defense. The laws, which have been e<strong>na</strong>cted in<br />
more than 20 states, are strongly backed by the<br />
NRA.Authorities in Sanford, Florida, where the<br />
shooting took place, cited the state's Stand Your<br />
Ground law in deciding not to arrest<br />
Zimmerman.Protesters said local police failed to<br />
aggressively investigate the case and many accused<br />
authorities of racial bias. Tens of thousands of people<br />
around the country took to the streets to demand<br />
Zimmerman's arrest.After days of protests, a special<br />
prosecutor was appointed to take over the case. This<br />
week, she charged Zimmerman with second-degree<br />
murder.Many in the overwhelmingly white and<br />
conservative crowd at the NRA convention blamed the<br />
media for playing up the racial aspect of the case.Paul<br />
Hopkins, a retired computer engineer from Surfside<br />
Beach, South Caroli<strong>na</strong>, said he was rankled by the<br />
media referring to Zimmerman as a white Hispanic,<br />
which he interpreted as blaming a white man for the<br />
shooting.Mary Ann Reisinger from Oakdale,<br />
Connecticut, was particularly critical of civil rights<br />
leader and TV show host Al Sharpton, who she said<br />
was exploiting the issue by joining the marches for<br />
justice."They should not be out in the streets<br />
demonstrating about it," she said.NRA board member<br />
Mills pointed to the statement by a group describing<br />
itself as the New Black Panther Party last month<br />
offering a bounty of $10,000 for anyone who made a<br />
"citizens arrest" of Zimmerman."That is not the<br />
American way to put a bounty on someone's head,"<br />
Mills said.The bounty suggestion was roundly<br />
condemned by leaders of all political<br />
persuasions.(Editing by Eric Beech)<br />
119
Süddeutsche Zeitung/ - Politik, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Verfassungsgericht)<br />
Wie man den Bundestag kaputtmacht<br />
Ein Kommentar von Heribert Prantl<br />
Das Parlament heißt Parlament, weil dort parliert, also<br />
geredet werden soll. So viel wie möglich. Doch der<br />
freien Rede des freien Abgeordneten soll mit einer<br />
neuen Geschäftsordnung der Garaus gemacht<br />
werden. Wenn die Abgeordneten das wirklich so<br />
beschließen - dann beschließen sie ihre<br />
Selbstentmündigung.<br />
Das Parlament heißt Parlament, weil dort parliert, weil<br />
dort geredet werden soll - so viel, so klug, so streitig<br />
und so überzeugend wie möglich. Das Parlament ist,<br />
der Idee und dem Papier des Grundgesetzes <strong>na</strong>ch,<br />
der freieste Ort, den man sich vorstellen kann.<br />
Nirgendwo ist die freie Rede so geschützt wie dort wenn denn der Abgeordnete überhaupt zum Reden<br />
kommt. Künftig nicht mehr. Die geplante neue<br />
Geschäftsordnung ist die Gebrauchsanweisung dafür,<br />
wie man den Bundestag kaputtmacht.<br />
Der freien Rede des freien Abgeordneten soll der<br />
Garaus gemacht werden. Ge<strong>na</strong>u dies wollen die<br />
Fraktionsspitzen ihren Parlamentariern aufzwingen:<br />
Wer unbedingt erklären will, warum er wie abstimmt,<br />
der soll das künftig schriftlich tun - kurz vor der<br />
Abstimmung, und auf so wenigen Zeilen wie möglich.<br />
Und dem Bundestagspräsidenten soll es künftig<br />
praktisch unmöglich gemacht werden, einen<br />
Abgeordneten aufzurufen, der eine andere Meinung<br />
vertritt als seine Fraktion.<br />
Wenn die Abgeordneten das wirklich so beschließen dann beschließen sie ihre Selbstentmündigung, dann<br />
bestellen sie ihren jeweiligen Fraktionsgeschäftsführer<br />
zum Vormund. Man könnte das Parlament dann auch<br />
gleich viel einfacher und billiger organisieren - und den<br />
jeweiligen Fraktionschefs oder den parlamentarischen<br />
Geschäftsführern ein Depotstimmrecht geben.<br />
Das Rederecht ist Kern des verfassungsrechtlichen<br />
Status des Abgeordneten. Er darf, so hat es das<br />
Verfassungsgericht schon 1959 festgestellt, notfalls<br />
auch gegen den Willen seiner Fraktionsfreunde reden.<br />
Man sollte den Satz ganz groß über den Eingang des<br />
Bundestags schreiben: Parlamentarier heißen so, weil<br />
sie reden dürfen.<br />
120
Von Susanne Höll, Berlin<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung/ - Politik, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Verfassungsgericht)<br />
Abgeordnete wehren sich gegen<br />
Maulkorb<br />
In den Fraktionen regt sich Widerstand: Viele<br />
Bundestagsabgeordnete wollen die geplante<br />
Einschränkung des Rederechts im Plenum nicht<br />
akzeptieren. Union, FDP und SPD müssen mit<br />
Einsprüchen gegen die Novelle rechnen, die sie gegen<br />
den Willen von Grünen und Linkspartei durchsetzen<br />
wollen. Peter Gauweiler erwägt indes schon den Gang<br />
vor das Bundesverfassungsgericht.<br />
Die geplante Einschränkung des Rederechts von<br />
Bundestagsabgeordneten im Plenum gerät ins<br />
Wackeln. Union, FDP und SPD müssen schon in<br />
dieser Woche mit Widerstand in ihren Fraktionen<br />
gegen die Novelle rechnen, die sie gegen den Willen<br />
von Grünen und Linkspartei Ende April im Bundestag<br />
durchsetzen wollen. Insbesondere in der SPD rührt<br />
sich massive Kritik an der Neuregelung, die womöglich<br />
sogar vom Bundesverfassungsgericht in Karlsruhe<br />
entschieden werden muss.<br />
Bundestagsvizepräsident Wolfgang Thierse,<br />
Ex-Fi<strong>na</strong>nzminister Peer Steinbrück, aber auch andere<br />
<strong>na</strong>mhafte Parlamentarier ließen erkennen, dass sie mit<br />
einer Einschränkung des Rederechts auch für<br />
soge<strong>na</strong>nnte Abweichler nicht einverstanden sind.<br />
Thierse lehnte strikte Vorgaben für die Freiheiten des<br />
Bundestagspräsidenten bei der Vergabe von<br />
Redezeiten ab. Steinbrück sagte am Rande einer<br />
Parteiveranstaltung in Münster, man dürfe<br />
insbesondere mit Blick auf die Popularität der<br />
Piratenpartei nicht den Eindruck erwecken, "es solle<br />
das Rederecht im Bundestag für andere, unbequeme<br />
Meinungen eingeschränkt werden".<br />
Der Berliner SPD-Bundestagsabgeordnete Swen<br />
Schulz sagte der Süddeutschen Zeitung, er könne<br />
diese Einschränkungen nicht akzeptieren: "Ich werde<br />
diesem Vorschlag nicht zustimmen, und ich gehe<br />
davon aus, dass andere in der Fraktion es ge<strong>na</strong>uso<br />
sehen. Dieser Drops ist noch nicht gelutscht."<br />
Der SPD-Vizefraktionsvorsitzende Axel Schäfer<br />
brachte für den Fall größeren Widerstandes eine<br />
Verschiebung der Abstimmung ins Spiel, die bislang<br />
für den 26. April geplant ist. Zwar halte er die<br />
angestrebte Regelung nicht für "das Ende der<br />
Demokratie". Es handele sich im wesentlichen um eine<br />
Verkürzung des Rederechts bei persönlichen<br />
Erklärungen von bislang fünf auf drei Minuten. "Aber<br />
wir stehen nicht unter Zeitdruck", sagte Schäfer und<br />
fügte hinzu, eine Klage gegen diese Regelung in<br />
Karlsruhe müsse verhindert werden.<br />
Der CSU-Bundestagsabgeordnete Peter Gauweiler hat<br />
bereits angekündigt, bei einer Beschneidung der<br />
Rederechte vor das Verfassungsgericht zu ziehen.<br />
Auch Vizebundestagspräsidentin Petra Pau von der<br />
Linkspartei sprach sich dafür aus, eine solche<br />
Regelung in Karlsruhe prüfen zu lassen, falls der<br />
Bundestag die Novelle beschließen sollte.<br />
Neben Thierse und Pau lehnten auch zwei weitere<br />
Vizebundestagspräsidenten die Neuregelung ab, die<br />
Union, FDP und SPD im<br />
Geschäftsordnungsausschuss des Bundestages<br />
durchgesetzt hatten. Hermann Otto Solms von der<br />
FDP sagte, er sehe keine ausreichende Begründung<br />
für diese Einschränkung der Rechte von<br />
Abgeordneten, "die <strong>na</strong>ch dem Grundgesetz nur ihrem<br />
Gewissen verpflichtet sind".<br />
Seine Kollegin Katrin Göring-Eckardt von den Grünen<br />
sagte, damit würden die Rechte von Abgeordneten<br />
beschnitten, aber auch alle Möglichkeiten, die<br />
Debatten im Bundestag lebhafter zu gestalten, indem<br />
man auch denen das Wort erteile, die anderer<br />
Meinung seien als die Fraktionsmehrheit. Das gelte<br />
insbesondere dann, "wenn man nicht will, dass Politik<br />
in Talk-Shows, sondern im Bundestag interessant<br />
debattiert wird", sagte die Grünen-Politikerin. Sie wies<br />
auch darauf hin, dass jeder Bundestagspräsident<br />
Redeerlaubnisse sorgsam handhabe.<br />
Auch Bundestagspräsident Norbert Lammert (CDU)<br />
gilt als Gegner einer Einschränkung. An seiner<br />
Entscheidung, zwei Kritikern aus CDU und FDP bei<br />
der Debatte über die Euro-Rettung das Wort zu<br />
erteilen, hatte die Fraktionsführungen verärgert und zu<br />
der Novelle veranlasst. Abgeordnete, die nicht als<br />
Redner von ihren Fraktionen aufgestellt sind, sollen<br />
künftig nur in Aus<strong>na</strong>hmefällen und nur <strong>na</strong>ch<br />
Rücksprache mit den Fraktionen im Plenum für drei<br />
Minuten sprechen dürfen. Die Befürworter der<br />
Regelung argumentieren, das sei angesichts der<br />
k<strong>na</strong>ppen Zeit für Bundestagsberatungen notwendig.<br />
Auch dürften Abweichler nicht mit der Aussicht auf<br />
Sonderauftritte ermutigt werden.<br />
121
The Economic Times/ - News, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
India won't be able to store another<br />
bumper crop<br />
NEW DELHI: The problem of plenty is once again<br />
troubling the Indian government as it does not know<br />
where to store the bumper grains to be harvested for<br />
the third year in a row. Fears are rising that the grains<br />
would be out in the open, rot and be eaten by rodents<br />
even as millions go hungry in the country which is<br />
planning to e<strong>na</strong>ct a right to food law.<br />
The government's plans to create additio<strong>na</strong>l storage<br />
space have so far moved at a s<strong>na</strong>il's pace. For<br />
instance, of the additio<strong>na</strong>l storage capacity of 19<br />
million tonnes (MT) planned by 2012-13 through<br />
public-private partnership (PPP), only 0.5 MT could be<br />
created till January 2012.<br />
"The states fail to provide land for the purpose," said a<br />
food ministry official, citing the reason for the tardy<br />
progress of the scheme.<br />
Experts say the government's move to attract private<br />
players to build warehouses and other infrastructure<br />
has not succeeded because it does not offer tax<br />
benefits to them.<br />
Biraj Pat<strong>na</strong>ik, adviser to the Supreme Court-appointed<br />
food commissioners, told IANS: "The government<br />
should drop the idea of involving private players in<br />
building godowns and let the states do the job."<br />
With wheat procurement having started this month, the<br />
government is looking at a record crop over 90 MT this<br />
April-June season.<br />
But the total storage capacity available is 53.4 MT,<br />
including 33.4 MT with the Food Corporation of India<br />
functioning under the central government, and 20 MT<br />
with the states.<br />
Of this, ministry sources said, storage utilisation is 76<br />
percent, leaving around 24 per cent capacity unutilised<br />
due to lack of proper planning.<br />
According to one estimate, up to seven percent of the<br />
country's annual grain production goes waste due to<br />
insufficient storage space and inefficient transport and<br />
distribution networks.<br />
The lack of adequate storage capacity would bother<br />
authorities as procurement of wheat from major<br />
producing states like Punjab, Harya<strong>na</strong> and Western<br />
Uttar Pradesh picks up. Together, the three states<br />
account for over 80 per cent of India's total production.<br />
One way of solving the problem, Pat<strong>na</strong>ik told IANS, is<br />
that the government should distribute more grains<br />
among the needy if it is not able to create enough<br />
storage capacity.<br />
To reduce stockpiles, the government had allowed<br />
traders last year to export wheat and rice surpluses.<br />
122
USA Today/ - News, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
Number of African-American baseball<br />
players dips again<br />
ST. LOUIS ??" Major League Baseball, celebrating<br />
Jackie Robinson Day on Sunday, has the lowest<br />
percentage of African-American players since the<br />
earliest days of the sport's integration, according to<br />
research conducted by USA TODAY Sports. The<br />
African-American population in baseball this season<br />
has plummeted to 8.05%, less than half the 17.25% in<br />
1959 when the became the last team to integrate their<br />
roster, 12 years after Robinson broke baseball's color<br />
barrier with the . It's a dramatic decline from 1975,<br />
when 27% of rosters were African-American. In 1995,<br />
the percentage was 19%. "Baseball likes to say things<br />
are getting better," says former 20-game winner and<br />
front office executive Dave Stewart, now a player<br />
agent. "It's not getting better. It's only getting worse.<br />
We've been in a downward spiral for a long time, and<br />
the numbers keep declining." Ten teams opened the<br />
year with no more than one African American on their<br />
roster, and 25% of African Americans in the game are<br />
clustered on three teams ??" the New York Yankees,<br />
Los Angeles Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers. A<br />
dearth of collegiate scholarships, increasing cost of<br />
funding teams in inner cities and, some say, a lack of<br />
opportunities in major league front offices all have<br />
contributed to the paucity of African-American players.<br />
The void has been filled beyond the USA's borders.<br />
Foreign-born players in 2012 made up 28.4% of<br />
opening-day rosters. While the game's overall diversity<br />
has increased, the decrease in African-American<br />
players can seem stark in a sport where they once<br />
were its marquee performers. From 1990 to 1995, nine<br />
of the 12 American and Natio<strong>na</strong>l League MVP winners<br />
were African American. In 2012, Chicago Cubs center<br />
fielder Marlon Byrd is the lone African-American major<br />
leaguer in the city of Chicago. "I don't even know what<br />
to say," said Byrd, who was also the only African<br />
American on the field Sunday at Busch Stadium in St.<br />
Louis during the 65th anniversary of Robinson<br />
breaking the color barrier. "I remember when I came<br />
up with the (Philadelphia) Phillies in 2002, we had six<br />
(African-American) players. I thought that was the<br />
norm. Now, you look around and don't see anyone.<br />
Will it change? I don't know. I'm hoping it's a different<br />
story four or five years from now." The St. Louis<br />
Cardi<strong>na</strong>ls, who once had some of the greatest<br />
African-American stars in the game, such as Hall of<br />
Famers Bob Gibson, Lou Brock and Ozzie Smith,<br />
haven't had an African-American on their opening-day<br />
roster since infielder Joe Thurston in 2009. "It's<br />
concerning," Cardi<strong>na</strong>ls general ma<strong>na</strong>ger John<br />
Mozeliak said. "I think the RBI program (Reviving<br />
Baseball in Inner Cities) is helpful and growing. We're<br />
all about talent. It doesn't matter if you're white, black,<br />
brown or green." Major League Baseball officials,<br />
aware of the dwindling numbers as many of the USA's<br />
top athletes apparently opt for other sports, said it is<br />
trying to reverse the trend with their urban academies<br />
and annual Civil Rights exhibition game. "We trying to<br />
get better. It won't happen overnight," Commissioner<br />
Bud Selig said. "And we're very comfortable saying it<br />
will be better. We are doing great work with our<br />
baseball academies and working in the inner cities. It's<br />
getting better." Robinson would want more While<br />
baseball has the lowest percentage of<br />
African-American players since Dwight Eisenhower<br />
was president, Major League Baseball's hiring<br />
practices are lauded by Richard Lapchick, director of<br />
the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the<br />
University of Central Florida. MLB received an "A" for<br />
race on Lapchick's Racial and Gender Report Card<br />
last year. "I remember Jackie saying 10 days before he<br />
passed (in 1972)," Selig said, "he wouldn't be satisfied<br />
until we had a black ma<strong>na</strong>ger and general ma<strong>na</strong>ger. If<br />
he went through all of our front offices today in<br />
baseball, he'd be proud." Still, the Chicago White Sox's<br />
Kenny Williams and the Miami Marlins' Michael Hill are<br />
the lone African-American general ma<strong>na</strong>gers, and the<br />
Cincin<strong>na</strong>ti Reds' Dusty Baker and the Texas Rangers'<br />
Ron Washington are the only African-American<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>gers. There hasn't been an African American<br />
hired as ma<strong>na</strong>ger since Jerry Manuel was promoted in<br />
2008 by the New York Mets, and there have been five<br />
African-American general ma<strong>na</strong>gers in baseball<br />
history. "I think Jackie would be very disappointed,"<br />
said Ron Rabinovitz, whose friendship with Robinson<br />
was the subject of an MLB Network documentary. "He<br />
would want more than this." Stewart, who gave up<br />
pursuing a general ma<strong>na</strong>ger's job when clubs<br />
repeatedly bypassed him, believes there never will be<br />
improvement on the field unless MLB's hiring practices<br />
change. "Bud keeps making the comment that things<br />
will get better," Stewart said. " But Bud is not in<br />
position to make it happen. Bud works for the owners.<br />
He can't make them do something they don't want to<br />
do. "And right now, they don't want to hire blacks as<br />
decision-makers. Certainly not GMs. You have a lot of<br />
young executives who can do the job if they have the<br />
opportunity. But all they get is an interview for window<br />
dressing." Making baseball cool Baseball also<br />
constantly fights the stigma of being a dull sport. Even<br />
123
former American League MVP Ken Griffey Jr.'s son<br />
Trey abandoned baseball to accept a football<br />
scholarship at the University of Arizo<strong>na</strong>, and Hall of<br />
Famer Barry Larkin's son Shane is playing basketball<br />
at Miami. The lack of African-American players also<br />
affects diversity in the stands. Just 9% of fans who<br />
attended an MLB game last season were African<br />
American, according to a recent Scarborough<br />
Marketing Research study. "It's what you grow up<br />
around," Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Andrew<br />
McCutchen says. "For the African-American<br />
community, it's more basketball, it's more football. Just<br />
the hype of it. It's what people like. Baseball is more of<br />
a laid-back sport. There's not a lot going on. "Growing<br />
up, I really loved baseball, and it's something I<br />
flourished at as a child. But look at the world now.<br />
Technology is running the world. There are so many<br />
different things people can do, so it kind of turns them<br />
away from baseball." Said Dodgers center fielder Matt<br />
Kemp: "We're definitely aware what's going on in MLB<br />
as far as African Americans. I'm trying to make<br />
baseball cool for African Americans and let<br />
African-American kids know that baseball can give you<br />
the same opportunities as football, basketball or any of<br />
USA Today/ - News, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
the other sports. You get paid just as much, get to<br />
drive those nice cars and do all of that fun stuff that all<br />
the other NBA guys get to do. We're just a little bit<br />
more low key." It's difficult, scouts and general<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>gers say, since colleges also are attracting so<br />
few African-American athletes. Universities offer only<br />
11.7 scholarships in baseball, compared with 85 in<br />
football. "The lack of full scholarships in NCAA<br />
baseball sways kids to other sports," Oakland Athletics<br />
scouting director Billy Owens says. "Plus there are<br />
more options athletically and recreatio<strong>na</strong>lly. Back in<br />
the '40s and '50s, baseball was unequivocally the No.<br />
1 sport in America. Now it's extremely popular but not<br />
a monopoly. We should embrace our past, promote<br />
the present and continue to strive and make things<br />
better for everyone." Williams says perhaps there's too<br />
much emphasis on the lack of African Americans in<br />
baseball. The White Sox GM is more intrigued with the<br />
additio<strong>na</strong>l benefits of MLB's efforts. "I'm happy with<br />
MLB's efforts to bring more young men to the game,<br />
but not why you think," he says. "It's the educatio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
and motivatio<strong>na</strong>l part of the programs that hopefully<br />
lead to college opportunities that most impress me."<br />
124
USA Today/ - News, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
African Americans in MLB: 8%, lowest<br />
since integration era<br />
ST. LOUIS -- Major League Baseball, celebrating<br />
Jackie Robinson Day Sunday, has the lowest<br />
percentage of African-American players since the<br />
earliest days of the sport's integration, according to<br />
research conducted by USA TODAY Sports. The<br />
African-American percentage in baseball this season<br />
has dropped to 8.05%, which is less than half the<br />
percentage of 17.25% in 1959 when the Boston Red<br />
Sox became the last team to integrate their roster. It's<br />
down from 8.5% last season, and a dramatic decline<br />
from the peak of 1975, when 27% of all rosters were<br />
African-American. Even as late as 1995, the<br />
percentage was 19%.<br />
Baseball likes to say things are getting better,'' says<br />
former 20-game winner and front-office executive<br />
Dave Stewart, who's now an agent. "It's not getting<br />
better. It's only getting worse. We've been in a<br />
downward spiral for a long time, and the numbers just<br />
keep declining.'' Ten teams opened the year with no<br />
more than one African-American on their opening-day<br />
roster. There are nearly 30 more players from the<br />
Dominican Republic than the total of African-American<br />
players. Foreign-born players account for 28.4% of<br />
members of opening-day rosters.<br />
The New York Yankees, Los Angeles Angels and Los<br />
Angeles Dodgers account for nearly 25% of all<br />
African-Americans in baseball, while Cubs center<br />
fielder Marlon Byrd is the lone African-American major<br />
leaguer in the city of Chicago. "I don't even know what<br />
to say,'' said Byrd, the only African-American on the<br />
field Sunday at Busch Stadium in St. Louis during the<br />
65th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color<br />
barrier. "<br />
I remember when I came up with the Phillies in 2002,<br />
we had six (African-American) players. I thought that<br />
was the norm. Now, you look around, and don't see<br />
anyone. "Will it change? I don't know. I'm hoping it's a<br />
different story four or five years from now.'' Major<br />
League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, aware of<br />
the dwindling numbers, said the sport is diligently<br />
trying to reverse the trend with their urban academies<br />
and annual Civil Rights Game.<br />
"We trying to get better. It won't happen overnight,''<br />
Selig said. "And we're very comfortable saying it will be<br />
better. We are doing great work with our baseball<br />
academies and working in the inner-cities. It's getting<br />
better.'' While African-Americans are dwindling on the<br />
field, Selig said he's pleased with the diversity of front<br />
offices.<br />
Still, Kenny Williams of the Chicago White Sox and<br />
Michael Hill of the Miami Marlins are the lone<br />
African-American general ma<strong>na</strong>gers, and Dusty Baker<br />
of Cincin<strong>na</strong>ti and Ron Washington of Texas are the<br />
only African-American ma<strong>na</strong>gers. "I remember Jackie<br />
saying 10 days before he passed (in 1972),'' Selig<br />
said, "he wouldn't be satisfied until we had a black<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>ger and general ma<strong>na</strong>ger. If he went through all<br />
of our front offices today in baseball, he'd be proud.''<br />
125
16/04/2012
Quinta-feira, 19 de Abril de 2012<br />
16/04/2012<br />
Business Insurance - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
U.S. high court hears Glaxo overtime pay case, 130<br />
Business Line - Markets<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Reforma Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Centre has scant respect for States: Jayalalithaa, 131<br />
Business Line - Markets<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Ministry move on retrospective taxation decried, 132<br />
Correo Del Orinoco - Nacio<strong>na</strong>les<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Reforma Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
PPT Maneiro califica de "hipócrita" propuesta de Capriles de institucio<strong>na</strong>lizar misiones, 133<br />
Corriere Della Será - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Suprema Corte de Justicia<br />
Escort nelle residenze di Berlusconi Lavitola in Italia: notificato l'arresto, 134<br />
Diário de Notícias Lisboa - Opinião<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Ilícito é o populismo..., 135<br />
Diário de Notícias Lisboa - Globo<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
CDS propõe juíza Fátima Mata Mouros para o Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l, 136<br />
El País - Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Reforma Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Los islamistas quieren acabar con el presidencialismo en Argelia, 137<br />
El País - Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Marlaska, contra la prescripción de los crímenes de ETA, 138<br />
El País - Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
The clan that ruled the roulette wheel, 139<br />
El País - España<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Dos fallecidas a manos de sus parejas en 24 horas, 142<br />
El Peruano - Noticia<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Dictan pautas para la ejecución de los fallos, 143<br />
El Peruano - Noticia<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Carga procesal será cero, 144<br />
El Universal - Política<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Reforma Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Inician candidatos "pasarela" ante clero, 146<br />
El Universal - Opinión<br />
127
Quinta-feira, 19 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Buscan recuperar el corredor azul, 147<br />
La Nacion - noticia<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Sigue siendo muy alto el nivel de judicialización, 148<br />
La Nacion - noticia<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Están fre<strong>na</strong>dos por la Anses más de 4500 juicios de jubilados, 149<br />
La Repubblica - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Constitución<br />
"Niente fondi ai partiti e vincono le lobby" La reazione di Alfano, Bersani e Casini, 151<br />
Le Figaro - Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | La Cour Suprême<br />
Vauzelle ne s'occupera pas de Cassez , 153<br />
Le Monde - Idées<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Conseil Constitutionnel<br />
André Vallini : "La gauche devra mettre fin au soupçon de partialité qui ronge l"autorité de la justice", 154<br />
Los Tiempos - actualidad<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Caso Rózsa: Costas asegura que hubo "terrorismo de Estado", 156<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Kris Kobach: Immigration isn't just a federal matter, 157<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung - Politik<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Verfassungsgericht<br />
Rederechts-Pläne sollen entschärft werden, 159<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung - Politik<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Europäischen Gerichtshof<br />
Gerichtshof verurteilt Russland wegen Katyn-Massakers , 161<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
U.S. cites Assurant unit over health premium hike, 162<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Supreme Court hears Glaxo overtime pay case, 163<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Keeping a Promise to Home Care Aides, 164<br />
USA Today - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Need help from the IRS? Prepare to wait, 165<br />
USA Today - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
More American workers sue employers for overtime pay, 167<br />
USA Today - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
128
Quinta-feira, 19 de Abril de 2012<br />
Can an undocumented immigrant be admitted to the Fla. Bar?, 170<br />
USA Today - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
More U.S. workers sue employers for overtime, 171<br />
USA Today - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Influential African-American MLB players, 174<br />
USA Today - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
Black baseball players declining, 175<br />
USA Today - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
Letters: Jackie Robinson's legacy should be recalled often, 177<br />
129
Business Insurance/ - Article, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
U.S. high court hears Glaxo overtime pay<br />
case<br />
WASHINGTON (Reuters)—The U.S. Supreme Court<br />
heard arguments Monday on whether pharmaceutical<br />
companies must pay sales representatives overtime, a<br />
dispute that threatens the industry with billions of<br />
dollars in potential liability.<br />
The justices considered an appeal by two former sales<br />
representatives for a unit of Britain"s GlaxoSmithKline<br />
P.L.C. of a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of<br />
Appeals in California that they were "outside sales"<br />
personnel exempt from federal overtime pay<br />
requirements.<br />
That decision conflicted with an earlier ruling by the<br />
2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York that<br />
pharmaceutical sales representatives qualified for<br />
overtime under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.<br />
Paul Clement, a former Bush administration solicitor<br />
general now in private practice, argued for the Glaxo<br />
unit and said the representatives were exempt from<br />
overtime requirements.<br />
Mr. Clement cited a brief filed by the Pharmaceutical<br />
Research and Manufacturers of America trade group<br />
that said classifying sales representatives as eligible<br />
for overtime could expose the industry to potential<br />
liability of billions of dollars.<br />
The Federal Labor Standards Act generally requires<br />
companies to pay workers overtime, but includes<br />
numerous exemptions for certain white-collar workers,<br />
including those classified as "outside salesmen."<br />
Attorney Thomas Goldstein, representing the workers,<br />
said the main purpose of the representatives was to<br />
promote drugs in visits to doctors. "They tout drugs to<br />
doctors," he said.<br />
During the hour of arguments, the justices also<br />
considered a second issue of whether the U.S. Labor<br />
Department"s interpretation of the law was owed<br />
deference.<br />
In 2009, the Labor Department sided with the former<br />
workers and said the exemption applied only if the<br />
representatives had been involved in a consummated<br />
sales transaction, but not when they just promoted<br />
drugs in visits to doctors.<br />
The two former Glaxo workers, Michael Christopher<br />
and Frank Bucha<strong>na</strong>n, said in their class-action lawsuit<br />
that they did not receive overtime for 10 to 20 hours<br />
worked each week, on average, outside the normal<br />
business day.<br />
Glaxo replied that pharmaceutical sales<br />
representatives typically got a base salary and<br />
performance-based commissions, and that the<br />
overtime requirements did not apply.<br />
A ruling by the Supreme Court is due by the end of<br />
June.<br />
130
Business Line/ - Markets, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Reforma Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
Centre has scant respect for States:<br />
Jayalalithaa<br />
The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa,<br />
warned against an "emerging pattern" wherein the<br />
State's powers are "abrogated" by the Centre through<br />
passage of Bills and accused it of showing "scant<br />
respect" for State Governments.<br />
In an all-round attack on the Congress-led UPA today,<br />
Ms Jayalalithaa accused the central Government of<br />
"encroaching on State powers" through the Natio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Counter-Terrorism Centre which was in "contravention"<br />
of constitutio<strong>na</strong>l provisions that accord priority status to<br />
police in the State list. Addressing the Chief Ministers'<br />
Conference on Inter<strong>na</strong>l Security here, she claimed that<br />
the Centre unilaterally decided on the Indo-US joint<br />
<strong>na</strong>val exercise in the Bay of Bengal without taking the<br />
State Government into confidence.<br />
"Lack of consultation with the States and failure to take<br />
the States into confidence is a cogent commentary on<br />
the system of gover<strong>na</strong>nce in the Centre. "...This is not<br />
all. Adding insult to injury, the Central Government did<br />
not permit the Consul-General of the US Consulate,<br />
Chen<strong>na</strong>i, and senior Indian Navy Officials based in<br />
Chen<strong>na</strong>i to meet me as the constitutio<strong>na</strong>l Head of the<br />
Government," she said.<br />
Ms Jayalalithaa, who is opposed to the NCTC, said<br />
this implies that the Central government has "scant<br />
respect" for constitutio<strong>na</strong>lly-elected State<br />
governments.<br />
She also expressed the hope that the Centre would<br />
follow the principle of prior consultation with the State<br />
governments, whenever such important decisions are<br />
taken by the Central Government.<br />
In her speech, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister also said<br />
she was afraid there is an emerging pattern wherein<br />
powers vested with the States are sought to be<br />
"abrogated without the attendant responsibility, either<br />
by the passage of bills or issuance of notifications."<br />
Alleging that the leverage and operatio<strong>na</strong>l magnitude<br />
of the State is sought to be kept under control by<br />
tightening fi<strong>na</strong>nces, she said States were getting<br />
accustomed to this formula being repeated in almost<br />
every aspect of revenue accrual from the Centre.<br />
"The constant attempts to reduce States to the level of<br />
glorified municipal corporations heavily dependent on<br />
the Centre for funds is a travesty of the federal <strong>na</strong>ture<br />
of our existence. This attitude is disturbing and the<br />
implication of such exercises is not conducive to either<br />
State or <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l growth," Ms Jayalalithaa said.<br />
She also said she comes with "great hope" of receiving<br />
assistance from the Centre every time she visits Delhi,<br />
but it has eluded her.<br />
"Hope, however, springs eter<strong>na</strong>l," she said.<br />
She said the Tamil Nadu Police have successfully<br />
handled various protests, either at Kudankulam or at<br />
the site of the Mullaperiyar Dam. "The Kudankulam<br />
Nuclear Power Plant was successfully re-opened<br />
without any bloodshed or disturbance to law and order.<br />
The disturbances provoked by some unruly elements<br />
along the Tamil Nadu-Kerala border were successfully<br />
quelled.<br />
"Land grabbing and exploitation of the common people<br />
by the land mafia which was a scourge prevailing<br />
particularly in major cities such as Chen<strong>na</strong>i, Madurai<br />
and Tiruchi has now become a thing of the past," she<br />
said.<br />
Ms Jayalalithaa said the State Government received<br />
34,703 complaints of land grabbing in various districts<br />
and lands worth Rs 758.04 crores have been retrieved<br />
so far.<br />
Separation of crime investigation from the law and<br />
order police wing as provided for in the Supreme<br />
Court judgement on police reforms is indeed the right<br />
way forward, she said.<br />
131
Business Line/ - Markets, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Ministry move on retrospective taxation<br />
decried<br />
Renowned economist Mr Parthasarathi Shome on<br />
Monday criticised the Fi<strong>na</strong>nce Ministry?s move to<br />
impose retrospective taxation on overseas<br />
transactions.<br />
According to Mr Shome, Director and CEO, Indian<br />
Council for Research on Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l Economic<br />
Relations (ICRIER), such a taxation system was not<br />
futuristic as it creates a conflict between the judiciary<br />
and the legislature.<br />
"It (taxation) has to be prospective and not<br />
retrospective. It is even banned in some countries<br />
constitutio<strong>na</strong>lly. There is a subsumption that the<br />
legislature can actually go back and change the view<br />
of the judiciary, which is based on the current law," he<br />
told the media on the sidelines of an interactive<br />
session on tax administration, organised by the Bharat<br />
Chamber of Commerce, Kolkata.<br />
It would also allow the legislature to ?change the<br />
functioning and judgement of the Supreme Court<br />
retro-actively,? he said.<br />
132
Correo Del Orinoco/ - Nacio<strong>na</strong>les, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Reforma Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
PPT Maneiro califica de "hipócrita"<br />
propuesta de Capriles de institucio<strong>na</strong>lizar<br />
misiones<br />
Ante los medios, Luis Tellería, recordó que el ahora<br />
candidato de la oligarquía, fue uno de los actores<br />
principales en oponerse a la propuesta de reforma<br />
constitucio<strong>na</strong>l que proponía la referida iniciativa<br />
Foto/Archivo<br />
Como “hipócrita” calificó el Movimiento Alfredo<br />
Maneiro del Partido Patria Para Todos (PPT) la<br />
pretensión del candidato de la derecha a la<br />
presidencia, Henrique Capriles Radonski, de recoger<br />
firmas para avalar u<strong>na</strong> propuesta a la que se negaron<br />
en 2007, cuando rechazaron el referendo<br />
constitucio<strong>na</strong>l presentado por el Jefe de Estado, Hugo<br />
Chávez.<br />
“Son hipócritas la Mesa de la Unidad (MUD) y su<br />
candidato, porque en 2007 la reforma planteó darle<br />
rango constitucio<strong>na</strong>l a las misiones para que contaran<br />
con recursos ordi<strong>na</strong>rios y se profundizara su trabajo.<br />
Ahora hablan de recoger firmas para<br />
institucio<strong>na</strong>lizarlas”, criticó el secretario general del<br />
PPT Maneiro, Luis Tellería.<br />
En rueda de prensa este lunes, recordó que fue<br />
Capriles Radonski, en su rol de alcalde del municipio<br />
Baruta, uno de los actores principales en oponerse a<br />
que el pueblo votara a favor de la propuesta de<br />
reforma y ahora "viene a vender hipocresía y un falso<br />
discurso tratando de plantear recoger firmas para<br />
garantizar u<strong>na</strong> legalidad a las misiones que ellos<br />
siempre se negaron a darle”.<br />
En un acto reciente de entrega de los primeros<br />
recursos para los integrantes de la Gran Misión En<br />
Amor Mayor, el presidente Chávez denunció que la<br />
oposición venezola<strong>na</strong> quiere elimi<strong>na</strong>r las misiones<br />
como Barrio Adentro (salud gratuita) y Mercal<br />
(alimentos subsidiados), “porque lo que quieren es<br />
ga<strong>na</strong>r plata en las clínicas privadas”.<br />
Sobre el tema se pronunció el 11 de abril pasado el<br />
vicepresidente Ejecutivo de la República, Elías Jaua,<br />
quien definió la llamada “Ley de Misiones”, como la<br />
denomi<strong>na</strong> la ultraderecha, como u<strong>na</strong> “propuesta<br />
demagógica”.<br />
Durante los actos conmemorativos de los 10 años del<br />
gole de Estado, en Puente Llaguno, en Caracas,<br />
expresó que lo que la derecha no dice es que "si<br />
hubiesen triunfado el 11 de abril no habría misiones<br />
sino miseria en el país. Esa es la realidad histórica”.<br />
Fuente/AVN<br />
Foto/Archivo<br />
Versión para Imprimir Ir arriba | Ir a Portada<br />
133
Corriere Della Será/ - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Suprema Corte de Justicia)<br />
Escort nelle residenze di Berlusconi<br />
Lavitola in Italia: notificato l'arresto<br />
Il faccendiere, ex direttore dell'Avanti latitante da<br />
ottobre<br />
Dai magistrati baresi è indagato nell'inchiesta<br />
sui rapporti tra Gianpi Tarantini e il premier<br />
BARI - Valter Lavitola, l'ex direttore dell'Avanti latitante<br />
in Sudamerica dal 14 ottobre 2011, è rientrato<br />
stamatti<strong>na</strong> in Italia per costituirsi. L'aereo Alitalia<br />
proveniente da Buenos Aires con a bordo Lavitola è<br />
atterrato all'aeroporto di Fiumicino alle 6 e 41. Piumino<br />
blu smanicato, maglioncino bianco, jeans, scarpe da<br />
gin<strong>na</strong>stica, zainetto beige in spalla e con un piccolo<br />
trolley: così è apparso Valter Lavitola appe<strong>na</strong> sbarcato<br />
dal Boeing 777 dell'Alitalia atterrato a Fiumicino. Qui<br />
Lavitola è stato prelevato da un nutrito dispiegamento<br />
di uomini della Polizia di frontiera e condotto negli uffici<br />
della Polizia giudiziaria, dove è avvenuta la notifica<br />
degli atti a suo carico. Termi<strong>na</strong>ta la notifica degli atti a<br />
suo carico negli uffici della polizia, Valter Lavitola ha<br />
lasciato, sotto scorta, l'aeroporto di Fiumicino.<br />
IN AEROPORTO - Nel percorso dall' uscita dell' aereo<br />
fino agli uffici della polizia giudiziaria, nella sala transiti<br />
del Termi<strong>na</strong>l 3, Walter Lavitola è rimasto sempre teso,<br />
con il volto tirato, impassibile, e qualche volta ha<br />
sbuffato, mostrando anche un pò di stanchezza per il<br />
lungo viaggio. Un muro di uomini della polizia di<br />
frontiera e della guardia di fi<strong>na</strong>nza ha fatto da divisorio<br />
tra Lavitola e i tanti passeggeri che si chiedevano,<br />
incuriositi, chi fosse arrivato. Poi l'incrocio con u<strong>na</strong><br />
schiera di fotoreporter e troupe, din<strong>na</strong>nzi ai quali<br />
Lavitola è rimasto con lo stesso atteggiamento. A<br />
Fiumicino ci sono funzio<strong>na</strong>ri della Digos e della<br />
guardia di fi<strong>na</strong>nza di Napoli, oltre ai carabinieri di Bari.<br />
Su Lavitola pende un'ordi<strong>na</strong>nza d'arresto della<br />
magistratura di Bari per l'affaire delle escort nelle<br />
residenze di Berlusconi. È indagato nell'ambito<br />
dell'inchiesta sui rapporti fra i coniugi Tarantini e l'ex<br />
premier.<br />
LA PROCURA DI BARI - L'arresto del faccendiere<br />
Valter Lavitola per l'inchiesta barese sulle escort pone<br />
di nuovo l'interrogativo sull'iscrizione a Bari del nome<br />
dell'ex premier Silvio Berlusconi nel registro degli<br />
indagati. Interrogativo che tuttora, tuttavia, non è stato<br />
ufficialmente sciolto. Nell'indagine Lavitola è accusato<br />
di aver indotto Gianpaolo Tarantini a mentire ai pm<br />
baresi (in favore di Berlusconi) che indagavano sulle<br />
escort che Gianpi ha portato negli anni scorsi nelle<br />
residenze dell'allora premier. L'interrogativo emerge da<br />
quanto scrisse il tribu<strong>na</strong>le del Riesame di Bari nelle<br />
motivazioni con cui, il 6 febbraio scorso, ha confermato<br />
il provvedimento d'arresto per l'ex direttore dell'Avanti.<br />
Scrive il tribu<strong>na</strong>le, riprendendo l'orientamento già<br />
espresso dal tribu<strong>na</strong>le della Liberta partenopeo che ha<br />
stabilito la competenza della procura pugliese ad<br />
indagare: «Non vi è dubbio che le dichiarazioni rese<br />
dal Tarantini davanti all'autorità giudiziaria di Bari in<br />
data 29 e 31 luglio 2009 risultano essere reticenti<br />
relativamente al coinvolgimento del premier e a tratti<br />
addirittura mendaci, determi<strong>na</strong>ndo in tal modo, alla<br />
stregua dell'illustrato orientamento della Suprema<br />
Corte, la consumazione del reato di cui all'articolo 377<br />
bis del Codice pe<strong>na</strong>le, posto in essere da Silvio<br />
Berlusconi». E aggiunge, sempre citando i giudici<br />
<strong>na</strong>poletani: Lavitola ha avuto il «ruolo di intermediario<br />
tra Silvio Berlusconi (...) e Gianpaolo Tarantini e ha<br />
tenuto u<strong>na</strong> condotta che deve essere valutata in<br />
termini di concorso nel reato».<br />
NUOVO PROVVEDIMENTO - U<strong>na</strong> nuova ordi<strong>na</strong>nza di<br />
custodia, su richiesta della procura di Napoli è stata<br />
notificata all'ex direttore di Avanti. Tra le accuse, vi è<br />
anche la corruzione inter<strong>na</strong>zio<strong>na</strong>le per presunte<br />
tangenti a politici pa<strong>na</strong>mensi per la realizzazione di<br />
carceri. Altre accuse riguardano i fi<strong>na</strong>nziamenti<br />
all'editoria. Nella nuova ordi<strong>na</strong>nza di custodia<br />
cautelare emessa a carico di Valter Lavitola, del<br />
se<strong>na</strong>tore Sergio De Gregorio e di altre persone, si<br />
contesta ai due e ad altre quattro indagati - Antonio<br />
Bifano, Vincenzo Ghionni, Roberto Cristiano e Patrizia<br />
Gazzulli - il reato di associazione per delinquere legata<br />
ai fondi per l'editoria.<br />
IL SENATORE - Nella vicenda all'interno della quale<br />
sono scattate nuove accuse per Valter Lavitola è stato<br />
emesso anche un ordine di custodia cautelare in<br />
carcere nei confronti del se<strong>na</strong>tore del Pdl Sergio De<br />
Gregorio. Il provvedimento è stato trasmesso al<br />
Se<strong>na</strong>to per l'autorizzazione all'esecuzione. «Mi<br />
difenderò con le unghie e con i denti» dice De<br />
Gregorio - non essendomi mai sottratto all'autorità<br />
giudiziaria non capisco quale necessità ci sia di questa<br />
misura cautelare» aggiunge il parlamentare<br />
<strong>na</strong>poletano.<br />
Redazione online<br />
134
Diário de Notícias Lisboa/ - Opinião, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
Ilícito é o populismo...<br />
Com a veemente censura do Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
à crimi<strong>na</strong>lização do enriquecimento injustificado (que a<br />
lei fazia presumir ilícito), conheceu-se agora o epílogo<br />
de uma das mais lamentáveis expressões de<br />
demagogia alguma vez produzidas no nosso<br />
Parlamento, resultado de um infeliz casamento entre<br />
as pulsões populistas de uns e os laivos totalitários de<br />
outros, todos convergindo, a propósito de uma<br />
alegada "higienização" da sociedade, <strong>na</strong> postergação<br />
dos mais elementares alicerces de um Estado de<br />
Direito, mormente o princípio da presunção de<br />
inocência.<br />
Agora que, uns atrás dos outros, iremos certamente<br />
assistir ao desfile de avisados comentadores que<br />
e<strong>na</strong>ltecerão a sábia decisão do TC, importa recordar<br />
que, no momento em que muitos desses<br />
comentadores assistiam, mudos e quedos (alguns,<br />
inclusive, aplaudindo essa pretensa "conquista<br />
civilizacio<strong>na</strong>l"), à embriaguez populista que conduziu à<br />
lei ora censurada, só o PS se manteve firme <strong>na</strong> defesa<br />
dos princípios hoje reconfirmados como fundacio<strong>na</strong>is<br />
da democracia e liberdade. Só o PS teve então a<br />
coragem de sair em defesa do Estado de Direito<br />
Democrático, ousando arrostar com críticas que só<br />
hoje, graças à luz do acórdão do TC, se revelaram,<br />
enfim, aos olhos de todos, inequivocamente<br />
infundadas.<br />
Sucede que PSD e CDS não podem deixar de<br />
continuar a merecer uma forte reprovação. É que a<br />
gravidade do seu comportamento (a que se somaram<br />
PCP e BE) não decorre ape<strong>na</strong>s - e já seria o bastante<br />
- da circunstância de terem votado, apesar dos apelos<br />
à razão por parte do PS, uma lei que nos colocava à<br />
margem do universo civilizacio<strong>na</strong>l das democracias<br />
liberais. Os principais danos da sua conduta residirão,<br />
por um lado, <strong>na</strong> caução que incautamente (?)<br />
emprestaram a uma conceção totalitária da sociedade<br />
(segundo a qual ao Estado seria legítimo inquirir da<br />
virtude do cidadão e este seria devedor dessa<br />
prestação), mas, sobretudo, no dano que bem sabiam<br />
não poder deixar de vir a provocar <strong>na</strong> confiança nos<br />
nossos tribu<strong>na</strong>is e <strong>na</strong> Justiça. É que, ao confirmar-se<br />
agora a então mais que previsível<br />
inconstitucio<strong>na</strong>lidade da lei que apresentavam como<br />
salvífica no combate à corrupção, PSD e CDS não<br />
podiam ignorar que a iliteracia jurídica de muitos dos<br />
seus eleitores iria conduzir ao enraizamento de um<br />
pensamento tão simples quanto perverso: "São os<br />
tribu<strong>na</strong>is que não querem combater a corrupção",<br />
dirão agora muitos dos que permanecem iludidos pelo<br />
discurso populista dos seus dirigentes.<br />
Ora, esse é um dano sobre a credibilidade do sistema<br />
judicial que é tanto mais grave quanto partiu da última<br />
pessoa de quem poderia ter partido: da própria<br />
ministra da Justiça. Escutamos ainda o eco das<br />
palavras de Paula Teixeira da Cruz quando, <strong>na</strong><br />
"Universidade da JSD", ao mesmo tempo que<br />
asseverava, pela enésima vez, que o diploma em<br />
causa não padecia de "nenhuma<br />
inconstitucio<strong>na</strong>lidade", proclamava que este tipo legal<br />
era "absolutamente decisivo para o combate à grande<br />
corrupção"... (dois rotundos dislates, como o PS<br />
sempre denunciou e a decisão do TC vem confirmar).<br />
É, pois, da mais elementar justiça enfatizar hoje que,<br />
onde a direção do PS argumentou com seriedade,<br />
todas as outras se fizeram banhar no populismo mais<br />
rasteiro. Onde o PS permaneceu firme <strong>na</strong> defesa de<br />
princípios, todos os demais claudicaram.<br />
Hoje, com esta decisão do Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l,<br />
saíram vencedores os Direitos, Liberdades e<br />
Garantias de cada cidadão. Derrotados, os<br />
demagogos e as demagogas. E o populismo.<br />
135
Diário de Notícias Lisboa/ - Globo, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
CDS propõe juíza Fátima Mata Mouros<br />
para o Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
O líder parlamentar do CDS, Nuno Magalhães,<br />
afirmou hoje à agência Lusa que irá propor o nome de<br />
Fátima Mata Mouros para uma das três vagas a<br />
preencher no Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l, cuja eleição<br />
se realizará <strong>na</strong> sexta-feira.<br />
Os nomes dos três juízes a indicar para o Tribu<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l têm de ser eleitos com uma maioria<br />
de dois terços, o que obriga a um entendimento entre<br />
a maioria gover<strong>na</strong>mental PSD/CDS e PS.<br />
Na sexta-feira passada, o PSD propôs para o Tribu<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l o nome de Paulo Saragoça da Matta,<br />
enquanto o PS escolheu o ex-secretário de Estado da<br />
Justiça Conde Rodrigues.<br />
Em declarações à agência Lusa, o líder da bancada<br />
do CDS referiu que o nome de Fátima Mata<br />
"Mas agora confirmamos a nossa escolha" de Fátima<br />
Mata<br />
Para o líder parlamentar do CDS, a juíza Fátima Mata<br />
136
El País/ - Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Reforma Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
Los islamistas quieren acabar con el<br />
presidencialismo en Argelia<br />
Reforma constitucio<strong>na</strong>l para instaurar en Argelia u<strong>na</strong><br />
República parlamentaria; amnistía general para<br />
excarcelar a todos los islamistas y banca islámica para<br />
sustituir a la tradicio<strong>na</strong>l.<br />
La Alianza Verde, integrada por tres partidos<br />
islamistas legales (Movimiento de la Sociedad para la<br />
Paz, El Islah y En Nahda), desveló, el pasado fin de<br />
sema<strong>na</strong>, su programa electoral justo después de su<br />
primer gran mitin de precampaña.<br />
Este coincidió con el entierro del primer presidente de<br />
Argelia, Ahmed Ben Bella, al que sus líderes no<br />
acudieron. Su campaña electoral arrancó formalmente<br />
ayer con un gran mitin en Constanti<strong>na</strong>, elegida por ser<br />
en lugar de <strong>na</strong>cimiento del imán Ben Badis,<br />
reformador del islam argelino.<br />
Argelia celebrará dentro de tres sema<strong>na</strong>s u<strong>na</strong>s<br />
elecciones legislativas que, según recalcó el sábado el<br />
presidente Abdelaziz Bouteflika, “constituyen u<strong>na</strong><br />
etapa crucial y u<strong>na</strong> apuesta decisiva”.<br />
Serán las elecciones más transparentes desde que<br />
hace medio siglo Argelia accedió a la independencia.<br />
Hasta ahora han estado marcadas por el fraude, pero<br />
esta vez más de 500 observadores inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>les<br />
tratarán de velar por su pureza junto con dos<br />
comisiones argeli<strong>na</strong>s, u<strong>na</strong> de ellas independiente.<br />
“Tenemos gran confianza en la credibilidad del<br />
escrutinio que, por supuesto, ga<strong>na</strong>remos<br />
holgadamente”, afirmó Faeth Rebaie, presidente de<br />
En Nahda, al presentar el programa. Contiene 718<br />
medidas a tomar durante dos legislaturas, pero aun<br />
así es vago.<br />
Si, el 10 de mayo, se confirma este cambio de<br />
mayoría Argelia empezará vivir u<strong>na</strong> “primavera árabe”<br />
sui géneris. Hasta ahora es el único país del norte de<br />
África que se ha librado de vientos de cambio que<br />
soplan sobre la región y que han aupado a los<br />
islamistas al poder.<br />
La Alianza Verde quiere que el próximo Parlamento no<br />
solo enmiende la Constitución sino que se convierta<br />
en u<strong>na</strong> asamblea constituyente para hacer de Argelia<br />
en u<strong>na</strong> República parlamentaria.<br />
Hoy en día su régimen es presidencialista con<br />
Bouteflika a la cabeza, pero el DRS, el servicio secreto<br />
militar, sigue ejerciendo su influencia sobre algunos<br />
ámbitos incluido el Sáhara Occidental.<br />
Los islamistas también quieren promulgar u<strong>na</strong><br />
amnistía general que recoja la rehabilitación de los<br />
dirigentes del Frente Islámico de Salvación cuya<br />
victoria electoral fue abortada hace 20 años por el<br />
Ejército. La guerra civil larvada que vivió entonces<br />
Argelia se cobró cerca de 200.000 muertos.<br />
Bouteflika impulsó u<strong>na</strong> política de reconciliación que<br />
supuso la excarcelación de miles de radicales, pero la<br />
amnistía que propug<strong>na</strong> la Alianza Verde conllevaría la<br />
liberación cientos de terroristas recientemente<br />
conde<strong>na</strong>dos.<br />
La marea verde que parece cernirse sobre Argelia,<br />
ante el desgaste y división de los partidarios de<br />
Bouteflika y la segmentación de los partidos<br />
democráticos, preocupa incluso a aquellos instalados<br />
desde hace décadas en el poder.<br />
Abdelaziz Belkhadem, líder de Frente de Liberación<br />
Nacio<strong>na</strong>l, el antiguo partido único, acabó su mitin en<br />
Tamanrasset pidiendo a los electores que asuma sus<br />
responsabilidad para no caer de nuevo en la<br />
inestabilidad y la inseguridad de antaño en u<strong>na</strong> alusión<br />
a la violenta década de los años noventa.<br />
137
El País/ - Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Marlaska, contra la prescripción de los<br />
crímenes de ETA<br />
El juez Fer<strong>na</strong>ndo Grande-Marlaska, que ha tomado<br />
hoy posesión de su cargo como presidente de la Sala<br />
Pe<strong>na</strong>l de la Audiencia Nacio<strong>na</strong>l, se ha mostrado<br />
partidario de que se investiguen los numerosos<br />
crímenes de ETA que quedan sin resolver y se ha<br />
declarado contrario a la prescripción de los mismos.<br />
En un acto multitudi<strong>na</strong>rio celebrado en la Audiencia<br />
Nacio<strong>na</strong>l, al que han asistido el presidente del<br />
Supremo, Carlos Dívar; el fiscal del Estado, Eduardo<br />
Torres-Dulce; la presidenta de la Comunidad de<br />
Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre; numerosos vocales del<br />
Poder Judicial, magistrados del Supremo y multitud<br />
de jueces y fiscales, además de funcio<strong>na</strong>rios y<br />
amigos, Marlaska ha explicado que uno de sus<br />
propósitos es potenciar la ofici<strong>na</strong> de víctimas. El nuevo<br />
presidente ha tenido un recuerdo para las víctimas de<br />
otros crímenes investigados por la Audiencia y ha<br />
señalado que uno de los retos a los que se enfrenta<br />
en la lucha contra la crimi<strong>na</strong>lidad organizada y en la<br />
cooperación judicial inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l es el redefinir las<br />
competencias para ser más eficaces.<br />
El presidente de la Audiencia Nacio<strong>na</strong>l, Ángel Juanes,<br />
que le ha dado réplica, ha destacado que Marlaska “es<br />
u<strong>na</strong> excelente perso<strong>na</strong>, un buen compañero que ha<br />
sabido crear en su entorno del juzgado un ambiente<br />
idóneo de trabajo que ha permitido que todos sus<br />
componentes dieran lo mejor de sí mismos”.<br />
Juanes ha indicado que Marlaska llega en un<br />
momento clave, “pues si fi<strong>na</strong>lmente se acaba el<br />
terrorismo de ETA se hará necesario replantearse el<br />
futuro de la Audiencia Nacio<strong>na</strong>l con más de 34 años<br />
de historia, caracterizados por el sacrificio y entrega<br />
de sus componentes”.<br />
En el mismo sentido que Marlaska, Juanes ha dicho<br />
ser partidario de redefinir las competencias de la<br />
Audiencia, porque existe “u<strong>na</strong> cierta incongruencia, ya<br />
que la Sala de lo Pe<strong>na</strong>l es competente para conocer<br />
de los delitos de trata de seres humanos cometidos en<br />
el extranjero y no lo es cuando esos delitos se<br />
cometen en España”.<br />
Dívar, por su parte, ha criticado que se vayan a quitar<br />
los escoltas a jueces y fiscales de la Audiencia<br />
Nacio<strong>na</strong>l, puesto que es un órgano que no solo<br />
investiga crímenes de ETA, sino también crimen<br />
organizado, delitos económicos y otros terrorismos.<br />
138
El País/ - Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
The clan that ruled the roulette wheel<br />
Gonzalo García-Pelayo"s winning racehorse is <strong>na</strong>med<br />
Going Wrong, and bets are 12 to 1 just before the race<br />
at the tracks in Cheltenham, UK. The 450 euros that<br />
he has put down on the jockey in the green-striped<br />
shirt is part of a "private investment fund" which relies<br />
on tipsters and earns him a 30-percent annual return.<br />
Just then, his cellphone vibrates: it"s a text from<br />
another tipster. In the match between Fer<strong>na</strong>ndo<br />
Verdasco and Juan Martín del Potro, he should bet<br />
against the Argentinean tennis player winning more<br />
than four games against the Spaniard. García-Pelayo<br />
then explains that he is in the process of creating a<br />
new formula for tennis bets based on the theory that if<br />
the pre-match favorite favorite loses the first set, he or<br />
she will win the second. If his studies prove conclusive,<br />
he will program it on his computer, under "Favorite<br />
loses first set" so it automatically launches.<br />
The race starts at Cheltenham. García-Pelayo leans<br />
back on his office chair, watching the screen with the<br />
remote in his hand. It"s mid-afternoon on a Tuesday in<br />
March, and the gambler is dressed in cords and<br />
checkered shirt. His white beard and hair are<br />
disheveled, his reading glasses hang from his neck.<br />
His desk is covered in several layers of dust and<br />
papers scribbled with formulas and numbers - their<br />
degree of yellowing is a like a scale that reflects the<br />
strata of his life as a gambler.<br />
This is more or less the position in which he spends<br />
his days at home in Madrid, although he does inch<br />
closer to the screen in order to determine the exact<br />
placement of his horse (Going Wrong seems to be in<br />
third place, maybe second; it"s hard to tell on the small<br />
screen).<br />
At times he gets up to check the other four computers<br />
he has placed in various rooms in his house. They are<br />
all buzzing with their own activity, offering players from<br />
all over the planet bets that he has programmed. An<br />
electronic cry of "Goal!" can be heard every so often<br />
from one of them, announcing a new development in<br />
the ongoing Debrecen-Kaposvár game in the<br />
Hungarian League. The software immediately updates<br />
itself, offering 2.6/1 that it will be four-goal match.<br />
Soccer is the axis upon which García-Pelayo"s private<br />
fund rotates. His computers offer 200 bets daily, from<br />
which he expects to earn some 15,000 euros a month,<br />
part of which will go to the investors and the remainder<br />
to a retirement fund. It took him a year to study how<br />
and what to program: "a degree in sports betting," he<br />
calls it. Though he will be 65 in June, there are a lot of<br />
unexplained gaps on his résumé.<br />
Gonzalo is the patriarch of the Pelayo clan, a family<br />
who shot to fame in the 1990s for designing a<br />
statistical-based method for winning on the roulette<br />
wheel. According to the family"s estimates, they won<br />
some 250 million pesetas (1.5 million euros) between<br />
1991 and 1995, mainly in the Madrid Gran Casino their "greatest enemy" but also the "laboratory" in<br />
which they tested their system. So Gonzalo and his<br />
son Iván wrote in La fabulosa historia de los Pelayo<br />
(or, The fabulous history of the Pelayos), published by<br />
Plaza y Janés.<br />
Their discovery was accidental. Gonzalo had sent his<br />
nephew to the casino to learn the ways of the<br />
croupiers. He wanted to study their "ways of dropping"<br />
in the hopes of determining a pattern in the path,<br />
bounces and fi<strong>na</strong>l resting place of the ball. His nephew<br />
took down numbers and dealers" <strong>na</strong>mes; Gonzalo<br />
a<strong>na</strong>lyzed the data on a program on his computer. That<br />
was when he discovered that some numbers come up<br />
a lot more often than others, a tendency that had<br />
nothing to do with the dealer and everything to do with<br />
defects in the manufacture and leveling of the tables.<br />
His hypothesis: "If Swiss watches and NASA rockets<br />
have imperfections, then so do roulette wheels."<br />
These were the times of the get-rich-quick schemes, of<br />
the Seville Expo and the Barcelo<strong>na</strong> Olympics. The<br />
patriarch decided to try his luck at roulette following a<br />
series of business failures, he recalled recently in an<br />
interview along with his children, Iván and Vanessa.<br />
He has tried his hand at most everything: from radio<br />
announcer to matador ma<strong>na</strong>ger. In the 1970s, he had<br />
a go at the movie industry. His second movie, Vivir en<br />
Sevilla (or Living in Seville, 1979) received the<br />
following review from critic Fer<strong>na</strong>ndo Trueba: "Clumsy<br />
dialogue and too calculatedly avant-garde."<br />
Next, García-Pelayo opened a nightclub in Seville,<br />
where as DJ, he played Pink Floyd and Frank Zappa.<br />
He went underground after a judicial order closed the<br />
establishment down on rumors that minors were using<br />
drugs in its backrooms. He moved onto the recording<br />
industry, discovering artists such as Tria<strong>na</strong> and María<br />
Jiménez. In total, he left his sig<strong>na</strong>ture on some 130<br />
albums, including some by Luis Eduardo Aute, Gato<br />
Pérez and Joaquín Sabi<strong>na</strong>. The latter singer dedicated<br />
a few lines to García-Pelayo in his well-known song,<br />
19 días y 500 noches (or, 19 days and 500 nights),<br />
including: "Yesterday, the doorman threw me out of the<br />
Torrelodones casino."<br />
139
García-Pelayo branched out into producing TV<br />
programs, and had a few hits, but he shut down his<br />
company after he was accused of fleeing to Brazil, he<br />
says, and by that point, they were no longer taking his<br />
calls in the music world. So he started looking for a<br />
new gig, "beyond the limits of luck," as he calls it.<br />
After his first few hypotheses on roulette tendencies,<br />
García-Pelayo formed a team led by his son, Iván, a<br />
recent philosophy graduate and musician (he<br />
composed Africanos en Madrid (or, Africans in<br />
Madrid)). There wasn"t anybody over 26 years old in<br />
the first group. Though the figures and dates are now<br />
blurred, as often occurs in legends, after a "few<br />
months" recording numbers and working with the data,<br />
betting began in earnest in the fall of 1991. According<br />
to the book, they won close to "a million pesetas a day"<br />
in the first month. They played every day, from 5pm to<br />
closing. "A blue-collar job, not at all glamorous, with<br />
12-hour days," says Iván. "And on your feet the whole<br />
time," adds his sister, Vanessa.<br />
They are interrupted by the sound of their father"s<br />
cellphone ringing - the Beatles" Eleanor Rigby is the<br />
ring tone, and he comments that he would like to see a<br />
movie which portrays his clan like the Liverpool<br />
quartet, with "producer Phil Spector hovering in the<br />
background." That role is actually played by actor Lluís<br />
Homar, the spitting image of García-Pelayo. And the<br />
preceding scenes, or a version of them, kick off the<br />
The Pelayos by director Eduard Cortés (the movie<br />
premieres on April 27). "We are the Pelayos, and we<br />
have the opportunity to do something extraordi<strong>na</strong>ry:<br />
break the bank in a casino," says actor Daniel Brühl<br />
(Good Bye, Lenin!) in the role of Iván.<br />
"This is a classic story: the dream of a handful of social<br />
pariahs whose rival is big business," enthuses the<br />
director, who fell under the family"s magnetic spell<br />
after living with them for a period.<br />
Though the film mixes fact and fiction, the script<br />
accurately reflects the clan"s hostility toward the<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>gers of the Torrelodones casino. "Every great<br />
feat has a great enemy," say the Pelayos today (and in<br />
the book: "We relish our detestation for the casino<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>gers in the way that a boxer finds strength in his<br />
hate for his opponent"). The family was involved in<br />
long-drawn-out court case against these executives<br />
that started when they were kicked out of the<br />
establishment in 1992 for committing what the casino<br />
termed "gaming irregularities." The battle ended with a<br />
Supreme Court sentence in 1994 that recognized the<br />
legitimacy of the Pelayos" methods and even praised<br />
their "inventiveness."<br />
The bad guy in the movie is a malicious casino<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>ger called La Bestia (The Beast), played by<br />
El País/ - Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Eduard Fernández. The movie doesn"t say which<br />
casino he works for, but all of this attention has<br />
understandably caused concern (and anticipation)<br />
among ma<strong>na</strong>gement at the Madrid casino, who were<br />
not consulted by the movie"s scriptwriters.<br />
"We don"t have anything against anybody," says the<br />
casino"s communications director, his voice mingling<br />
with the sounds of chips falling in the European Room<br />
at Torrelodones. "The Pelayos really are not part of our<br />
everyday conversations around here. They represent<br />
just another story among the more than 18 million<br />
visitors we get here. We looked into whether they had<br />
some sort of advantage over the other players, and we<br />
fixed the imperfections in the tables."<br />
He tiptoes around the subject of the expulsions. He<br />
doesn"t know what the family"s total winnings<br />
amounted to. He says they never - "no way" - broke<br />
the bank. Jesús Marín, pit boss in the time of Pelayos,<br />
and current games director, adds, "They never played<br />
a lot of numbers, and they always played the same<br />
ones. They usually won, but their story has been<br />
exaggerated. It was immediately discovered that the<br />
roulette tables had a pattern; so first the wheels were<br />
switched from one table to another, then the entire<br />
tables were replaced. They played three or four weeks<br />
in total."<br />
One former croupier, who prefers to remain<br />
anonymous, remembers that the Pelayos" winning<br />
streak happen to coincide with a labor dispute between<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>gement and staff over an annual 2.6 billion<br />
pesetas in tips, complete with full and partial strikes<br />
throughout the year. "There was a lot of confusion and<br />
some things went unnoticed. That probably was a<br />
factor. One of the tables, table 13 or 14, was in bad<br />
shape. The wheel hadn"t been properly leveled, and<br />
they discovered this by watching and taking notes.<br />
That is where they had their big wins, about 100 million<br />
pesetas. But their method never worked as well in<br />
other casinos."<br />
The book mentions other wins in Vien<strong>na</strong> (14 million<br />
pesetas in one night), Amsterdam (almost 13 million)<br />
and 40 million in Lloret de Mar, where the movie was<br />
filmed. But apart from one old Casio calculator, little<br />
physical evidence of this past remains today in the<br />
penumbra of Gonzalo"s bedroom. After being<br />
repeatedly thrown out of the Torrelodones casino, he<br />
continued to visit the its roulette tables through his<br />
string of "underground" players, which included Luis<br />
Mazarrasa, a jour<strong>na</strong>list who later published his story in<br />
EL PAÍS. There is something about the Pelayo clan<br />
that causes one to suffer a slight case of the<br />
Stockholm Syndrome. They welcome every visitor as if<br />
he or she may be the beginning of something new;<br />
140
there is a half-carved ham leg in the kitchen, and<br />
something about the smell of the house and the<br />
bookshelves full of movies and albums activates that<br />
part of your brain where memories of childhood are<br />
stored.<br />
Beyond this, there is the money. Mazarrasa recalls<br />
winning 1.8 million pesetas (just over 10,000 euros) in<br />
three days. García-Pelayo"s team broke up in 1995,<br />
when he set up an illegal poker establishment. That"s<br />
another story - maybe another movie. At the end of his<br />
El País/ - Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
roulette adventures, García-Pelayo had a stash of over<br />
60 million pesetas. But money doesn"t last long in the<br />
hands of a gambler and travel lover. "For Easter<br />
holidays, I will only have whatever I get out of these<br />
bets. I live day to day," he says. It is still Tuesday when<br />
his winning horse, Going Wrong, finishes ninth,<br />
Verdasco loses more than four games to Del Potro,<br />
and the cry of "Goal!" continues to be heard from the<br />
other computers.<br />
141
El País/ - España, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Dos fallecidas a manos de sus parejas en<br />
24 horas<br />
La violencia machista se ha cobrado este fin de<br />
sema<strong>na</strong> dos nuevas víctimas, dos mujeres de 28 y 55<br />
años, fallecidas a manos de sus parejas en Tuineje<br />
(Fuerteventura) y Sevilla, respectivamente. Las<br />
primeras investigaciones apuntan a que ambas<br />
murieron por heridas de arma blanca. Con estas<br />
muertes, son ya 12 las mujeres fallecidas por violencia<br />
de género en lo que va de año.<br />
Ningu<strong>na</strong> de las víctimas mortales de lo que llevamos<br />
de 2012 había denunciado a su agresor con<br />
anterioridad, según los datos del Observatorio para la<br />
Violencia Doméstica y de Género del Consejo General<br />
del Poder Judicial. Ni la mujer fallecida este sábado<br />
en Fuerteventura ni la que murió en Sevilla en la<br />
madrugada del domingo habían dado ese paso, según<br />
los datos aportados ayer por las Administraciones.<br />
El crimen de Tuineje ocurrió en la zo<strong>na</strong> de Tarajalejo.<br />
Sobre las 17.00, un familiar encontró a la mujer, de<br />
<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>lidad alema<strong>na</strong>, muerta en su casa. El cuerpo<br />
estaba tumbado en el suelo y rodeado de sangre,<br />
según informó la agencia Efe. Dos horas más tarde, la<br />
Guardia Civil detuvo como presunto agresor a la<br />
pareja de la víctima, un hombre de 38 años que,<br />
supuestamente, huyó tras matar a la mujer.<br />
El segundo de los crímenes sucedió en la madrugada<br />
del domingo en la calle del Cisneo Alto de Sevilla. La<br />
víctima, Rosario Gallego, tenía 55 años y llevaba más<br />
de 25 casada con Valeriano Díaz, de 57, que,<br />
presuntamente la asesinó con un arma blanca tras<br />
propi<strong>na</strong>rle varios golpes, según las primeras<br />
investigaciones. Tras el crimen, el hombre salió de la<br />
casa, subió a la azotea del bloque y se arrojó al vacío.<br />
El matrimonio tenía dos hijos mayores de edad. El<br />
menor de ellos, de 18 años, vivía con los padres y fue<br />
el que encontró el cadáver de la mujer en el salón de<br />
la casa sobre la 1.30. Estaba debajo de u<strong>na</strong> manta y<br />
presentaba heridas de arma blanca, signos de haber<br />
sido golpeada en la cabeza y tenía sobre el abdomen<br />
u<strong>na</strong> toalla ensangrentada.<br />
El hijo estaba en casa en el momento del crimen, pero<br />
no escuchó <strong>na</strong>da. Cuando descubrió el cadáver, avisó<br />
a los vecinos, que alertaron a los servicios de<br />
emergencias. Cinco minutos después de la primera<br />
llamada, el 112 recibió otro aviso en el que se alertaba<br />
de que un hombre yacía muerto en la calle de Rafael<br />
Cansinos Assens, en la zo<strong>na</strong> común de los bloques<br />
donde residía el matrimonio. El hombre, se habría<br />
suicidado, presuntamente, arrojándose desde la<br />
azotea del edificio, de siete pisos de altura.<br />
Las políticas de lucha contra la violencia machista no<br />
se han librado de los recortes, pese a la contundencia<br />
de las cifras de víctimas. La presidenta del<br />
Observatorio, Inmaculada Montalbán, criticó esta<br />
sema<strong>na</strong> que la partida desti<strong>na</strong>da a campañas para la<br />
prevención de la violencia de género se haya reducido<br />
el 70% respecto a 2011. “Es fundamental<br />
mantenerlas”, señaló Montalbán, que asegura que<br />
muchas mujeres cuentan en los juzgados que se han<br />
decidido a denunciar tras ver un cartel del 016 (el<br />
teléfono confidencial de ayuda e información a<br />
víctimas) o un anuncio en la televisión.<br />
142
El Peruano/ - Noticia, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Dictan pautas para la ejecución de los<br />
fallos<br />
El presidente de la Corte Suprema, César San Martín,<br />
remarcó a los magistrados los lineamientos adoptados<br />
por el Consejo Ejecutivo del Poder Judicial para el<br />
procedimiento de ejecución de sentencias de conde<strong>na</strong><br />
de pago de sumas de dinero dictadas contra el Estado<br />
y las medidas cautelares en forma de retención contra<br />
las entidades estatales.<br />
En efecto, mediante la RA Nº 149-2012-P-PJ, la<br />
judicatura refiere que la ejecución de estas sentencias<br />
debe ser orde<strong>na</strong>da a cargo de los presupuestos<br />
anuales de los pliegos presupuestarios respectivos y<br />
no contra la Dirección General de Endeudamiento y<br />
Tesoro Público.La medida fue decidida después de<br />
haberse constatado que algunos jueces, al dictar<br />
mandatos cautelares o en la ejecución de sentencias<br />
contra instituciones del Estado, vienen orde<strong>na</strong>ndo<br />
i<strong>na</strong>propiadamente que dichos mandatos deban ser<br />
ejecutados directamente por la Dirección General de<br />
Endeudamiento y Tesoro Público, refiere la<br />
disposición legal.Da cuenta, también, de la<br />
preocupación del Poder Judicial por proteger los<br />
derechos de todas las partes que intervienen en un<br />
proceso, sean públicas o particulares. De ahí que<br />
rechazan que estas precisiones constituyan u<strong>na</strong><br />
intromisión en el ejercicio de la independencia de los<br />
magistrados.<br />
143
Carga procesal será cero<br />
En diálogo con el Diario Oficial El Peruano, precisó<br />
que en el caso Madre Mía –en el que se investigó y<br />
exculpó al presidente Ollanta Humala– se cumplieron<br />
todas las fases del debido proceso. “Decir lo contrario<br />
es incorrecto”, puntualizó.<br />
¿Qué balance hace de su gestión?-Hemos producido<br />
100 mil causas adicio<strong>na</strong>les a las ingresadas y esto<br />
significa que se empieza a resolver el problema de la<br />
carga procesal. La meta es que este año descienda<br />
26%, o sea un plus productivo de 300 mil expedientes<br />
más. Empezaremos con el presupuesto del próximo<br />
año a establecer un proyecto de inversión con el que<br />
en un plazo de cuatro años podamos llegar a carga<br />
cero.¿Cómo marcha la evaluación de<br />
jueces?-Tenemos que fijar estándares de producción y<br />
de calidad de las decisiones judiciales.<br />
Esto no es <strong>na</strong>da nuevo en derecho comparado; se<br />
trata de construir con mucha imagi<strong>na</strong>ción y creatividad<br />
el software y las bases que nos van a permitir<br />
controlar lo que un juez debe producir, cómo debe<br />
hacerlo, en qué medida está cumpliendo con las<br />
metas y luego ver si el producto que emite (la<br />
sentencia) es un producto de calidad.¿Cuánto tiempo<br />
tomará esta labor?-Espero acabar este trabajo a fines<br />
de año y tener a comienzos del próximo un modelo de<br />
monitoreo razo<strong>na</strong>ble que permita a los órganos de<br />
gobierno establecer si los jueces están cumpliendo<br />
con metas.¿<br />
El Nuevo Código Procesal Pe<strong>na</strong>l (NCPP) se aplicará<br />
en Lima?-El Nuevo Código Procesal Pe<strong>na</strong>l (NCPP) ya<br />
está en funcio<strong>na</strong>miento en todo el país para delitos de<br />
corrupción; y está en curso en 17 de los 31 distritos<br />
(para otros casos). Este año trabajaremos 6 distritos,<br />
en junio será en Pasco, El Santa, Huánuco y Áncash y<br />
luego, en octubre, otros dos distritos. Esto se hizo a<br />
partir de la creación de u<strong>na</strong> gerencia de operaciones<br />
para que el proceso sea dinámico.<br />
En Lima Metropolita<strong>na</strong> entrará en vigencia en 2013, ya<br />
estamos en la preplanificación y esperamos que en<br />
julio tengamos un primer gran esquema.¿No hay<br />
motivo para u<strong>na</strong> medida de fuerza de parte de jueces<br />
por este tema?-Nosotros estamos trabajando en u<strong>na</strong><br />
línea de constante diálogo y trabajo técnico con el<br />
MEF con la amplia aceptación del Presidente de la<br />
República (Ollanta Humala). Creo que es lo más<br />
prudente.¿La corrupción sigue siendo el cáncer del<br />
Poder Judicial?-La corrupción genera descrédito.<br />
Tenemos un gran esfuerzo producto de la gestión del<br />
jefe de la Ocma, Enrique Mendoza. Se han creado<br />
programas especiales de investigación en temas<br />
El Peruano/ - Noticia, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
sensibles y estamos trabajando en la Unidad de<br />
Investigaciones Especiales. La corrupción ya no es un<br />
tema individual, hay redes que tienen un común<br />
denomi<strong>na</strong>dor, lo que obliga a cambiar modelos de<br />
combate. No solo se trabaja en la capacitación de<br />
jueces de control en auditorías judiciales, además, la<br />
Comisión de Justicia del Congreso aprobó el proyecto<br />
de ley que envié sobre jueces contralores. Hay que<br />
crear u<strong>na</strong> especialidad en el campo jurisdiccio<strong>na</strong>l de<br />
auditoría judicial para que los jueces estén en<br />
condiciones de luchar contra la corrupción.<br />
Pericias forenses y contables¿Cuáles son las metas<br />
en la lucha contra el lavado de activos?-El lavado de<br />
activos es un delito no convencio<strong>na</strong>l que tiene como<br />
objetivo ocultar, transferir bienes delictivos, éstos<br />
generalmente provienen del <strong>na</strong>rcotráfico, corrupción y<br />
contrabando. Todo el modelo de conducta es que los<br />
bienes mal habidos puedan ser incorporados a la<br />
economía de mercado y se fractura un principio básico<br />
de la libre competencia. Hay que atacar a quienes<br />
conducen los hilos de la economía crimi<strong>na</strong>l.¿Hay que<br />
especializar a los jueces en esta materia?-Lo más<br />
importante son las pericias forenses, fi<strong>na</strong>ncieras,<br />
contables, transferencias, seguimiento de bienes y<br />
cuentas bancarias. Para eso se requiere u<strong>na</strong> mejor<br />
estructura legal a los organismo de control preventivo;<br />
hay que fortalecer la Unidad de Inteligencia Fi<strong>na</strong>nciera<br />
y construir un cuerpo de peritos con conocimientos<br />
para a<strong>na</strong>lizar la información y establecer cuándo se<br />
lava o no un activo o un dinero. Se han firmado<br />
convenios con la cooperación de Estados Unidos y la<br />
Universidad San Ig<strong>na</strong>cio de Loyola para preparar a<br />
peritos en el lavado de activos.<br />
Proceso por Madre Mía¿La justicia cumplió las fases<br />
en el caso Madre Mía, que involucra al presidente<br />
Ollanta Humala; ahora que pretenden llevar el caso a<br />
los organismos inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>les?-El caso fue<br />
oportu<strong>na</strong>mente judicializado y llegó a la Corte<br />
Suprema de Justicia en 2009. Tanto el fiscal superior<br />
como el tribu<strong>na</strong>l de la causa decidieron sobreseer el<br />
procedimiento porque no advertían ningu<strong>na</strong> evidencia<br />
sólida contra los imputados. Contra esa decisión, la<br />
parte civil a cargo de María Magdale<strong>na</strong> Sulca, hija de<br />
los agraviados Benigno Sulca Castro y Natividad Avila<br />
Rivera, interpusieron recurso de nulidad.<br />
Este recurso fue tramitado y el fiscal supremo<br />
dictaminó que no se justificaba la revisión de la causa<br />
porque no hay evidencias contra, entre otros, Ollanta<br />
Moisés Humala Tasso.¿La sentencia fue clara?-La<br />
fiscalía no acusó nunca. Señalada la vista de la causa,<br />
revisadas las actuaciones, en u<strong>na</strong> sentencia de 25<br />
144
pági<strong>na</strong>s de la que fui ponente, en efecto establecimos<br />
que no existía base suficiente como para anular el<br />
sobreseimiento, disponer que regrese la causa a más<br />
investigaciones o que la fiscalía subsane omisiones<br />
trascendentes en su análisis de la evidencia del<br />
proceso.<br />
El caso tenía más de siete mil folios, se investigó<br />
durante varios años, declararon muchísimas perso<strong>na</strong>s,<br />
en un momento que el Presidente de la República<br />
actual era un simple opositor y que había perdido las<br />
El Peruano/ - Noticia, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
elecciones de 2006. Sostener que no ha habido u<strong>na</strong><br />
investigación suficiente, creo yo, es incorrecto por todo<br />
lo que se actuó y luego el análisis hecho por los<br />
tribu<strong>na</strong>les ha sido muy extenso. Se hizo un análisis a<br />
profundidad del caso. El caso lo conozco muy bien y<br />
puedo decir que aquí no hay mérito ninguno que<br />
revele que la justicia perua<strong>na</strong> actuó indebidamente,<br />
incorrectamente o vulneró derechos humanos en<br />
agravio de las víctimas del caso materia de consulta.<br />
145
El Universal/ - Política, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Reforma Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
Inician candidatos "pasarela" ante clero<br />
julian.sanchez@eluniversal.com.mx<br />
Los cuatro candidatos a la presidencia de la República<br />
expondrán esta sema<strong>na</strong> a más de 100 obispos del<br />
país su postura sobre libertad religiosa y laicidad del<br />
Estado, así como la importancia de la familia, que los<br />
religiosos abordan como tema principal a partir de hoy<br />
en su 93 asamblea ple<strong>na</strong>ria.<br />
Declarados como católicos, los candidatos Enrique<br />
Peña Nieto (PRI-PVEM), Josefi<strong>na</strong> Vázquez Mota<br />
(PAN), Andrés Manuel López Obrador (izquierdas), y<br />
Gabriel Quadri, Partido Nueva Alianza (Pa<strong>na</strong>l), irán a<br />
la sede de la Conferencia del Episcopado Mexicano<br />
(CEM) en Cuautitlán Izcalli, en la que harán "pasarela"<br />
ante los ministros religiosos, a los que expondrán su<br />
ideario político en u<strong>na</strong> hora y media.<br />
Quadri, quien asistirá el próximo viernes, es quien no<br />
se ha reunido con los religiosos. López Obrador se<br />
encontró con ellos hace seis años, cuando también<br />
aspiraba a la Presidencia. Cuando fue gober<strong>na</strong>dor del<br />
Estado de México, Peña Nieto se reunió con los<br />
religiosos en cada asamblea. Vázquez Mota llegó a<br />
tener reuniones con los religiosos como secretaria de<br />
Estado.<br />
El PAN es el que más se acerca a la postura de la<br />
Iglesia católica, pues sostiene que la sociedad se<br />
compone de hombres y mujeres y entre los dos sexos<br />
pueden forman u<strong>na</strong> familia, la cual, sostienen, es<br />
institución de la vida.<br />
Sobre el derecho a la vida, Vázquez Mota -quien será<br />
la primera en encontrarse con los religiosos maña<strong>na</strong>-,<br />
coincide con la Iglesia en que debe protegerse desde<br />
el momento de la concepción hasta la muerte <strong>na</strong>tural,<br />
respecto a lo cual plantea u<strong>na</strong> reforma constitucio<strong>na</strong>l.<br />
Peña Nieto, quien asistirá a la cita el jueves próximo,<br />
plantea la defensa de la familia y el fomento de su<br />
integración. Respecto a la salud reproductiva y<br />
educación sexual, propone orientación y educación<br />
para que se ejerzan de forma libre y responsable.<br />
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, estará el miércoles<br />
próximo en Cuautitlán Izcalli. No ha hecho un<br />
pronunciamiento reciente sobre el aborto y los<br />
matrimonios entre perso<strong>na</strong>s del mismo sexo, temas en<br />
que la Iglesia se mantiene en contra. Lo que ha<br />
expresado es ser un juarista creyente del estado laico<br />
y respetuoso de las decisiones de la ciudadanía.<br />
En su plataforma, el PRD propone revisar la<br />
legislación sobre el aborto para proteger a las mujeres<br />
de u<strong>na</strong> interrupción del embarazo insegura, y<br />
promueve que reciban un tratamiento adecuado.<br />
Quadri manifiesta que es católico, pero no practicante.<br />
Dice tener gran respeto a la diversidad sexual, así<br />
como del Estado laico. No está a favor del aborto en<br />
todos los casos, pero sí del derecho que tienen las<br />
mujeres de decidir la interrupción del embarazo, por lo<br />
que no está de acuerdo en que el tema se crimi<strong>na</strong>lice.<br />
146
El Universal/ - Opinión, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Buscan recuperar el corredor azul<br />
NAUCALPAN, Méx.— Con Angélica Moya Marín,<br />
Jonás Sandoval, Pedro Rodríguez y Javier Campos, el<br />
Partido Acción Nacio<strong>na</strong>l (PAN) buscará recobrar las<br />
alcaldías de Naucalpan, Tlanepantla, Atizapán y<br />
Huixquilucan, en lo que fue el llamado corredor azul.<br />
En la jor<strong>na</strong>da de elección inter<strong>na</strong> del PAN mexiquense<br />
votaron miles de panistas para elegir candidatos en 52<br />
alcaldías, al suspenderse el proceso en los<br />
ayuntamientos Coacalco, Tepotzotlán y Texcoco.<br />
En Naucalpan, la ex alcaldesa Angélica Moya Marín<br />
volvió a resultar electa como candidata del PAN, al<br />
obtener 551 votos, mientras que Mariela Pérez de<br />
Tejada logró, 341, y Manuel Gómez Morín, 137<br />
sufragios de militantes panistas.<br />
En Tlalnepantla, como único candidato, se ratificó el<br />
triunfo Jonás Sandoval, ex tesorero municipal panista,<br />
luego de que la comisión electoral negó el registro del<br />
ex presidente consejero del Instituto Electoral del<br />
Estado de México (IEEM ), Norberto Hernández<br />
Bautista, quien espera la resolución del Tribu<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación<br />
(TEPJF).<br />
En Huixquilucan Javier Campos le ganó a Alejandra<br />
Parra de Inzunza.<br />
En Atizapán, Pedro Rodríguez logró 676 votos, con lo<br />
que ganó al ex alcalde y diputado local Carlos<br />
Madrazo. Mientras que A<strong>na</strong> Banderas logró la<br />
candidatura a la diputación local por más 660 votos,<br />
desplazando a Wilfrido Torres.<br />
147
La Nacion/ - noticia, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Sigue siendo muy alto el nivel de<br />
judicialización<br />
Más notas para entender este temaEstán fre<strong>na</strong>dos por<br />
la Anses más de 4500 juicios de jubilados Entre<br />
febrero y marzo de este año, los juzgados de primera<br />
instancia de la seguridad social dictaron 11.294<br />
sentencias, el doble que en igual período de 2011 y<br />
cuatro veces más que las que se habían firmado en<br />
2008, según las estadísticas de la Cámara Federal de<br />
la Seguridad Social.<br />
La aceleración de los fallos tiene que ver con que<br />
muchos reclamos son similares, como los origi<strong>na</strong>dos<br />
en la falta de aplicación de recomposiciones a los<br />
haberes entre 2002 y 2006, un tema sobre el que ya<br />
se expidió la Corte Suprema en la causa Badaro.<br />
Pero al mismo tiempo, según los datos del Poder<br />
Judicial, creció también en los últimos años el número<br />
de causas que son apeladas, ya sea por la Anses o<br />
por el demandante, y llegan entonces a la cámara. En<br />
los dos primeros meses del año con actividad judicial,<br />
fueron sorteados 9001 expedientes entre las salas de<br />
apelaciones, casi un 30% más que las que habían<br />
llegado a esa instancia en 2010 y casi el doble de las<br />
ingresadas cuatro años atrás, siempre considerando el<br />
mismo bimestre.<br />
Tendencia en alza<br />
En lo que va del año, se iniciaron 17.602 nuevos<br />
litigios por la actualización de los haberes. La cifra es<br />
inferior a la registrada durante 2011 (19.051 juicios),<br />
pero sigue siendo mucho más elevada que el número<br />
de causas que se iniciaban hasta 2007, el año en el<br />
que la Corte Suprema cuestionó la política oficial de<br />
elevar durante años inflacio<strong>na</strong>rios sólo el haber<br />
mínimo, sin recomponer el valor de los ingresos de<br />
quienes, en virtud de los aportes hechos en la vida<br />
laboral, cobraban más que esa cifra garantizada por<br />
ley.<br />
A esa razón para la judicialidad se le suman otras<br />
causas, como la determi<strong>na</strong>ción de los haberes<br />
iniciales..<br />
148
La Nacion/ - noticia, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Están fre<strong>na</strong>dos por la Anses más de 4500<br />
juicios de jubilados<br />
Infografía: Los reclamos al EstadoMás notas para<br />
entender este temaSigue siendo muy alto el nivel de<br />
judicialización Más de 4500 juicios de jubilados, en su<br />
mayoría iniciados para reclamar reajustes de haberes,<br />
tienen su trámite paralizado -según estimaciones de<br />
fuentes del Poder Judicial-, por un accio<strong>na</strong>r de la<br />
Administración Nacio<strong>na</strong>l de la Seguridad Social<br />
(Anses) que incluye la continua recusación de uno de<br />
los jueces de la sala II de la Cámara Federal de la<br />
Seguridad Social. Y ese número crece mes tras mes.<br />
La situación se mantiene desde julio del año pasado,<br />
cuando el organismo de la seguridad social -que es la<br />
parte demandada en estos litigios- comenzó a tratar<br />
de impedir la participación del juez Luis Herrero,<br />
recusándolo sin invocación de causa, tras haberlo<br />
denunciado ante el Consejo de la Magistratura, algo<br />
que también hizo contra el magistrado Emilio<br />
Fernández, integrante de la misma sala.<br />
Desde entonces, y a la espera de u<strong>na</strong> decisión fi<strong>na</strong>l de<br />
la Justicia -el tema está ahora en la Corte- sobre la<br />
validez de ese accio<strong>na</strong>r de la Anses, los trámites que<br />
llegan a esa sala con la recusación del ente estatal<br />
quedan fre<strong>na</strong>dos.<br />
La crisis en la Cámara de Apelaciones se da en el<br />
esce<strong>na</strong>rio de u<strong>na</strong> muy elevada litigiosidad en el fuero,<br />
impulsada, entre otras razones, por la falta -o la<br />
insuficiencia, en algunos casos- de ajustes en los<br />
haberes entre los años 2002 y 2006, un período en el<br />
que la inflación ya iba deteriorando mes tras mes el<br />
valor real de los ingresos. Esa política, que fue<br />
declarada inconstitucio<strong>na</strong>l por la Corte Suprema en la<br />
causa Badaro, provocó en su momento recortes de<br />
hasta el 40% en el poder de compra de los haberes de<br />
cientos de miles de pasivos.<br />
La validez de la recusación sin causa contra Herrero<br />
fue rechazada ya en un dictamen aprobado por un<br />
tribu<strong>na</strong>l que integraron tres jueces del fuero, en julio<br />
pasado, en el análisis de la causa "Ramos, Gabi<strong>na</strong>".<br />
En realidad, como las recusaciones no invocan causa,<br />
formalmente no habría posibilidad de que se decidiera<br />
su rechazo. Sin embargo, los magistrados de ese<br />
tribu<strong>na</strong>l entendieron que existe un abuso en la<br />
utilización de esa herramienta, ya que la propia Anses<br />
había informado ante el Consejo de la Magistratura<br />
sobre su denuncia contra Herrero, de la que se<br />
desprende que en realidad sí tenía u<strong>na</strong> causa -que ya<br />
era pública- para su accio<strong>na</strong>r contra el juez.<br />
En las recusaciones con causa sí existe la posibilidad<br />
de que desde el fuero sean no admitidas, y el<br />
dictamen entendió que el trámite no se cursó bajo esa<br />
modalidad, justamente con el objetivo de evitar su<br />
rechazo.<br />
La cuestión de la validez de esas recusaciones está<br />
ahora en manos de la Corte Suprema de Justicia,<br />
que a<strong>na</strong>liza el tema en u<strong>na</strong> causa titulada "Aguilera<br />
Grueso". Según consta en el detalle de la marcha del<br />
expediente, tras haber pasado por el despacho de tres<br />
jueces, el trámite fue enviado al procurador general.<br />
Contra las cautelares<br />
Más allá de que ese cargo está vacante tras la salida<br />
de Esteban Righi, no hay plazos para que el<br />
funcio<strong>na</strong>rio que lo reemplace (el Ejecutivo propuso a<br />
Daniel Reposo) se expida sobre el tema. Mientras no<br />
se resuelva esa cuestión y la Anses siga presentando<br />
la recusación en todas las causas que llegan a la sala<br />
II, los expedientes se irán acumulando.<br />
Herrero y Fernández, ambos cuestio<strong>na</strong>dos por la<br />
Anses, son los dos jueces camaristas que<br />
comenzaron a dar curso, años atrás, a medidas<br />
cautelares planteadas por jubilados para poder cobrar<br />
sus haberes con la actualización correspondiente, sin<br />
necesidad de tener que esperar los plazos de un<br />
reclamo judicial, que suelen ser de cinco, seis o siete<br />
años. Esas medidas son otorgadas cuando se trata de<br />
reclamos sobre los que ya se expidió la Corte<br />
Suprema, por lo que ya se conoce cuál sería su<br />
resolución fi<strong>na</strong>l. La Anses rechaza esas cautelares y,<br />
más allá de apelar cada expediente, también presentó<br />
otro recurso a la Justicia para evitar que sigan<br />
dictándose, para evitar la continua salida de recursos.<br />
La existencia de estas cautelares no fue invocada en<br />
el pedido de investigación que el organismo dirigido<br />
por Diego Bossio elevó al Consejo de la Magistratura,<br />
en un trámite que, en última instancia, podría derivar<br />
en un juicio político. Sin embargo, la Comisión de<br />
Discipli<strong>na</strong> y Acusación, a cargo del diputado oficialista<br />
Carlos Moreno, pidió que dos auditores enviados a la<br />
Cámara busquen datos sobre la tramitación de esas<br />
medidas.<br />
Investigación<br />
La denuncia ante el Consejo de la Magistratura, sobre<br />
la que LA NACION informó el año pasado, tiene como<br />
justificativo supuestas irregularidades en la gestión del<br />
juicio iniciado por el jubilado Aguiar Atienza.<br />
La denuncia está basada en acusaciones hechas por<br />
la tercera integrante de la sala, Nora Dorado, respecto<br />
de que se habría alterado el orden de votación de los<br />
jueces y de que se habría recortado u<strong>na</strong> parte del voto<br />
redactado por la propia magistrada.<br />
En su defensa, Herrero alegó que se lo acusa por<br />
149
tareas que no le corresponden al ser vocal de la sala.<br />
Además, se lo cuestio<strong>na</strong> por no haberse excusado<br />
dada u<strong>na</strong> supuesta amistad con el abogado<br />
patroci<strong>na</strong>nte, negada por el juez.<br />
En la causa que originó esa denuncia hubo u<strong>na</strong><br />
La Nacion/ - noticia, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
recusación con causa por parte de la Anses, sobre la<br />
que ahora un tribu<strong>na</strong>l especial de jueces de la<br />
seguridad social deberá decidir..<br />
150
La Repubblica/ - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Constitución)<br />
"Niente fondi ai partiti e vincono le<br />
lobby" La reazione di Alfano, Bersani e<br />
Casini<br />
ROMA -<br />
"Cancellare del tutto i fi<strong>na</strong>nziamenti pubblici, desti<strong>na</strong>ti<br />
ai partiti - già drasticamente tagliati dalle manovre<br />
fi<strong>na</strong>nziarie del 2010/2011- sarebbe un errore<br />
drammatico, che punirebbe tutti allo stesso modo<br />
(compresi coloro che in questi anni hanno rispettato<br />
scrupolosamente le regole) e metterebbe la politica<br />
completamente nelle mani di lobbies, centri di potere e<br />
di interesse particolare". E" quanto si legge nella<br />
relazione alla proposta di legge presentata da Pdl, Pd<br />
e Terzo Polo, primi firmatari Angelino Alfano, Pier Luigi<br />
Bersani e Pier Ferdi<strong>na</strong>ndo Casini, contenente "misure<br />
per garantire la trasparenza e il controllo dei bilanci dei<br />
partiti e dei movimenti politici".<br />
Insieme ai capigruppo dei partiti che sostengono il<br />
governo anche Fabrizio Cicchitto, Dario Franceschini,<br />
Gian Luca Galletti, Benedetto Della Vedova e Pino<br />
Pisicchio firmano la proposta di legge presentata il 12<br />
aprile scorso. "Il fi<strong>na</strong>nziamento pubblico dei partiti - si<br />
legge ancora nel documento - presuppone regole certe<br />
che garantiscano la trasparenza e il controllo sui<br />
bilanci. Questa è la strada e bisog<strong>na</strong> intervenire<br />
rapidamente". Così la maggioranza è entrata in gioco<br />
pronunciandosi sulla polemica che ha travolto la<br />
politica dopo le recenti inchieste giudiziarie dell"<br />
e<br />
. Agire in fretta era stato anche l"appello anche del<br />
ministro per la Cooperazione inter<strong>na</strong>zio<strong>na</strong>le, Andrea<br />
Riccardi: "C"è bisogno, in maniera vitale, dei partiti<br />
politici, non si può indulgere nell"antipolitica. C"è<br />
bisogno dei partiti, c"è bisogno di più partiti di partiti<br />
amici della gente e della cultura, che diano idee a<br />
questo paese e si chiedano quale sarà l"Italia del<br />
2013". E su<br />
il vicepresidente di Fli, Italo Bocchino commenta: "Se<br />
cancellare i fi<strong>na</strong>nziamenti ai partiti sarebbe un errore<br />
drammatico, non ridurli almeno del 50% sarebbe un<br />
atto immorale"<br />
Per i partiti della maggioranza che sostiene il governo,<br />
occorre quindi "trasformare il fi<strong>na</strong>nziamento pubblico<br />
nella leva per riformare i partiti. Come ha ricordato il<br />
Presidente della Repubblica Napolitano, è necessario<br />
sancire per legge regole di democraticità e<br />
trasparenza nella vita dei partiti e meccanismi corretti e<br />
misurati di fi<strong>na</strong>nziamento della loro attività. La strada<br />
maestra è quella della discussione e dell"approvazione<br />
di u<strong>na</strong> legge organica che trasformi i partiti in<br />
associazioni riconosciute, dotate di perso<strong>na</strong>lità<br />
giuridica, con precisi requisiti statutari".<br />
Probabilmente già domani l"aula della Camera<br />
deciderà se asseg<strong>na</strong>re la proposta di legge depositata<br />
da Alfano, Bersani e Casini in sede legislativa alla<br />
commissione affari costituzio<strong>na</strong>li come chiesto dal<br />
presidente della Camera, Gianfranco Fini o se si<br />
seguirà il nomale iter con il passaggio in Aula, così<br />
come chiesto da Lega e Radicali. Nel caso, scontato,<br />
che non tutti i gruppi siano d"accordo, saranno<br />
chiamati a dichiarare la propria posizione un oratore a<br />
favore e uno contro. La richiesta viene bocciata se si<br />
oppone il governo o se vota contro un decimo dei<br />
deputati, vale a dire 63. Conti alla mano, se votassero<br />
tutti e 59 i deputati della Lega e i sei radicali, si<br />
arriverebbe a 65 e l"istanza sarebbe respinta. La<br />
proposta ricalca esattamente l"emendamento<br />
presentato giovedì scorso al decreto in materia di<br />
semplificazione fiscale all"esame della commissione<br />
Fi<strong>na</strong>nze, poi dichiarato i<strong>na</strong>mmissibile dalla terza carica<br />
dello Stato<br />
Si tratta di un solo articolo diviso in nove commi, e<br />
punta a intervenire immediatamente su alcuni aspetti<br />
cruciali della gestione fi<strong>na</strong>nziaria dei partiti, con tre<br />
obiettivi prioritari. Sono rese obbligatorie per legge la<br />
verifica e la certificazione dei bilanci delle forze<br />
politiche da parte di società di revisione esterne e<br />
indipendenti e i controlli esterni dei bilanci sono<br />
attribuiti alla Commissione per la trasparenza e il<br />
controllo dei bilanci dei partiti politici composta dai<br />
presidenti della Corte dei conti e del Consiglio di Stato<br />
e dal Primo presidente della Corte di Cassazione.<br />
Intatti i rimborsi elettorali e nessu<strong>na</strong> menzione della<br />
rata dei fi<strong>na</strong>nziamenti che i partiti dovrebbero ricevere<br />
a luglio e che la settima<strong>na</strong> scorsa Bersani aveva detto<br />
sarebbero slittati a settembre.<br />
Eventuali scorrettezze debbono essere sanzio<strong>na</strong>te con<br />
u<strong>na</strong> vera e propria decurtazione dei rimborsi elettorali,<br />
pari a tre volte la misura dell"irregolarità riscontrata. Si<br />
abbassa poi da 50.000 a 5.000 euro la soglia oltre la<br />
quale i contributi ai partiti vanno dichiarati<br />
pubblicamente e i conti dei partiti vanno pubblicati<br />
151
obbligatoriamente su internet, permettendo a tutti i<br />
cittadini di verificare dove i partiti si procurano le<br />
risorse e come le impiegano.<br />
Dell"ammontare dei fi<strong>na</strong>nziamenti, quindi, come<br />
annunciato la scorsa settima<strong>na</strong> si parlerà nell"ambito<br />
della discussione delle proposte di legge di attuazione<br />
dell"articolo 49 della Costituzione. Con la legge<br />
proposta, invece, si legge sempre nella relazione<br />
introduttiva, "intendiamo approvare anticipatamente,<br />
nei tempi più rapidi possibili, u<strong>na</strong> nuova normativa<br />
sulla trasparenza e sui controllo". "La proposta di legge<br />
- scrivono i firmatari Alfano, Bersani, Casini - se<br />
approvata, cambierà immediatamente le regole su<br />
alcuni aspetti cruciali della gestione fi<strong>na</strong>nziaria dei<br />
partiti".<br />
I sistemi di controllo<br />
. "Sono rese obbligatorie per legge la verifica e la<br />
certificazione dei bilanci dei partiti da parte di società<br />
di revisione esterne e indipendenti. I controlli esterni<br />
dei bilanci, superando il sistema di verifiche<br />
meramente formali effettuate dai revisori nomi<strong>na</strong>ti da<br />
Camera e Se<strong>na</strong>to, sono attribuiti alla commissione per<br />
la Trasparenza e il controllo dei bilanci dei partiti<br />
La Repubblica/ - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Constitución)<br />
politici. La commissione, che ha sede presso la<br />
Camera dei deputati, è composta da tre componenti<br />
individuati nelle persone del presidente della Corte dei<br />
Conti, del presidente del consiglio di Stato e del primo<br />
presidente della corte di Cassazione, ciascuno dei<br />
quali si avvale fino a un massimo di due magistrati<br />
appartenenti ai rispettivi ordini giurisdizio<strong>na</strong>li. La<br />
commissione è coordi<strong>na</strong>ta dal presidente della Corte<br />
dei Conti".<br />
Le sanzioni.<br />
"Chi agisce scorrettamente deve subire non u<strong>na</strong><br />
sospensione, come accade oggi, ma u<strong>na</strong> vera e<br />
propria decurtazione dei rimborsi elettorali, pari a tre<br />
volte la misura dell"irregolarità subita".<br />
La trasparenza<br />
. "Si abbassa da 50mila a 5mila euro la soglia oltre la<br />
quale i contributi ai partiti vanno dichiarati<br />
pubblicamente e i conti dei partiti vanno pubblicati<br />
obbligatoriamente in internet permettendo a tutti i<br />
cittadini di verificare dove i partiti si procurano le<br />
risorse e come le impiegano".<br />
152
Le Figaro/ - Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (La Cour Suprême)<br />
Vauzelle ne s'occupera pas de Cassez<br />
Michel Vauzelle, envoyé du candidat socialiste<br />
François Hollande au Mexique, a indiqué hier qu'il ne<br />
s'occuperait "absolument pas" de l'affaire Cassez lors<br />
de sa visite consacrée à des rencontres avec le<br />
gouvernement et les partis politiques. "L'affaire<br />
Florence Cassez, je ne m'en occupe absolument pas",<br />
a souligné à Mexico M. Vauzelle qui s'est dit "surpris<br />
par ce qui s'est passé". Il a estimé que le "buzz"<br />
médiatique créé autour de son déplacement n'a eu lieu<br />
que "parce que le président Sarkozy est aux abois".<br />
La mission de l'ancien ministre socialiste au Mexique<br />
avait provoqué samedi une polémique avec le camp<br />
de Nicolas Sarkozy qui a lancé contre François<br />
Hollande des accusations d'"instrumentalisation" de<br />
l'affaire de la Française, condamnée à 60 ans de<br />
prison pour enlèvement et dont la Cour suprême du<br />
Mexique examine actuellement le recours. Le directeur<br />
de campagne de François Hollande, Pierre Moscovici,<br />
avait confirmé que l'ex-ministre socialiste Michel<br />
Vauzelle se rendait au Mexique à partir de samedi<br />
pour "réparer le climat" entre la France et le Mexique<br />
après l'affaire Florence Cassez.<br />
Hollande "respecte l'indépendance de la justice<br />
mexicaine"<br />
"J'espère que l'initiative des socialistes ne portera pas<br />
préjudice à Florence, que j'ai au téléphone très<br />
régulièrement et qui mérite mieux que d'être utilisée<br />
d'une façon aussi basse", a déclaré le président<br />
Sarkozy samedi après-midi. Hier, François Hollande a<br />
dû assurer qu'il "n'avait jamais été question" que son<br />
émissaire au Mexique "porte un message" à propos de<br />
Florence Cassez. Affirmant "respecter l'indépendance<br />
de la justice mexicaine", le candidat socialiste à la<br />
présidentielle a déclaré qu'"il n'y a jamais eu d'initiative<br />
parallèle", dans un entretien publié par le Jour<strong>na</strong>l du<br />
Dimanche.<br />
A Mexico, M. Vauzelle a souligné qu'il était au Mexique<br />
pour rencontrer les principaux partis politiques<br />
mexicains afin de leur exposer le projet de François<br />
Hollande et préparer le sommet du G20 qui se<br />
déroulera à Los Cabos, au Mexique, les 18 et 19 juin,<br />
en cas d'élection du candidat socialiste à la<br />
présidence. Dans le programme de sa visite est<br />
notamment prévue une rencontre aujourd'hui avec la<br />
vice-ministre mexicaine des Affaires étrangères,<br />
Lourdes Aranda. Il doit aussi rencontrer plusieurs<br />
autres responsables mexicains avant de regagner la<br />
France mercredi.<br />
153
Le Monde/ - Idées, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Conseil Constitutionnel)<br />
André Vallini : "La gauche devra mettre<br />
fin au soupçon de partialité qui ronge<br />
l"autorité de la justice"<br />
André Vallini estime que "depuis cinq ans, la justice a<br />
été maltraitée par le pouvoir". | Olivier<br />
Laban-Mattei/Neus pour le Monde<br />
André Vallini, sé<strong>na</strong>teur de l"Isère et responsable du<br />
pôle justice pour le parti socialiste, détaille les mesures<br />
qu"entend prendre François Hollande en cas de<br />
victoire. Et notamment une profonde réforme du<br />
Conseil supérieur de la magistrature (CSM), qui serait<br />
associé à toutes les nomi<strong>na</strong>tions de magistrat, et<br />
désormais présidé par une person<strong>na</strong>lité de la société<br />
civile.Quel serait le calendrier des réformes de la<br />
justice la première année ? François Hollande a<br />
annoncé, s"il est élu, celle du Conseil supérieur de la<br />
magistrature (CSM) qui sera la clé de voûte de<br />
l"indépendance de la justice. Mais le plus attendu dans<br />
l"institution judiciaire, c"est d"abord de la sérénité et du<br />
respect car depuis cinq ans la justice a été maltraitée<br />
par le pouvoir, les magistrats stigmatisés et parfois<br />
même humiliés. Quant aux réformes, après le<br />
tourbillon législatif de ces dernières années,il faudra<br />
prendre le temps de la concertation pour remettre de<br />
la cohérence et aller vers une procédure pé<strong>na</strong>le<br />
moderne, conciliant l"efficacité et le respect des droits<br />
fondamentaux, en renforçant la collégialité et le<br />
contradictoire.En matière civile, François Hollande a<br />
évoqué le rapprochement des tribu<strong>na</strong>ux d"instance et<br />
de grande instance, pour que la justice du quotidien<br />
soit accessible à tous partout sur le territoire après les<br />
dégâts causés par la réforme brutale de la carte<br />
judiciaire en 2009.François Hollande aparlé aussi du<br />
regroupement dans une même juridiction des<br />
contentieux sociaux, aujourd"hui émiettés.Cette justice<br />
de l"aide sociale, du handicap, des pensions, des<br />
allocations familiales, doit être plus simple d"autant<br />
qu"elle concerne les plus humbles et les accidentés de<br />
la vie.Et les peines planchers ou la rétention de sûreté<br />
?François Hollande a annoncé qu"il abrogerait les<br />
peines planchers, parce qu"elles sont contraires au<br />
principe d"individualisation des peines, mais dans le<br />
cadre d"une politiqueglobale de lutte contre la récidive,<br />
en renforçant notamment les services pénitentiaires<br />
d"insertion et de probation.Quant à la rétention de<br />
sureté, qui n"est pas encore appliquée, il faudrait lui<br />
substituer le renforcement du suivi socio-judiciaire et<br />
de la surveillance judiciaire, pour ne pas remettre en<br />
liberté sans contrôle des individus dont les experts<br />
s"accordent à dire qu"ils présentent un danger réel<br />
pour la sécurité de nos concitoyens.Comment<br />
voyez-vous le nouveau CSM ?Comme une grande<br />
instance de régulation démocratique aussi<br />
prestigieuse et respectée que le CSM italien qui a<br />
résisté aux turpitudes judiciaires de Berlusconi. Il serait<br />
composéà égalité de magistrats et de non magistrats,<br />
nommés par une majorité renforcée des commissions<br />
des lois du parlement et présidé par une person<strong>na</strong>lité<br />
de lasociété civile reconnue pour son autorité morale.<br />
Ce CSM partagerait avec le ministre de la justice la<br />
gestion de la carrière des magistrats dont aucun ne<br />
pourrait être nommé sans son aval. Il serait associé<br />
aux réformes concer<strong>na</strong>nt la justice et pourrait avoir<br />
recours à l"Inspection des services<br />
judiciaires.Comment voyez-vous le futur parquet ?<br />
Après la série de nomi<strong>na</strong>tions partisanes intervenues<br />
ces dernières années, la gauche devra mettre fin au<br />
soupçon de partialité qui ronge l"autorité de la justice,<br />
en interdisant par la loi les instructions individuelles<br />
dans les affaires en cours.Vous conservez le lien<br />
hiérarchique avec les parquets ? Oui, car après avoir<br />
donné aux procureurs des garanties statutaires pour<br />
leur permettre de résister aux pressions, le<br />
gouvernement doit pouvoir faire appliquer sa politique<br />
pé<strong>na</strong>le par des instructions générales dont il devrait<br />
rendre compte au moins une fois par an devant le<br />
parlement mais aussi devant les commissions des lois<br />
aussi souvent qu"elles le souhaitent. La culture du<br />
contrôle parlementaire a beaucoup de progrès à faire<br />
en France.Maintenez-vous les décorations pour les<br />
magistrats ?Les interdire aux seulsmagistrats serait<br />
vexatoire et il faut poser le problème globalement.Et le<br />
Conseil constitutionnel ? Avec la QPC, il se transforme<br />
en cour constitutionnelle et n"a plus rien à voir avec<br />
celui de 1958. Les anciens présidents de la<br />
République ne devraient donc plus en faire partie et il<br />
faut aller vers une majorité renforcée pourla<br />
nomi<strong>na</strong>tion de ses membres.Entendez-vous supprimer<br />
la Cour de justice de la République ?Pour y avoirsiégé,<br />
je pense que c"est une instance qui judiciarise la<br />
politique et qui politise la justice. Elle renvoie de<br />
surcroit l"image d"une classe politique qui échappe au<br />
droit commun. Les ministres qui ont commis une<br />
infraction pé<strong>na</strong>le devraient être jugés parles tribu<strong>na</strong>ux<br />
ordi<strong>na</strong>ires et lorsque c"est une faute politique, ils<br />
doivent en répondre devant le parlement.Quelle<br />
politique pour les mineurs ? Il faut revenir aux<br />
154
fondamentaux de l"Ordon<strong>na</strong>nce de 1945, signée de la<br />
main du général De Gaulle : spécificité des juridictions,<br />
atténuation de la peine lié à la minorité, et primat de<br />
l"éducatif sur le répressif. Et renforcer les services de<br />
la Protection judiciaire de la jeunesse qui ont<br />
beaucoup souffert ces dernières années.Sur les<br />
prisons ? La fuite en avant versle tout carcéral ne<br />
résout rien comme on le voit depuis 2002, et il pèse<br />
d"un coût démesuré sur le budget de la justice. Aux<br />
courtes peines d"emprisonnement, il faut substituer<br />
des peines de milieu ouvert avec un suivi efficace et<br />
réserver l"emprisonnement aux cas strictement<br />
nécessaires pour en faire un temps utile, avec des<br />
établissements spécialisés et des parcours<br />
pénitentiaires person<strong>na</strong>lisés, comme au Ca<strong>na</strong>da. Il<br />
faut aussi, et c"est lié, garantir de meilleuresconditions<br />
de travail aux surveillants et des conditions de<br />
Le Monde/ - Idées, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Conseil Constitutionnel)<br />
détention respectueuses de la dignité humaine pour en<br />
finir avec les condam<strong>na</strong>tions par la Cour Européenne<br />
des droits de l"Homme qui sont une humiliation pour la<br />
France.Se pose la question des moyens ?C"est dans<br />
le domaine pénitentiaire que les créations de postes<br />
annoncées par François Hollande seront les plus<br />
utiles.Pensez-vous dépé<strong>na</strong>liser le can<strong>na</strong>bis ? Je pense<br />
que ce serait un mauvais sig<strong>na</strong>l. La lutte contre<br />
l"économie souterraine du trafic des drogues doit, en<br />
tout état de cause, constituer une priorité.Que<br />
garderiez-vous du bilan de Sarkozy ?La QPC bien sûr.<br />
Et aussi le contrôleur général des lieux de privation de<br />
liberté, d"autant que le titulaire, Jean-Marie Delarue<br />
effectue un travail remarquable. Enfin une réforme<br />
qu"avait préconisée la commission Outreau, celle qui<br />
permet à un justiciable de saisir le CSM.<br />
155
Los Tiempos/ - actualidad, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Caso Rózsa: Costas asegura que hubo<br />
"terrorismo de Estado"<br />
SANTA CRUZ |<br />
El gober<strong>na</strong>dor del departamento de Santa Cruz,<br />
Rubén Costas afirmó que el caso del grupo irregular<br />
de Eduardo Rózsa Flores demuestra que hubo<br />
terrorismo de Estado, argumentó que el suceso fue<br />
usado por el gobierno del presidente Evo Morales para<br />
afectar a sus opositores políticos.<br />
Hoy se cumplen tres años de la desarticulación del<br />
presunto grupo subversivo de Eduardo Rózsa que<br />
presumiblemente pretendía dividir el país en 2009, con<br />
la intervención policial al Hotel las Américas de Santa<br />
Cruz.<br />
"Yo creo que sí ha habido terrorismo, pero terrorismo<br />
de Estado y este es uno de los mejores casos. Como<br />
también fue terrorismo de Estado la pateadura a los<br />
pueblos indíge<strong>na</strong>s del TIPNIS y otros", afirmó Costas<br />
en declaraciones a la prensa.<br />
La autoridad departamental dijo que el partido en<br />
función de gobierno ha utilizado el caso de presunto<br />
terrorismo para atemorizar y la chantajear a perso<strong>na</strong>s<br />
e instituciones, aprovechando que el poder judicial<br />
está subordi<strong>na</strong>do al poder político.<br />
"Hay un sinnúmero de inocentes que no tiene <strong>na</strong>da<br />
que ver, pero con el fin de ajusticiar políticamente a<br />
sus adversarios los han aterrorizado. Hay mucha<br />
gente fuera del país y mucha gente quien está presa<br />
sufriendo", explicó el gober<strong>na</strong>dor cruceño.<br />
156
Reuters General/ - Article, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Kris Kobach: Immigration isn't just a<br />
federal matter<br />
By Terry Baynes<br />
Mon Apr 16, 2012 2:01pm EDT<br />
n">(Reuters) - The battle over illegal immigration<br />
heads to the U.S. Supreme Court next week, when<br />
the court will hear arguments for and against new<br />
Arizo<strong>na</strong> laws requiring police, employers and landlords<br />
to expose undocumented immigrants.<br />
Arizo<strong>na</strong> of course is not alone in its crackdown on<br />
illegal immigrants, with states including Alabama,<br />
Georgia, Utah, as well as a number of cities, passing<br />
similar measures.<br />
The movement's chief legal architect is 45-year old<br />
Kris Kobach, a former constitutio<strong>na</strong>l law professor,<br />
current secretary of state of Kansas and adviser to Mitt<br />
Romney on immigration issues.<br />
While Kobach is not arguing in the Arizo<strong>na</strong> case, he<br />
has been helping other states and cities defend their<br />
laws against challenges by the U.S. Justice<br />
Department and civil rights groups.<br />
Reuters' Terry Baynes recently discussed with Kobach<br />
the issue of state versus federal authority in<br />
immigration matters. The questions and answers were<br />
edited for clarity and brevity.<br />
Reuters: What do you think about immigration policy<br />
changes being forged in the courts?<br />
Kobach: Almost all of these cases center on the<br />
question of federal preemption -- whether or not states<br />
and cities can pass laws that regulate immigration<br />
alongside the federal government. Arizo<strong>na</strong> won a<br />
victory last year when the Supreme Court upheld its<br />
2007 legal workers law that requires employers to<br />
verify the immigration status of their employees. That<br />
sent a green light to all states and cities that if they<br />
want to require employers to run E-Verify searches on<br />
employees, they can.<br />
Reuters: Why isn't immigration an exclusively federal<br />
matter?<br />
Kobach: The federal government has primary authority<br />
over immigration, but the Supreme Court has ruled<br />
multiple times that states have spheres of activity<br />
where they can operate to discourage illegal<br />
immigration. It's an area of shared authority.<br />
Reuters: How do you respond to the Obama<br />
administration's argument that federal immigration law<br />
is not designed to ferret out every person unlawfully<br />
present in the United States but rather to serve a<br />
broader federal policy with its own set of priorities?<br />
Kobach: The federal immigration law written by<br />
Congress is very clear and uncompromising. It calls for<br />
enforcement across the board. The Obama<br />
administration's argument has been: 'We, the<br />
executive branch, choose to not enforce these laws.'<br />
It's a novel theory, but it doesn't square with<br />
preemption. Acts of Congress, treaties and the<br />
Constitution can preempt state laws. Executive<br />
pronouncements do not preempt.<br />
Reuters: Are you involved in the Arizo<strong>na</strong> case?<br />
Kobach: I submitted an amicus brief on behalf of<br />
Arizo<strong>na</strong>, addressing two <strong>na</strong>rrow issues. First, the<br />
executive branch cannot preempt the states. It must be<br />
Congress, and the acts of Congress do not express<br />
any attempt to push aside the involvement of the<br />
states. Second, the Department of Justice argues that<br />
the decision whether to deport a particular alien is a<br />
complicated one that the federal government needs to<br />
be able to make. But if you look at the federal<br />
immigration laws passed in 1996, Congress took away<br />
that prosecutorial discretion the Obama Justice<br />
Department claims it has.<br />
Reuters: What's the biggest challenge in the litigation<br />
over immigration laws?<br />
Kobach: Judges will sometimes have difficulty<br />
separating out the political arguments from the legal<br />
arguments. That's always a challenge, to make sure<br />
that the politics does not interfere with what should be<br />
an apolitical legal determi<strong>na</strong>tion concerning<br />
preemption.<br />
Reuters: How were the Arizo<strong>na</strong> and Alabama laws<br />
drafted to withstand legal challenges?<br />
Kobach: The state law must use the exact terminology<br />
of federal law. It must also define prohibited behavior<br />
at the state level so that it's perfectly congruent with<br />
prohibited activity at the federal level. One common<br />
misconception is that Arizo<strong>na</strong> was doing something<br />
new and different by requiring immigrants to carry their<br />
registration documents. But that's been required by<br />
federal law since the 1950s.<br />
157
Reuters: You've described these laws as part of a<br />
policy of "self-deportation." What do you mean?<br />
Kobach: There's a false dichotomy that constantly<br />
emerges when you see politicians talking about<br />
immigration. They'll say you can't round up 11 million<br />
people and enforce the law 100 percent, so amnesty is<br />
the only ratio<strong>na</strong>l way to move forward. But no serious<br />
thinker would say those are the only two approaches<br />
to a law enforcement problem. The ratio<strong>na</strong>l solution is<br />
to ratchet up the level of enforcement. Then illegal<br />
aliens will self-deport because the cost-benefit<br />
calculation changes.<br />
Reuters: A study by the Center for Business &<br />
Economic Research at the University of Alabama<br />
found that Alabama's new immigration law will shrink<br />
the state economy by $2.3 billion and cost the state<br />
70,000 jobs. What do you think about the economic<br />
impact of the new immigration laws?<br />
Kobach: The Alabama study did not consider the huge<br />
fiscal burden illegal immigration is placing on Alabama<br />
taxpayers. The other factor that needs to be<br />
considered is the benefit of removing Americans from<br />
welfare rolls and allowing them to work. Once illegal<br />
aliens are removed from the labor market, wages will<br />
inevitably come up.<br />
Reuters: What's your own immigration story?<br />
Kobach: My great grandparents came from Norway<br />
and Germany and settled in Wisconsin. They were<br />
farmers for the most part. I'm a fourth-generation<br />
American.<br />
Reuters: How did you become interested in<br />
Reuters General/ - Article, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
immigration reform?<br />
Kobach: One of the biggest epiphanies for me was the<br />
9/11 hijackings. I was working at the Justice<br />
Department for Attorney General John Ashcroft. All<br />
hijackers had come into the states legally, but five of<br />
the 19 became unlawfully present during their stays.<br />
Four of those five were apprehended by state and<br />
local police for traffic violations while they were in the<br />
country illegally. In none of those cases did the state or<br />
local officer have the information available to make an<br />
arrest and potentially foil the 9/11 plot. That realization<br />
was essential to my understanding of how critical<br />
federal and state cooperation is in this area.<br />
Reuters: What's the most influential law review article<br />
you've written?<br />
Kobach: In 2008, I published an article in the<br />
Georgetown Immigration Law Review, "Reinforcing the<br />
Rule of Law: What States Can and Should Do to<br />
Reduce Illegal Immigration." Arizo<strong>na</strong>'s SB 1070<br />
manifests many of the concepts that I prescribed in<br />
that article.<br />
Reuters: Has anything surprised you about how these<br />
laws have played out?<br />
Kobach: I didn't anticipate these state laws would<br />
become <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l issues in the way they have. I also<br />
never imaged the Justice Department would sue a<br />
state for trying to help the federal government enforce<br />
the law. That's never happened in American history<br />
before.<br />
(Reporting by Terry Baynes)<br />
158
Süddeutsche Zeitung/ - Politik, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Verfassungsgericht)<br />
Rederechts-Pläne sollen entschärft<br />
werden<br />
Die Kritik war heftig, mehrere Abgeordnete drohten<br />
sogar mit dem Gang vors Verfassungsgericht. Nun<br />
wollen die Bundestagsfraktionen von Union, SPD und<br />
FDP die von ihnen geplante Einschränkung des<br />
Rederechts für Abweichler noch einmal überdenken.<br />
Nach massiven Protesten wollen die Fraktionen den<br />
Streit um die Neuregelung des Rederechts von<br />
Bundestagsabgeordneten entschärfen. "Es gibt jetzt<br />
offenbar einen ersten Entwurf. Das wird im Ältestenrat<br />
von den Fraktionen in den nächsten Wochen weiter<br />
besprochen werden", kündigte der Parlamentarische<br />
Geschäftsführer der Unionsfraktion, Peter Altmaier, in<br />
Berlin an.<br />
Der CDU-Politiker geht <strong>na</strong>ch eigenen Worten davon<br />
aus, "dass wir eine einvernehmliche Regelung finden,<br />
die dem Rederecht des einzelnen Abgeordneten ein<br />
hohes Gewicht beimisst und die Funktionsfähigkeit des<br />
Parlamentes ermöglicht", fügte er hinzu. Aus der SPD<br />
verlautete, bisherige Pläne des<br />
Geschäftsordnungsausschusses, die auf eine<br />
Einschränkung des Rederechts für Abweichler in den<br />
eigenen Reihen hi<strong>na</strong>uslaufen, sollten in dieser Form<br />
nicht weiterverfolgt werden.<br />
Parlamentsgeschäftsführer Thomas Oppermann<br />
distanzierte sich von den Plänen: "Diese Vorschläge<br />
sind nicht ausgereift und werden so nicht kommen",<br />
sagte er. Die Fraktionen hätten noch gar keine<br />
Gelegenheit gehabt, die Empfehlungen des<br />
zuständigen Geschäftsordnungsausschusses zu<br />
beraten. Reformen der Geschäftsordnung sollten<br />
möglichst im Konsens mit allen Fraktionen<br />
verabschiedet werden. Beides sei nicht geschehen.<br />
"Deswegen wird es auch in der nächsten Woche keine<br />
Abstimmung im Bundestag geben", betonte<br />
Oppermann.<br />
Die Sozialdemokraten im Bundestag hätten deutlich<br />
gemacht, dass der vorliegende Vorschlag nicht<br />
ausgereift sei, sagte SPD-Generalsekretärin Andrea<br />
Nahles in Berlin. "Eine Einschränkung des Rederechts<br />
ist mit der SPD nicht zu machen", bekräftigte sie.<br />
Auch die FDP-Fraktion sig<strong>na</strong>lisierte<br />
Kompromissbereitschaft. Seine Fraktion werde<br />
"selbstverständlich auf die Kritiker zugehen, mit ihnen<br />
das Gespräch suchen und versuchen, eine von einer<br />
breiten Zustimmung getragene Lösung zu finden",<br />
sagte FDP-Parlamentsgeschäftsführer Jörg van Essen<br />
in Berlin.<br />
Nach einem Bericht der Süddeutschen Zeitung wollten<br />
CDU/CSU, FDP und SPD den Parlamentspräsidenten<br />
verpflichten, das Wort nur noch Rednern zu erteilen,<br />
die von ihren Fraktionen angemeldet wurden. Sie<br />
wollen so die Redezeit von Abgeordneten<br />
einschränken, die nicht der Mehrheitslinie ihrer<br />
Fraktion folgen. Darüber sollte ursprünglich am 26.<br />
April im Bundestag abgestimmt werden.<br />
Die Pläne hatten zuvor heftige Kritik ausgelöst,<br />
mehrere Abgeordnete drohten sogar mit dem Gang<br />
<strong>na</strong>ch Karlsruhe, darunter Klaus-Peter Willsch (CDU)<br />
und Frank Schäffler (FDP). Parlamentspräsident<br />
Norbert Lammert (CDU) hatte den zwei Abgeordneten<br />
in der Debatte um die Schuldenkrise Redezeit<br />
eingeräumt, obwohl sie von der Linie ihrer Fraktion<br />
abgewichen waren - und damit die Diskussion um die<br />
Neuregelung in Gang gesetzt.<br />
Abgeordnete wehren sich gegen Neuregelung<br />
"Ich werde mir nicht das Recht nehmen lassen, das zu<br />
sagen, was mein Gewissen gebietet, und wenn hier<br />
eingegriffen wird, dann muss man als freigewählter<br />
Abgeordneter dagegen vorgehen", sagte der<br />
CDU-Bundestagsabgeordnete Willsch im<br />
Deutschlandfunk. Notfalls bedeute das eine<br />
Verfassungsklage.<br />
"Die Fraktionsgeschäftsführer betrachten das<br />
Parlament als Gegenstand ihrer eigenen Inszenierung,<br />
bei der sie selbst Intendant sein wollen", sagte der als<br />
"Euro-Rebell" bekanntgewordene Willsch. Er habe sich<br />
gefragt, was als nächstes kommen solle,<br />
"Publizierungsverbot oder der Hausarrest".<br />
Der FDP-Abgeordnete Schäffler sieht für eine<br />
Verfassungsklage gute Chancen. "Das<br />
Verfassungsgericht hat immer die Rechte des<br />
Abgeordneten in solchen Fragen gestärkt", sagte er im<br />
Bayerischen Rundfunk. Zunächst müssten aber "die<br />
Abgeordneten selbst aufstehen, selbst ihren Mut<br />
zusammennehmen und gegen diese Tendenzen<br />
ankämpfen". Letztendlich gehe es um den Erhalt der<br />
parlamentarischen Demokratie.<br />
Auch der Grünen-Parlamentarier Hans-Christian<br />
Ströbele hält den Gang zum<br />
159
Bundesverfassungsgericht für vorstellbar. "Ich bin da<br />
guter Hoffnung, dass - wenn nicht die<br />
Fraktionsführungen von FDP, CDU, CSU und SPD<br />
jetzt zur Vernunft kommen - dass dann das<br />
Bundesverfassungsgericht hilft", sagte Ströbele im<br />
ZDF.<br />
Die Pläne zur Neuregelung des Rederechts stoßen<br />
auch bei CSU-Chef Horst Seehofer auf Unverständnis.<br />
"Es ist geradezu absurd, wenn im Bundestag jetzt<br />
versucht wird, das Rederecht von Abgeordneten mit<br />
abweichender Meinung zu beschneiden. Das ist eine<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung/ - Politik, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Verfassungsgericht)<br />
Entmündigung des Parlaments. Ich würde mir das als<br />
Abgeordneter nicht gefallen lassen", sagte er der<br />
Bild-Zeitung. Das sei auch eine Lektion, die man aus<br />
dem Erfolg der Piraten lernen könne, sagte Seehofer:<br />
"Der Erfolg der Piraten zeigt, dass die etablierten<br />
Parteien ihren Politik-Stil ändern müssen."<br />
"Ich sehe keine wirkliche Begründung für die Änderung<br />
der Geschäftsordnung", sagte<br />
Bundestagsvizepräsident Hermann Otto Solms (FDP)<br />
der Berliner Zeitung.<br />
160
Süddeutsche Zeitung/ - Politik, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Europäischen Gerichtshof )<br />
Gerichtshof verurteilt Russland wegen<br />
Katyn-Massakers<br />
"Unmenschlich" und "frappierend": Der Europäische<br />
Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte hat Russland mit<br />
scharfen Worten für die "menschenunwürdige<br />
Behandlung" von Angehörigen der Opfer des<br />
Massakers von Katyn 1940 gerügt. Die Richter<br />
kritisierten die Weigerung der Behörden, einer Witwe<br />
sowie neun Kindern von Getöteten Einsicht in die<br />
Ermittlungsakten zu geben.<br />
Mehr als sieben Jahrzehnte <strong>na</strong>ch dem Massaker an<br />
mehreren tausend Polen in Katyn haben zehn<br />
Hinterbliebene einen Sieg vor dem Europäischen<br />
Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte (EGMR) errungen.<br />
Die Straßburger Richter rügten die Weigerung<br />
Russlands, den Angehörigen Einsicht in die<br />
Ermittlungsakten zu geben.<br />
Die Kläger - eine Witwe und neun Kinder von bei dem<br />
Massaker getöteten Polen - hätten keinerlei offizielle<br />
Information über die Todesumstände der Männer<br />
erhalten, rügte der Gerichtshof. Dieses Verhalten sei<br />
"unmenschlich". Die Weigerung Russlands, die<br />
Realität des Kriegsverbrechens von Katyn<br />
einzugestehen, sei "frappierend", heißt es in dem<br />
Urteil. Der EGMR rügte Russland auch wegen<br />
unzureichender Zusamme<strong>na</strong>rbeit mit dem<br />
Gerichtshof, weil die russischen Behörden eine<br />
Übersendung von Akten über das Massaker unter<br />
Sowjetdiktator Josef Stalin abgelehnt hatten.<br />
Die russische Justiz habe die Anträge der<br />
Angehörigen auf Information über die Todesumstände<br />
und auf Rehabilitierung ihrer Familienmitglieder schroff<br />
abgewiesen. Konkret ging es um zwölf Opfer des<br />
Massakers, darunter Offiziere der Armee und der<br />
Polizei, einen Armee-Arzt und einen Schuldirektor. Sie<br />
waren <strong>na</strong>ch dem Einmarsch russischer Truppen in<br />
Polen gemeinsam mit etwa 22.000 Polen im April und<br />
Mai 1940 in Katyn und anderen Orten von der<br />
sowjetischen Geheimpolizei erschossen worden.<br />
Im Wald von Katyn bei Smolensk wurden mehr als<br />
4000 Leichen in Massengräbern verscharrt. Das<br />
Verbrechen hat die polnisch-russischen Beziehungen<br />
jahrzehntelang belastet, auch wenn die russische<br />
Staatsduma den Mord 2010 verurteilt hat. Das<br />
EGMR-Urteil ist nicht endgültig, dagegen kann<br />
Berufung beantragt werden.<br />
161
Reuters General/ - Article, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
U.S. cites Assurant unit over health<br />
premium hike<br />
WASHINGTON | Mon Apr 16, 2012 6:43pm EDT<br />
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials on Monday<br />
cited two health insurers for excessive premium<br />
increases, under consumer protection rules of<br />
President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law that<br />
could soon be nullified by the Supreme Court. The<br />
Department of Health and Human Services called on<br />
Assurant Inc's Time Insurance Co and Bedford Park,<br />
Illinois-based United Security Life and Health<br />
Insurance Co to either offer rebates to customers in six<br />
states or rescind premium hikes ranging up to 24<br />
percent."Assurant Health is committed to setting<br />
premium rates at a level that will allow us to continue<br />
to serve the needs of our customers. We maintain our<br />
recent rate filings are actuarially justified and<br />
appropriate," Assurant spokeswoman Susan Burkee<br />
said in a statement.United Security had no immediate<br />
comment.The recently announced rate hikes affect<br />
about 60,000 individual and small group insurance<br />
customers in Arizo<strong>na</strong>, Louisia<strong>na</strong>, Missouri, Monta<strong>na</strong>,<br />
Nebraska and Wyoming.The healthcare reform law,<br />
the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or<br />
ACA, faces a potential make-or-break Supreme Court<br />
ruling and repeated Republican election-year calls for<br />
its repeal."These increases are unreaso<strong>na</strong>ble for<br />
enrollees of these plans," said Gary Cohen, oversight<br />
director at the health department's Center for<br />
Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.The<br />
reform law requires insurers to justify premium<br />
increases of more than 10 percent but does not<br />
provide the government with authority to rescind those<br />
found excessive or unreaso<strong>na</strong>ble.Cohen said the rate<br />
changes also failed to meet federal standards requiring<br />
health insurers to devote at least 80 percent of higher<br />
premium revenues to healthcare services. But<br />
Assurant said its companies set their insurance rates<br />
in order to meet the requirement.The ACA, which does<br />
not come into full force until 2014, is intended mainly<br />
as a measure to extend health coverage to more than<br />
30 million uninsured Americans. But the legislation<br />
also includes a range of consumer protections and<br />
measures to improve care while reducing healthcare<br />
costs.Twenty-six states and an independent business<br />
group have asked the high court to overturn the<br />
healthcare law on grounds that it oversteps the<br />
authority of the federal government. A ruling, which<br />
could overturn the law in part or in whole, is expected<br />
by the end of June.The administration found that Time<br />
Insurance's rate hikes in five states were based on<br />
unreaso<strong>na</strong>ble assumptions by the company. Officials<br />
went further with United Security, saying a newly<br />
announced premium increase in Arizo<strong>na</strong> was<br />
unreaso<strong>na</strong>ble and that the company had not even tried<br />
to justify it.(Reporting By David Morgan; editing by<br />
Carol Bishopric)<br />
162
Reuters General/ - Article, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Supreme Court hears Glaxo overtime pay<br />
case<br />
By James Vicini<br />
WASHINGTON | Mon Apr 16, 2012 1:58pm EDT<br />
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court heard<br />
arguments on Monday on whether pharmaceutical<br />
companies must pay sales representatives overtime, a<br />
dispute that threatens the industry with billions of<br />
dollars in potential liability.<br />
The justices considered an appeal by two former sales<br />
representatives for a unit of Britain's GlaxoSmithKline<br />
Plc of a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals<br />
in California that they were "outside sales" personnel<br />
exempt from federal overtime pay requirements.<br />
That decision conflicted with an earlier ruling by the<br />
2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York that<br />
pharmaceutical sales representatives qualified for<br />
overtime under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.<br />
Paul Clement, a former Bush administration solicitor<br />
general now in private practice, argued for the Glaxo<br />
unit and said the representatives were exempt from<br />
overtime requirements.<br />
Clement cited a brief filed by the Pharmaceutical<br />
Research and Manufacturers of America trade group<br />
that said classifying sales representatives as eligible<br />
for overtime could expose the industry to potential<br />
liability of billions of dollars.<br />
The Federal Labor Standards Act generally requires<br />
companies to pay workers overtime, but includes<br />
numerous exemptions for certain white-collar workers,<br />
including those classified as "outside salesmen."<br />
Attorney Thomas Goldstein, representing the workers,<br />
said the main purpose of the representatives was to<br />
promote drugs in visits to doctors. "They tout drugs to<br />
doctors," he said.<br />
During the hour of arguments, the justices also<br />
considered a second issue of whether the U.S. Labor<br />
Department's interpretation of the law was owed<br />
deference.<br />
In 2009, the Labor Department sided with the former<br />
workers and said the exemption applied only if the<br />
representatives had been involved in a consummated<br />
sales transaction, but not when they just promoted<br />
drugs in visits to doctors.<br />
The two former Glaxo workers, Michael Christopher<br />
and Frank Bucha<strong>na</strong>n, said in their class-action lawsuit<br />
that they did not receive overtime for 10 to 20 hours<br />
worked each week, on average, outside the normal<br />
business day.<br />
Glaxo replied that pharmaceutical sales<br />
representatives typically got a base salary and<br />
performance-based commissions, and that the<br />
overtime requirements did not apply.<br />
A ruling by the Supreme Court is due by the end of<br />
June.<br />
The Supreme Court case is Christopher v. Smithkline<br />
Beecham Corp, No. 11-204.<br />
(Reporting by James Vicini; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)<br />
163
The New York Times/ - Politics, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Keeping a Promise to Home Care Aides<br />
Evelyn Coke, who died in 2009 at age 74, was a home<br />
care aide whose case for fair pay went to the<br />
Supreme Court in 2007, where she lost 9 to 0. At<br />
issue were federal rules that define home care aides<br />
as “companions,” a label that exempts employers from<br />
having to pay minimum wage and time-and-a-half for<br />
overtime. The justices said that only Congress or the<br />
Labor Department could change the rules.Pauline<br />
Beck is a home care aide in California. In 2007,<br />
then-Se<strong>na</strong>tor Barack Obama was paired with Ms. Beck<br />
for an event called “Walk a Day in My Shoes,” in which<br />
he worked for a day at her job caring for an<br />
86-year-old amputee.<br />
Last Dec. 15, with Ms. Beck at his side, President<br />
Obama invoked Ms. Coke’s memory and announced,<br />
“Today, we’re guaranteeing home care workers<br />
minimum-wage and overtime pay protections.” He was<br />
referring to sensible new rules, proposed by the Labor<br />
Department, to revise the companionship exemption.<br />
The problem is that the new rules have yet to be<br />
fi<strong>na</strong>lized, and could still be derailed or watered down.<br />
The Labor Department has until the end of May to<br />
digest thousands of comments on its proposal. Most of<br />
the comments were supportive, including those from<br />
home care agencies that already adhere to fair pay<br />
laws, professio<strong>na</strong>l health associations, labor activists<br />
and advocates for the elderly. Opposition came mainly<br />
from for-profit home care franchisees — a growing<br />
segment in a traditio<strong>na</strong>lly nonprofit industry — who<br />
said that fair pay would devastate affordable home<br />
care. That is the same argument that prevailed in<br />
2002, when reforms proposed at the end of the Clinton<br />
administration were spiked.<br />
This time around, proponents for change have been<br />
better organized and armed with research to rebut<br />
such claims. But now as then, for-profit agencies have<br />
taken their complaints to the Small Business<br />
Administration, setting up a conflict with the Labor<br />
Department.<br />
Even if the new rules survive the Labor Department<br />
review intact, they must then be approved by the White<br />
House Office of Ma<strong>na</strong>gement and Budget, a process<br />
that could bog down in the face of interagency<br />
disagreements. It will take Mr. Obama’s engaged<br />
leadership to ensure that the long-overdue new rules,<br />
which offer basic fairness for home care aides, are<br />
carried out.<br />
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Need help from the IRS? Prepare to wait<br />
At 12:30 p.m. Monday, about 50 people waited for help<br />
at the IRS center in Fort Myers, Fla. Another dozen<br />
who couldn't find seats stood in a line that stretched<br />
out the office suite door and into a lobby. At the walk-in<br />
center in East Harlem, N.Y., Belquis Castillo, 40, left in<br />
exasperation Monday afternoon after waiting more<br />
than an hour. Castillo needed copies of her 2010 tax<br />
return so her son can enroll in online college courses,<br />
but was told the computers were down.<br />
The long waits are the result of the IRS' expanded<br />
workload and diminished workforce, says IRS<br />
Taxpayer Advocate Ni<strong>na</strong> Olson, whose 2011 annual<br />
report identified i<strong>na</strong>dequate resources as the most<br />
serious problem facing taxpayers. In 1995, the IRS<br />
had a staff of 114,018 to process 205 million tax<br />
returns. In 2010, it had 90,907 people to process<br />
nearly 236 million tax returns. For this tax filing season,<br />
the IRS has 5,000 fewer employees than it did a year<br />
ago.<br />
"This is the lowest staffing level I've ever seen, and I've<br />
been with the IRS 26 years," says David Carrone,<br />
president of the Louisia<strong>na</strong> chapter of the Natio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). The New Orleans<br />
Taxpayer Assistance Center has six employees, down<br />
from 12 eight years ago, Carrone says. Sometimes, it<br />
doesn't even have that many: Louisia<strong>na</strong> has several<br />
one-person walk-in centers, and when that employee<br />
calls in sick, someone from the New Orleans office has<br />
to fill in. Increasing the IRS' budget has never been<br />
politically expedient, and the Republican Party's<br />
anti-tax message has made the agency even more<br />
unpopular, says Bruce Bartlett, an economist who<br />
worked in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush<br />
administrations.<br />
Beating up on the IRS is never going to hurt you<br />
politically, regardless of which party you're in, and<br />
we're paying the price for this kind of attitude." The IRS<br />
has sought to deal with limited resources by<br />
encouraging electronic filing and directing taxpayers to<br />
its website, IRS.gov. It offers an automated service for<br />
frequently asked questions and has launched a pilot<br />
program that uses video technology to connect<br />
taxpayers at walk-in centers with an IRS employee at<br />
another location, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman<br />
says. "We continue to innovate, and I think we serve<br />
the American people well, given the resources we<br />
have," he says. Nonetheless, there are times when<br />
taxpayers or tax preparers need to talk one-on-one<br />
with the IRS, and that's becoming increasingly difficult,<br />
says James Smith, a certified public accountant and<br />
former chairman of the Texas Society of Certified<br />
Public Accountants.<br />
Get all the latest news and information on paying your<br />
federal taxes. Smith says the hold times for his calls to<br />
the IRS range from 30 minutes to an hour and 45<br />
minutes. "I've had to ask my secretary to stay on hold<br />
so I can go to the bathroom." Staff shortages have also<br />
delayed IRS responses to letters from taxpayers<br />
seeking to resolve issues or set up payment plans,<br />
according to the NTEU. Some of these hold-ups can<br />
result in fi<strong>na</strong>ncial hardship for taxpayers, Smith says.<br />
One of his clients waited four months to get his refund<br />
after Smith filed an amended return. During that<br />
period, the client almost lost his home to foreclosure,<br />
Smith says. Why it's getting harder to get in touch with<br />
the IRS: ???Complexity. Between 2000 and 2010,<br />
Congress made 4,428 changes to the tax code,<br />
including 579 in 2010 alone, according to tax publisher<br />
CCH. Every time Congress adds a provision to the tax<br />
code, the IRS must update its computers, which<br />
increases its workload, Olson said in her 2011 report.<br />
The strain on IRS resources is compounded when the<br />
changes come late in the year, Olson said. In 2010, for<br />
example, Congress made significant changes in the<br />
tax code in late December, forcing the IRS to delay<br />
processing millions of tax returns that contained<br />
itemized deductions until mid-February. Next year's tax<br />
filing season could be even worse, Shulman said in<br />
recent remarks before the Natio<strong>na</strong>l Press Club. On<br />
Dec. 31 this year, the tax cuts adopted during the Bush<br />
administration are scheduled to expire.<br />
The payroll tax cut adopted by the Obama<br />
administration is also scheduled to end. In addition, a<br />
host of tax "extenders," including one that prevents a<br />
broad expansion of the alter<strong>na</strong>tive minimum tax,<br />
expired on Dec. 31 last year. There's broad<br />
disagreement between Democrats and Republicans<br />
about how to handle the expiring tax cuts, and a<br />
resolution before the November presidential election is<br />
unlikely, political a<strong>na</strong>lysts say.<br />
A late-year compromise could force the IRS to delay<br />
processing of 2012 tax returns for many taxpayers,<br />
Shulman said. If Congress waits until next year and<br />
165
makes retroactive changes, "you could have a real<br />
disaster in the filing season," he said. "It's an issue<br />
we're tracking very closely, and we're quite concerned<br />
about." ???Fraud. The IRS has become an<br />
increasingly popular target for identity thieves, who use<br />
stolen Social Security numbers to file fake tax returns<br />
and collect refunds. In January, the IRS arrested<br />
dozens of suspected identity thieves in 23 states as<br />
part of a <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l crackdown.<br />
Taxpayers usually don't know they've been targeted<br />
until their tax returns are rejected by the IRS. Some<br />
victims have had to wait up to a year to get their<br />
refunds while the IRS investigates the crime, says<br />
Lu-Ann Dominguez, a tax attorney in Fort Lauderdale.<br />
USA TODAY's perso<strong>na</strong>l fi<strong>na</strong>nce reporters offer help for<br />
the tax season. While the IRS has made significant<br />
progress in deterring identity theft, it lacks sufficient<br />
personnel to help those who have been victimized,<br />
Olson said in her annual report. Unlike many other IRS<br />
services, Olson said, assisting identity theft victims<br />
usually can't be automated.<br />
IRS personnel must work directly with victims to verify<br />
they are who they say they are and resolve the<br />
problem, she said. ???Other responsibilities. In<br />
addition to collecting $2.4 trillion in taxes, the IRS is<br />
increasingly being asked to administer other<br />
government programs. "Every time Congress does<br />
something new, it has to do with the tax code," says<br />
Lonnie Gary, chairman of government relations for the<br />
Natio<strong>na</strong>l Association of Enrolled Agents.<br />
For example, the IRS plays a key role in implementing<br />
the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration's<br />
health care law. Since 2010, the IRS has been<br />
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responsible for administering a provision in the law that<br />
provides a health care tax credit for small businesses.<br />
The IRS will also be responsible for administering the<br />
most controversial aspect of the law, if the Supreme<br />
Court doesn't overturn it: the individual insurance<br />
mandate. Starting in 2014, those who can afford health<br />
insurance and refuse to buy it will be subject to a fine<br />
of up to $695, to be assessed by the IRS.<br />
Requiring the IRS to ma<strong>na</strong>ge such programs distracts<br />
it from its primary mission of collecting tax revenue,<br />
says Do<strong>na</strong>ld Williamson, professor of taxation at<br />
American University's Kogod Tax Center. "The IRS is<br />
the IRS, not the pe<strong>na</strong>lty assessment bureau for people<br />
who don't have health insurance." President Obama<br />
has proposed a budget of $12.76 billion for the IRS in<br />
fiscal 2013, up nearly $945 million from the current<br />
fiscal year. While that's not enough to rebuild the IRS<br />
workforce to mid-1990s levels, "it would be a giant step<br />
in the right direction," says Colleen Kelley, president of<br />
the NTEU.<br />
Still, increasing the IRS' budget won't address a more<br />
fundamental problem, says Mark Robyn, an economist<br />
for the Tax Foundation, a non-partisan organization<br />
that supports low taxes. Currently, he says, the tax<br />
code is so complex that average taxpayers can't<br />
prepare their returns without professio<strong>na</strong>l help. Olson<br />
agrees that the tax code is too complex, but says that's<br />
no excuse for poor service. If individuals with<br />
questions about their taxes can't get help from the IRS,<br />
she says, "you're really harming taxpayer trust." Mary<br />
Wright, an IRS employee and president of the NTEU<br />
chapter in Colorado, agrees. "Most people want to be<br />
compliant," she says. "But the tax code is complicated,<br />
and they need help."<br />
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More American workers sue employers<br />
for overtime pay<br />
Americans were pushed to their limit in the recession<br />
and its aftermath as they worked longer hours, often<br />
for the same or less pay, after businesses laid off<br />
almost 9 million employees. Now, many are striking<br />
back in court. Since the height of the recession in<br />
2008, more workers across the <strong>na</strong>tion have been suing<br />
employers under federal and state wage-and-hour<br />
laws. The number of lawsuits filed last year was up<br />
32% vs. 2008, an increase that some experts partly<br />
attribute to a post-downturn austerity that pervaded the<br />
American workplace and artificially inflated<br />
productivity. Workers' main grievance is that they had<br />
to put in more than 40 hours a week without overtime<br />
pay through various practices: ???T<br />
hey were forced to work off the clock. ???Their jobs<br />
were misclassified as exempt from overtime<br />
requirements. ???Because of smartphones and other<br />
technology, work bled into their perso<strong>na</strong>l time. "The<br />
recession (put) more pressure on businesses to<br />
squeeze workers and cut costs," says Catherine<br />
Ruckelshaus, legal co-director of the Natio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Employment Law Project. If employers had to bear the<br />
actual expense of overtime, she says, they likely would<br />
have hired more workers in the economic recovery. In<br />
response, employers are playing defense.<br />
They're drawing clearer lines between workers and<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>gers, and in many cases, reining in modern office<br />
privileges, such as company-issued smartphones and<br />
telecommuting. The upshot, in many instances, could<br />
be a very different American workplace. Courts,<br />
meanwhile, must reconcile decades-old labor laws with<br />
ever-evolving technology.<br />
The spread of BlackBerrys and iPhones has many<br />
workers tethered to employers, for better or worse,<br />
even during off hours and vacations. The controversy<br />
has reached the Supreme Court, but in a case<br />
involving an age-old profession: sales. Monday, the<br />
justices will hear oral arguments in a class-action<br />
lawsuit against drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline.<br />
Pharmaceutical sales representatives ??" traditio<strong>na</strong>lly<br />
classified as exempt from overtime pay ??" say they've<br />
been misclassified, a stance backed by the Labor<br />
Department in another case. Glaxo says the sales<br />
force clearly is exempt under current law. Legacy of<br />
another time Employers say the explosion of lawsuits<br />
shows how the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)<br />
??" at the center of the Glaxo case ??" has become<br />
outmoded in an age when most employees want the<br />
flexibility to work at home or answer office e-mail while<br />
running about on their free time.<br />
"The law has not kept pace with the contemporary<br />
workplace," says Randy MacDo<strong>na</strong>ld, IBM's head of<br />
human resources. Many companies have reclassified<br />
salaried executives as hourly employees ??" often to<br />
the conster<strong>na</strong>tion of the workers themselves, says Dan<br />
Yager, general counsel of the HR Policy Association,<br />
which represents human resource professio<strong>na</strong>ls. Such<br />
a strategy lets employers head off lawsuits by paying a<br />
lower basic wage that accounts for expected overtime.<br />
Under the FLSA, employees are entitled to overtime<br />
unless they're executives who ma<strong>na</strong>ge and hire and<br />
fire employees; administrators who make key<br />
decisions; or professio<strong>na</strong>ls ??" such as lawyers and<br />
engineers ??" with advanced degrees, among other<br />
criteria. Also exempt are certain information<br />
technology workers and sales representatives whose<br />
hours can't easily be tracked. Employees must earn at<br />
least $455 a week to be exempt.<br />
While all hourly employees are entitled to overtime,<br />
salaried workers may also qualify if they don't fall<br />
under any of the exemptions. Last year, 7,006<br />
wage-and-hour suits, many of them class actions, were<br />
filed in federal court, nearly quadruple the 2000 total,<br />
according to defense law firm Seyfarth Shaw.<br />
Meanwhile, in fiscal 2011, the Labor Department<br />
recovered $225 million in back wages for employees,<br />
up 28% from fiscal 2010. Labor has added 300<br />
wage-and-hour investigators the past two years,<br />
increasing its staff by 40% to 1,050.<br />
The department "has stepped up its efforts to protect<br />
workers," particularly "in high-risk industries that<br />
employ low-wage and vulnerable workers," such as<br />
hotels and restaurants, says Nancy Leppink, deputy<br />
administrator of the wage-and-hour division. Several<br />
attorneys for plaintiff workers say employers wrung<br />
more output from fewer employees during recoveries<br />
following the 2001 and 2007-09 recessions. Both<br />
upturns initially yielded sluggish job growth.<br />
"A lot of companies make a business decision to say,<br />
'We can cut corners on this, and we won't get sued,' "<br />
says plaintiffs' attorney David Schlesinger of Nichols<br />
Kaster in Minneapolis. productivity, or output per labor<br />
hour, rose 2.3% in 2009 and 4% in 2010 ??" a period<br />
167
that includes the recession's fi<strong>na</strong>l months and its<br />
aftermath ??" vs. increases of 0.6% to 1.6% the<br />
previous four years. Some economists say the gains<br />
are overstated because many overtime hours were not<br />
properly counted, as employees worked off the clock.<br />
Richard Alfred, chairman of Seyfarth Shaw's<br />
wage-and-hour practice, has a different view. He<br />
agrees that the recession helped drive the growth in<br />
lawsuits, but he says that's because many laid-off<br />
workers became lead plaintiffs in class-action suits to<br />
reap fi<strong>na</strong>ncial windfalls after they couldn't find new<br />
jobs.<br />
The biggest reason for the lawsuit surge, he says, is<br />
that lucrative settlements a decade ago prompted<br />
labor lawyers to file copycat complaints, and the suits<br />
are far simpler and less costly to pursue than<br />
discrimi<strong>na</strong>tion cases. With class-action cases<br />
exposing companies to multimillion-dollar judgments,<br />
"the liability becomes so substantial that a vast<br />
majority of these cases settle," says Garry Mathiason,<br />
vice chairman of Littler Mendelson, which defends<br />
companies in such lawsuits. Case in point: In<br />
November, Oracle agreed to pay $35 million to settle<br />
claims by 1,666 software testers, technical a<strong>na</strong>lysts<br />
and project ma<strong>na</strong>gers that they were denied overtime<br />
because they were misclassified as administrators or<br />
professio<strong>na</strong>ls.<br />
The company did not admit wrongdoing. The vice of<br />
technology The newest variety of plaintiff is a worker<br />
with a handheld device. Jeffrey Allen, a sergeant in the<br />
organized crime unit of the Chicago Police<br />
Department, says he got a near-constant barrage of<br />
e-mails, text messages and calls on his<br />
department-issued BlackBerry until around 10 p.m.<br />
every weeknight. Each required a response lasting<br />
from a minute to an hour or two, he says. While dining<br />
with his family, mowing the lawn or watching his son<br />
play soccer, Allen often had to step away to coordi<strong>na</strong>te<br />
search warrants and compile reports on seized assets,<br />
among other tasks. Two years ago, he filed a<br />
class-action suit against the city on behalf of himself<br />
and other hourly paid police officials. Allen says they're<br />
owed back overtime pay from 2007 to 2010.<br />
The case is pending. "You feel like you don't really get<br />
a break from your job," says Allen, 47, who still works<br />
for the department, but in a different role. Roderick<br />
Drew, a spokesman for the city's law department, says<br />
it's policy to let police officials request overtime. In a<br />
legal filing, the city argued that Allen failed to show that<br />
his communications were more than an insignificant<br />
amount. Some courts have said that applies to<br />
anything less than 10 or 15 minutes.<br />
Other wage-and-hour cases seek compensation for<br />
off-the-clock work in the office. In a class-action<br />
complaint filed in February against Verizon Wireless,<br />
customer service representative Heather Jennings<br />
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says she had to be at a Mankato, Minn., call center 10<br />
to 15 minutes before her shift officially started.<br />
Jennings says workers such as herself had to log into<br />
their computers and open databases so they were<br />
ready to take calls. "I thought it was unfair," says<br />
Jennings, 31, who was laid off by Verizon last May.<br />
Verizon spokesman Tom Pica says the company<br />
"compensates its employees fairly and fully." In a legal<br />
filing, Verizon said that Jennings' pre-shift activities<br />
were minimal and that she failed to take advantage of<br />
complaint procedures at the time. Other lawsuits allege<br />
that employers gave workers fancy titles to avoid<br />
paying overtime.<br />
Richard DeLeon is among more than 750 current and<br />
former assistant store ma<strong>na</strong>gers of Big Lots in Florida<br />
suing the discount department store chain. DeLeon,<br />
57, says he spent his workday running cash registers,<br />
unloading trucks and tidying the Cutler Ridge, Fla.,<br />
store. He says ma<strong>na</strong>gerial functions ??" such as<br />
assigning tasks to employees ??" took up 10% to 15%<br />
of his time, but he couldn't hire, fire or discipline<br />
workers.<br />
DeLeon says he typically worked about 60 hours a<br />
week and earned $43,000 a year. His workload<br />
increased, he says, when ma<strong>na</strong>gers had to run stores<br />
with fewer employees in 2009. "This is really a game<br />
plan by the company to keep labor costs down," says<br />
DeLeon's lawyer, Mitchell Feldman of Feldman Fox &<br />
Morgado. Big Lots did not return messages seeking<br />
comment. In court papers, the company said the<br />
"primary duty" of the lawsuit's lead plaintiff, Angela<br />
Schenburn, was assistant ma<strong>na</strong>ger, but "at times" she<br />
may have done lower-level tasks "concurrently."<br />
Even office workers who sometimes earn $100,000 a<br />
year, such as securities brokers and fi<strong>na</strong>ncial advisers,<br />
are demanding overtime pay, arguing they're just<br />
salespeople rather than key decision-makers. In a<br />
class-action case, Scott Finger, 46, a former MetLife<br />
mortgage loan officer, says he had to work about 65<br />
hours a week at the firm's Melville, N.Y., office to meet<br />
sales targets while earning about $5,700 a month in<br />
commissions. While he recommended whether to<br />
approve loans, he says, underwriters made the fi<strong>na</strong>l<br />
decisions. MetLife spokesman Ted Mitchell would not<br />
comment on pending litigation.<br />
The company has asked a judge to dismiss the case,<br />
saying it duplicates a previously filed suit. A changing<br />
workplace Companies say the lawsuits have forced<br />
them to grant workers less flexibility. Several years<br />
ago, IBM voluntarily reclassified 7,000 salaried<br />
technical and support workers earning an average<br />
$77,000 a year to hourly employees after it settled a<br />
class-action labor suit for $65 million.<br />
The company cut their base salaries 15% to account<br />
for potential overtime, says IBM's MacDo<strong>na</strong>ld. IBM's<br />
168
Shar Anderson oversaw 20 workers in a customer<br />
service group. "It made me feel less valuable to the<br />
company," says Anderson, 55, who has a bachelor's<br />
degree in computer science and several professio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
certifications. Anderson, who's now in a similar but<br />
higher-level salaried position, says she "wasn't able to<br />
do my job" because she sometimes had to hand off<br />
emergency responses to colleagues after 5 p.m. In a<br />
survey by the HR Policy Association last year, a third<br />
of the 155 large member firms that responded said<br />
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they've restricted telecommuting as a result of the<br />
lawsuits, and 56% said they've curbed the use of<br />
communications devices outside the office. John<strong>na</strong><br />
Torsone, head of human resources for mailing systems<br />
maker Pitney Bowes, says the firm would like to give<br />
about 30 overtime-eligible sales support staffers the<br />
ability to work from home but has held back while<br />
searching for a way to track their time. "You just don't<br />
take the risk," she says.<br />
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Can an undocumented immigrant be<br />
admitted to the Fla. Bar?<br />
The Florida Board of Bar Examiners is asking the state<br />
Supreme Court to determine whether it can admit<br />
someone who is not in the country legally, the Sun<br />
Sentinel reports.<br />
The issue involves aspiring lawyer Jose<br />
Godinez-Samperio, 25, a Tampa-area resident and<br />
<strong>na</strong>tive of Mexico who entered the United States with<br />
his parents 16 years ago on a tourist visa and didn't<br />
leave. In the meantime, he became valedictorian of his<br />
high school class of 2004 and graduated from the<br />
Florida State University College of Law.<br />
"No one who has shown this guy's level of contempt<br />
for American law should be practicing law," William<br />
Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration,<br />
a political action committee that opposes amnesty for<br />
undocumented immigrants, tells the newspaper.<br />
Godinez-Samperio's a attorney and former law<br />
professor, Sandy D'Alemberte, who is also a former<br />
state lawmaker, former president of FSU and former<br />
president of the American Bar Association, disagrees,<br />
arguing that "it is unfair to deny him the credentials<br />
he's earned." Some supporters say that while<br />
Godinez-Samperio would not be permitted to earn a<br />
living legally as an undocumented immigrant, he could<br />
handle pro bono cases with a Bar card. The Sun<br />
Sentinel says the state Board of Bar Examiners began<br />
requiring exam-takers to submit proof of immigration<br />
status in 2008, but waived it for Godinez-Samperio,<br />
who disclosed his status and argued that<br />
documentation was not required as a rule for<br />
admission to the Bar.<br />
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More U.S. workers sue employers for<br />
overtime<br />
Americans were pushed to their limit in the recession<br />
and its aftermath as they worked longer hours, often<br />
for the same or less pay, after businesses laid off<br />
almost 9 million employees. Now, many are striking<br />
back in court. Since the height of the recession in<br />
2008, more workers across the <strong>na</strong>tion have been suing<br />
employers under federal and state wage-and-hour<br />
laws. The number of lawsuits filed last year was up<br />
32% vs.<br />
2008, an increase that some experts partly attribute to<br />
a post-downturn austerity that pervaded the American<br />
workplace and artificially inflated productivity. Workers'<br />
main grievance is that they had to put in more than 40<br />
hours a week without overtime pay through various<br />
practices: â¢They were forced to work off the clock.<br />
â¢Their jobs were misclassified as exempt from<br />
overtime requirements. â¢Because of smartphones<br />
and other technology, work bled into their perso<strong>na</strong>l<br />
time.<br />
"The recession (put) more pressure on businesses to<br />
squeeze workers and cut costs," says Catherine<br />
Ruckelshaus, legal co-director of the Natio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Employment Law Project. If employers had to bear the<br />
actual expense of overtime, she says, they likely would<br />
have hired more workers in the economic recovery. In<br />
response, employers are playing defense. They're<br />
drawing clearer lines between workers and ma<strong>na</strong>gers,<br />
and in many cases, reining in modern office privileges,<br />
such as company-issued smartphones and<br />
telecommuting. The upshot, in many instances, could<br />
be a very different American workplace. Courts,<br />
meanwhile, must reconcile decades-old labor laws with<br />
ever-evolving technology.<br />
The spread of BlackBerrys and iPhones has many<br />
workers tethered to employers, for better or worse,<br />
even during off hours and vacations. The controversy<br />
has reached the Supreme Court, but in a case<br />
involving an age-old profession: sales. Monday, the<br />
justices will hear oral arguments in a class-action<br />
lawsuit against drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline.<br />
Pharmaceutical sales representatives â traditio<strong>na</strong>lly<br />
classified as exempt from overtime pay â say they've<br />
been misclassified, a stance backed by the Labor<br />
Department in another case. Glaxo says the sales<br />
force clearly is exempt under current law.<br />
Legacy of another time Employers say the explosion of<br />
lawsuits shows how the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act<br />
(FLSA) â at the center of the Glaxo case â has<br />
become outmoded in an age when most employees<br />
want the flexibility to work at home or answer office<br />
e-mail while running about on their free time.<br />
"The law has not kept pace with the contemporary<br />
workplace," says Randy MacDo<strong>na</strong>ld, IBM's head of<br />
human resources. Many companies have reclassified<br />
salaried executives as hourly employees â often to the<br />
conster<strong>na</strong>tion of the workers themselves, says Dan<br />
Yager, general counsel of the HR Policy Association,<br />
which represents human resource professio<strong>na</strong>ls. Such<br />
a strategy lets employers head off lawsuits by paying a<br />
lower basic wage that accounts for expected overtime.<br />
Under the FLSA, employees are entitled to overtime<br />
unless they're executives who ma<strong>na</strong>ge and hire and<br />
fire employees; administrators who make key<br />
decisions; or professio<strong>na</strong>ls â such as lawyers and<br />
engineers â with advanced degrees, among other<br />
criteria. Also exempt are certain information<br />
technology workers and sales representatives whose<br />
hours can't easily be tracked. Employees must earn at<br />
least $455 a week to be exempt. While all hourly<br />
employees are entitled to overtime, salaried workers<br />
may also qualify if they don't fall under any of the<br />
exemptions. Last year, 7,006 wage-and-hour suits,<br />
many of them class actions, were filed in federal court,<br />
nearly quadruple the 2000 total, according to defense<br />
law firm Seyfarth Shaw.<br />
Meanwhile, in fiscal 2011, the Labor Department<br />
recovered $225 million in back wages for employees,<br />
up 28% from fiscal 2010. Labor has added 300<br />
wage-and-hour investigators the past two years,<br />
increasing its staff by 40% to 1,050. The department<br />
"has stepped up its efforts to protect workers,"<br />
particularly "in high-risk industries that employ<br />
low-wage and vulnerable workers," such as hotels and<br />
restaurants, says Nancy Leppink, deputy administrator<br />
of the wage-and-hour division. Several attorneys for<br />
plaintiff workers say employers wrung more output<br />
from fewer employees during recoveries following the<br />
2001 and 2007-09 recessions.<br />
Both upturns initially yielded sluggish job growth. "A lot<br />
of companies make a business decision to say, 'We<br />
can cut corners on this, and we won't get sued,' " says<br />
plaintiffs' attorney David Schlesinger of Nichols Kaster<br />
in Minneapolis. productivity, or output per labor hour,<br />
rose 2.3% in 2009 and 4% in 2010 â a period that<br />
includes the recession's fi<strong>na</strong>l months and its aftermath<br />
171
â vs. increases of 0.6% to 1.6% the previous four<br />
years. Some economists say the gains are overstated<br />
because many overtime hours were not properly<br />
counted, as employees worked off the clock. Richard<br />
Alfred, chairman of Seyfarth Shaw's wage-and-hour<br />
practice, has a different view. He agrees that the<br />
recession helped drive the growth in lawsuits, but he<br />
says that's because many laid-off workers became<br />
lead plaintiffs in class-action suits to reap fi<strong>na</strong>ncial<br />
windfalls after they couldn't find new jobs.<br />
The biggest reason for the lawsuit surge, he says, is<br />
that lucrative settlements a decade ago prompted<br />
labor lawyers to file copycat complaints, and the suits<br />
are far simpler and less costly to pursue than<br />
discrimi<strong>na</strong>tion cases. With class-action cases<br />
exposing companies to multimillion-dollar judgments,<br />
"the liability becomes so substantial that a vast<br />
majority of these cases settle," says Garry Mathiason,<br />
vice chairman of Littler Mendelson, which defends<br />
companies in such lawsuits.<br />
Case in point: In November, Oracle agreed to pay $35<br />
million to settle claims by 1,666 software testers,<br />
technical a<strong>na</strong>lysts and project ma<strong>na</strong>gers that they<br />
were denied overtime because they were misclassified<br />
as administrators or professio<strong>na</strong>ls. The company did<br />
not admit wrongdoing. The vice of technology The<br />
newest variety of plaintiff is a worker with a handheld<br />
device. Jeffrey Allen, a sergeant in the organized crime<br />
unit of the Chicago Police Department, says he got a<br />
near-constant barrage of e-mails, text messages and<br />
calls on his department-issued BlackBerry until around<br />
10 p.m. every weeknight.<br />
Each required a response lasting from a minute to an<br />
hour or two, he says. While dining with his family,<br />
mowing the lawn or watching his son play soccer,<br />
Allen often had to step away to coordi<strong>na</strong>te search<br />
warrants and compile reports on seized assets, among<br />
other tasks. Two years ago, he filed a class-action suit<br />
against the city on behalf of himself and other hourly<br />
paid police officials. Allen says they're owed back<br />
overtime pay from 2007 to 2010.<br />
The case is pending. "You feel like you don't really get<br />
a break from your job," says Allen, 47, who still works<br />
for the department, but in a different role. Roderick<br />
Drew, a spokesman for the city's law department, says<br />
it's policy to let police officials request overtime. In a<br />
legal filing, the city argued that Allen failed to show that<br />
his communications were more than an insignificant<br />
amount. Some courts have said that applies to<br />
anything less than 10 or 15 minutes. Other<br />
wage-and-hour cases seek compensation for<br />
off-the-clock work in the office. In a class-action<br />
complaint filed in February against Verizon Wireless,<br />
customer service representative Heather Jennings<br />
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says she had to be at a Mankato, Minn., call center 10<br />
to 15 minutes before her shift officially started.<br />
Jennings says workers such as herself had to log into<br />
their computers and open databases so they were<br />
ready to take calls. "I thought it was unfair," says<br />
Jennings, 31, who was laid off by Verizon last May.<br />
Verizon spokesman Tom Pica says the company<br />
"compensates its employees fairly and fully." In a legal<br />
filing, Verizon said that Jennings' pre-shift activities<br />
were minimal and that she failed to take advantage of<br />
complaint procedures at the time.<br />
Other lawsuits allege that employers gave workers<br />
fancy titles to avoid paying overtime. Richard DeLeon<br />
is among more than 750 current and former assistant<br />
store ma<strong>na</strong>gers of Big Lots in Florida suing the<br />
discount department store chain. DeLeon, 57, says he<br />
spent his workday running cash registers, unloading<br />
trucks and tidying the Cutler Ridge, Fla., store. He<br />
says ma<strong>na</strong>gerial functions â such as assigning tasks to<br />
employees â took up 10% to 15% of his time, but he<br />
couldn't hire, fire or discipline workers. DeLeon says<br />
he typically worked about 60 hours a week and earned<br />
$43,000 a year. His workload increased, he says,<br />
when ma<strong>na</strong>gers had to run stores with fewer<br />
employees in 2009.<br />
"This is really a game plan by the company to keep<br />
labor costs down," says DeLeon's lawyer, Mitchell<br />
Feldman of Feldman Fox & Morgado. Big Lots did not<br />
return messages seeking comment. In court papers,<br />
the company said the "primary duty" of the lawsuit's<br />
lead plaintiff, Angela Schenburn, was assistant<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>ger, but "at times" she may have done<br />
lower-level tasks "concurrently." Even office workers<br />
who sometimes earn $100,000 a year, such as<br />
securities brokers and fi<strong>na</strong>ncial advisers, are<br />
demanding overtime pay, arguing they're just<br />
salespeople rather than key decision-makers. In a<br />
class-action case, Scott Finger, 46, a former MetLife<br />
mortgage loan officer, says he had to work about 65<br />
hours a week at the firm's Melville, N.Y., office to meet<br />
sales targets while earning about $5,700 a month in<br />
commissions. While he recommended whether to<br />
approve loans, he says, underwriters made the fi<strong>na</strong>l<br />
decisions.<br />
MetLife spokesman Ted Mitchell would not comment<br />
on pending litigation. The company has asked a judge<br />
to dismiss the case, saying it duplicates a previously<br />
filed suit. A changing workplace Companies say the<br />
lawsuits have forced them to grant workers less<br />
flexibility. Several years ago, IBM voluntarily<br />
reclassified 7,000 salaried technical and support<br />
workers earning an average $77,000 a year to hourly<br />
employees after it settled a class-action labor suit for<br />
$65 million.<br />
The company cut their base salaries 15% to account<br />
for potential overtime, says IBM's MacDo<strong>na</strong>ld. IBM's<br />
172
Shar Anderson oversaw 20 workers in a customer<br />
service group. "It made me feel less valuable to the<br />
company," says Anderson, 55, who has a bachelor's<br />
degree in computer science and several professio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
certifications. Anderson, who's now in a similar but<br />
higher-level salaried position, says she "wasn't able to<br />
do my job" because she sometimes had to hand off<br />
emergency responses to colleagues after 5 p.m. In a<br />
survey by the HR Policy Association last year, a third<br />
of the 155 large member firms that responded said<br />
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they've restricted telecommuting as a result of the<br />
lawsuits, and 56% said they've curbed the use of<br />
communications devices outside the office. John<strong>na</strong><br />
Torsone, head of human resources for mailing systems<br />
maker Pitney Bowes, says the firm would like to give<br />
about 30 overtime-eligible sales support staffers the<br />
ability to work from home but has held back while<br />
searching for a way to track their time. "You just don't<br />
take the risk," she says.<br />
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Influential African-American MLB<br />
players<br />
Jackie Robinson, shown here in 1952, broke the color<br />
barrier and changed baseball forever. Brooklyn<br />
Dodgers ma<strong>na</strong>ger Leo Durocher, left, shakes hands<br />
with Robinson, then with the Montreal Royals, prior to<br />
an exhibition game in Hava<strong>na</strong>, Cuba, in 1947. The<br />
Miami Marlins' Leroy "Satchel" Paige was the first<br />
African-American pitcher to pitch in a World Series<br />
game.<br />
Hank Aaron, shown here in 1967 with the Atlanta<br />
Braves, played in the MLBfrom 1954 through 1976,<br />
and is considered one of the best players of all time.<br />
Ernie Banks played for 19 seasons on the Chicago<br />
Cubs, from 1953 through 1971, and was elected to the<br />
Natio<strong>na</strong>l Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977. Former St.<br />
Louis Cardi<strong>na</strong>ls center fielder Curt Flood, left, became<br />
one of the pivotal figures in the sport's labor when he<br />
refused to accept a trade following the 1969 season,<br />
ultimately appealing his case to the U.S. Supreme<br />
Court. Although his legal challenge was unsuccessful,<br />
it brought about additio<strong>na</strong>l solidarity among players as<br />
they fought against baseball's reserve clause and<br />
sough free agency.<br />
Former Cleveland Indians outfielder Larry Doby was<br />
the first African-American player and pinch hitter in the<br />
American League. Buck O'Neil became the first<br />
African-American coach in the MLB with the Kansas<br />
City Mo<strong>na</strong>rchs. San Francisco Giants' Barry Bonds,<br />
left, sits with his father, Bobby Bonds, right, in the<br />
Giants' dugout during a 2002 game.<br />
Barry holds the MLB record for most home runs in a<br />
season with 73. Cincin<strong>na</strong>ti Reds outfielder , right, sits<br />
with his father, Reds coach Ken Griffey Sr. during a<br />
game in 2001. Griffey played from 1989 to 2001 to<br />
2010 and was considered the best player in the game<br />
during his prime. He is tied for the record of most<br />
consecutive games with a home run. Cincin<strong>na</strong>ti Reds<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>ger Dusty Baker, right, is one of two<br />
African-American ma<strong>na</strong>gers in the MLB, with the other<br />
being Ron Washington of the Texas Rangers.<br />
174
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Black baseball players declining<br />
ST. LOUIS â Major League Baseball, celebrating<br />
Jackie Robinson Day on Sunday, has the lowest<br />
percentage of African-American players since the<br />
earliest days of the sport's integration, according to<br />
research conducted by USA TODAY Sports. The<br />
African-American population in baseball this season<br />
has plummeted to 8.05%, less than half the 17.25% in<br />
1959 when the became the last team to integrate their<br />
roster, 12 years after Robinson broke baseball's color<br />
barrier with the . It's a dramatic decline from 1975,<br />
when 27% of rosters were African-American. In 1995,<br />
the percentage was 19%. "Baseball likes to say things<br />
are getting better," says former 20-game winner and<br />
front office executive Dave Stewart, now a player<br />
agent. "It's not getting better. It's only getting worse.<br />
We've been in a downward spiral for a long time, and<br />
the numbers keep declining." Ten teams opened the<br />
year with no more than one African American on their<br />
roster, and 25% of African Americans in the game are<br />
clustered on three teams â the New York Yankees,<br />
Los Angeles Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers. A<br />
dearth of collegiate scholarships, increasing cost of<br />
funding teams in inner cities and, some say, a lack of<br />
opportunities in major league front offices all have<br />
contributed to the paucity of African-American players.<br />
The void has been filled beyond the USA's borders.<br />
Foreign-born players in 2012 made up 28.4% of<br />
opening-day rosters. While the game's overall diversity<br />
has increased, the decrease in African-American<br />
players can seem stark in a sport where they once<br />
were its marquee performers. From 1990 to 1995, nine<br />
of the 12 American and Natio<strong>na</strong>l League MVP winners<br />
were African American. In 2012, Chicago Cubs center<br />
fielder Marlon Byrd is the lone African-American major<br />
leaguer in the city of Chicago. "I don't even know what<br />
to say," said Byrd, who was also the only African<br />
American on the field Sunday at Busch Stadium in St.<br />
Louis during the 65th anniversary of Robinson<br />
breaking the color barrier. "I remember when I came<br />
up with the (Philadelphia) Phillies in 2002, we had six<br />
(African-American) players. I thought that was the<br />
norm. Now, you look around and don't see anyone.<br />
Will it change? I don't know. I'm hoping it's a different<br />
story four or five years from now." The St. Louis<br />
Cardi<strong>na</strong>ls, who once had some of the game's top<br />
African-American stars, such as Hall of Famers Bob<br />
Gibson, Lou Brock and Ozzie Smith, haven't had an<br />
African American on their opening-day roster since<br />
infielder Joe Thurston in 2009. "It's concerning,"<br />
Cardi<strong>na</strong>ls general ma<strong>na</strong>ger John Mozeliak said. "I<br />
think the RBI program (Reviving Baseball in Inner<br />
Cities) is helpful and growing. We're all about talent. It<br />
doesn't matter if you're white, black, brown or green."<br />
Major League Baseball officials, aware of the dwindling<br />
numbers as many of the USA's top athletes apparently<br />
opt for other sports, said it is trying to reverse the trend<br />
with their urban academies and annual Civil Rights<br />
exhibition game. "We're trying to get better. It won't<br />
happen overnight," Commissioner Bud Selig said. "And<br />
we're very comfortable saying it will be better. We are<br />
doing great work with our baseball academies and<br />
working in the inner cities. It's getting better." Robinson<br />
would want more While baseball has the lowest<br />
percentage of African-American players since Dwight<br />
Eisenhower was president, Major League Baseball's<br />
hiring practices are lauded by Richard Lapchick,<br />
director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport<br />
at the University of Central Florida. MLB received an<br />
"A" for race on Lapchick's Racial and Gender Report<br />
Card last year. "I remember Jackie saying 10 days<br />
before he passed (in 1972)," Selig said, "he wouldn't<br />
be satisfied until we had a black ma<strong>na</strong>ger and general<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>ger. If he went through all of our front offices<br />
today in baseball, he'd be proud." Still, the Chicago<br />
White Sox's Kenny Williams and the Miami Marlins'<br />
Michael Hill are the lone African-American general<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>gers, and the Cincin<strong>na</strong>ti Reds' Dusty Baker and<br />
the Texas Rangers' Ron Washington are the only<br />
African-American ma<strong>na</strong>gers. There hasn't been an<br />
African American hired as ma<strong>na</strong>ger since Jerry Manuel<br />
was promoted in 2008 by the New York Mets, and<br />
there have been five African-American general<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>gers in baseball history. "I think Jackie would be<br />
very disappointed," said Ron Rabinovitz, whose<br />
friendship with Robinson was the subject of an MLB<br />
Network documentary. "He would want more than<br />
this." Stewart, who gave up pursuing a general<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>ger's job when clubs repeatedly bypassed him,<br />
believes there never will be improvement on the field<br />
unless MLB's hiring practices change. "Bud keeps<br />
making the comment that things will get better,"<br />
Stewart said. " But Bud is not in position to make it<br />
happen. Bud works for the owners. He can't make<br />
them do something they don't want to do. "And right<br />
now, they don't want to hire blacks as<br />
decision-makers. Certainly not GMs. You have a lot of<br />
young executives who can do the job if they have the<br />
opportunity. But all they get is an interview for window<br />
dressing." Stewart says MLB should be embarrassed<br />
by its recent run of ma<strong>na</strong>gerial hires. He wonders why<br />
white ma<strong>na</strong>gers can be continually recycled, with<br />
several recently out of the game, and still be hired<br />
ahead of any African-American candidates. "What did<br />
Jerry Manuel do to not get another opportunity to<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>ge?" Stewart said of the former Mets ma<strong>na</strong>ger.<br />
"He didn't get one interview after he was hired from the<br />
175
Mets. Not one. He had to go to the MLB Network just<br />
to stay around the game. "Look around. (Buck)<br />
Showalter was out of the game. Bobby Valentine was<br />
out of the game. Jim Leyland. Davey Johnson. They<br />
got jobs just like that. It's a joke, man." African<br />
Americans within the game have taken a grassroots<br />
approach to reversing the trend. Still, despite the<br />
obstacles, there are African-American players and<br />
executives trying to make a difference. LaTroy<br />
Hawkins, one of 11 African-American pitchers in the<br />
major leagues, spoke Sunday in New York at baseball<br />
clinics with Sharon Robinson, daughter of Jackie<br />
Robinson. Tyrone Brooks, the Pittsburgh Pirates'<br />
assistant general ma<strong>na</strong>ger, got started in Hank Aaron's<br />
internship program with the Atlanta Braves and formed<br />
the Baseball Industry Network to help those trying to<br />
get jobs in the game. Oakland Athletics scouting<br />
director Billy Owens and Los Angeles Dodgers<br />
assistant GM DeJon Watson constantly try to persuade<br />
prep athletes to play baseball. "What I want to do is<br />
hopefully give these people an opportunity that they<br />
didn't quite know how to go about it," Brooks said. "If it<br />
wasn't for the people that started that internship<br />
program with the Braves, who knows if I would have<br />
had a chance to work in this game." Making baseball<br />
cool Baseball also constantly fights the stigma of being<br />
a dull sport. Even former American League MVP Ken<br />
Griffey Jr.'s son Trey abandoned baseball to accept a<br />
football scholarship at the University of Arizo<strong>na</strong>, and<br />
Hall of Famer Barry Larkin's son Shane is playing<br />
basketball at Miami. The lack of African-American<br />
players also affects diversity in the stands. Just 9% of<br />
fans who attended an MLB game last season were<br />
African American, according to a recent Scarborough<br />
Marketing Research study. "It's what you grow up<br />
around," Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Andrew<br />
McCutchen says. "For the African-American<br />
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community, it's more basketball, it's more football. Just<br />
the hype of it. It's what people like. Baseball is more of<br />
a laid-back sport. There's not a lot going on. "Growing<br />
up, I really loved baseball, and it's something I<br />
flourished at as a child. But look at the world now.<br />
Technology is running the world. There are so many<br />
different things people can do, so it kind of turns them<br />
away from baseball." Said Dodgers center fielder Matt<br />
Kemp: "We're definitely aware what's going on in MLB<br />
as far as African Americans. I'm trying to make<br />
baseball cool for African Americans and let<br />
African-American kids know that baseball can give you<br />
the same opportunities as football, basketball or any of<br />
the other sports. You get paid just as much, get to<br />
drive those nice cars and do all of that fun stuff that all<br />
the other NBA guys get to do. We're just a little bit<br />
more low key." It's tough scouts and general ma<strong>na</strong>gers<br />
say, since colleges also are attracting few<br />
African-American athletes. Universities offer 11.7<br />
scholarships in baseball, vs. 85 in football. "The lack of<br />
full scholarships in NCAA baseball sways kids to other<br />
sports," Oakland Athletics scouting director Billy<br />
Owens says. "Plus there are more options athletically<br />
and recreatio<strong>na</strong>lly. Back in the '40s and '50s, baseball<br />
was unequivocally the No. 1 sport in America. Now it's<br />
extremely popular but not a monopoly. We should<br />
embrace our past, promote the present and continue<br />
to strive and make things better for everyone."<br />
Williams says perhaps there's too much emphasis on<br />
the lack of African Americans in baseball. The White<br />
Sox GM is more intrigued with the additio<strong>na</strong>l benefits<br />
of MLB's efforts. "I'm happy with MLB's efforts to bring<br />
more young men to the game, but not why you think,"<br />
he says. "It's the educatio<strong>na</strong>l and motivatio<strong>na</strong>l part of<br />
the programs that hopefully lead to college<br />
opportunities that most impress me."<br />
176
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Letters: Jackie Robinson's legacy should<br />
be recalled often<br />
Commentary writer Chris Lamb's excellent piece on<br />
Jackie Robinson warrants a prompt response (""). By<br />
virtue of Robinson's incredible courage and<br />
indefatigable spirit, this wonderful man was clearly one<br />
of the most important Americans of the 20th century.<br />
His reach transcended the integration of baseball,<br />
significant as that was, and affected considerably the<br />
civil rights movement. His influence on both will last<br />
forever.<br />
The unbearable pressures he faced on a daily basis<br />
likely took a toll on his health and vigor, and he passed<br />
away long before his time in October 1972. He was 53.<br />
I will never forget seeing my very first Major League<br />
Baseball game. It was a present for my 10th birthday,<br />
more than 60 years ago, and Robinson's Brooklyn<br />
Dodgers played the Phillies in the old Shibe Park in<br />
Philadelphia. He was my hero then, and he still is after<br />
all these years! Jackie Robinson Day is a nice gesture,<br />
but he deserves so much more.<br />
Robinson statues are at UCLA where he played and at<br />
some ballparks, but a prominent statue of him should<br />
be at every major-league park. Then all spectators can<br />
see him and find out more about this larger-than-life<br />
figure. Tim Norbeck; Bonita Springs, Fla. Teach kids<br />
significance of his life Jackie Robinson was important<br />
because of the huge impact his life had on our society,<br />
made up of people of all races, religions and ethnic<br />
backgrounds. Actually, we should honor him every<br />
day.<br />
Children of all generations should be taught the<br />
significance of Robinson's story. It appeals to and<br />
touches the better angels of our <strong>na</strong>ture and is pertinent<br />
to what's going on today. Robinson was a great person<br />
and athlete. He had a quality that only the truly great<br />
possess: humility. Paul L. Whiteley Sr.; Louisville<br />
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17/04/2012
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17/04/2012<br />
Bizjour<strong>na</strong>is - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Third general counsel in three years hired at Lincoln Natio<strong>na</strong>l, 182<br />
Bloomberg - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Have the Rich Ever Paid a Fair Share of Taxes? (Part 2), 183<br />
Business Line - Markets<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Letters, 185<br />
Business Line - Markets<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Right to education, 186<br />
Business Line - Markets<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Vodafone serves arbitration notice on Indian Govt over new tax plan, 187<br />
Corriere Della Será - Politica<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Corte Costituzio<strong>na</strong>le<br />
La Bardot sceglie Marine Le Pen «Insieme, dalla parte degli animali», 188<br />
Diário de Notícias Lisboa - Globo<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Pe<strong>na</strong>l Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l (TPI)<br />
ONU diz que golpistas estão a agravar a crise política, 189<br />
El País - Sociedad<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Dos niñas se niegan a ir a EE UU con su madre pese a la orden de un juez, 190<br />
El País - Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
El CGPJ archiva la investigación abierta al presidente de la Audiencia de Lugo, 191<br />
El País - Sociedad<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Recurso de Inconstitucio<strong>na</strong>lidad<br />
Los ocho alcaldes del PP andaluces mantendrán el escaño, 192<br />
El Peruano - Noticia<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Reforma Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Más participación y control ciudadanos, 193<br />
El Peruano - Noticia<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Alcaldes pueden ser acusados, 194<br />
El Universal - Nación<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Reforma Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
PRI y PAN, los principales contrincantes en Yucatán, 195<br />
Expresso OnLine Lisboa - Atualidade<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Parlamento adia votação para juízes do Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l, 196<br />
Expresso OnLine Lisboa - Atualidade<br />
179
Quinta-feira, 19 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Suprema Corte de Justicia<br />
Espinho: Casino conde<strong>na</strong>do a indemnizar em quase 83 mil euros cliente viciado no jogo, 197<br />
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - Politik<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Verfassungsgericht<br />
Rederecht im Bundestag Schwache Chefs, 198<br />
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - Politik<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Europäischen Gerichtshof<br />
Bedrohliches Gefühl , 200<br />
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - Politik<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Europäischen Gerichtshof<br />
Kriegserklärung des Innenministers , 202<br />
La Nacion - noticia<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Complicaciones en la Justicia bo<strong>na</strong>erense por las medidas de fuerza, 203<br />
La Repubblica - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Constitución<br />
Severino: "Pene più alte per la corruzione" Intercettazioni, rispunta la "ammazza blog", 204<br />
La Repubblica - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Constitución<br />
Fmi alza stime Pil Italia, ripresa nel 2013 Pareggio di bilancio in Costituzione, 205<br />
Le Monde - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Cour constitutionnelle<br />
La Libye sous syndrome post-traumatique, 207<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Ohio to execute farm hand who murdered boy, 209<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
U.S. top court rules for generic drugmaker on patent, 210<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Florida judge in Trayvon Martin case to decide on recusal, 211<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
U.S. top court: lawyers hired by cities can seek immunity, 212<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Cherokee adoption battle in South Caroli<strong>na</strong> high court, 213<br />
Reuters General - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Howard Stern lawsuit vs Sirius XM Radio thrown out, 214<br />
The Economic Times - Politics/Nation<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Border security policy is not foolproof: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, 215<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
180
Quinta-feira, 19 de Abril de 2012<br />
Impact of Atlantic Yards, for Good or Ill, Is Already Felt, 216<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Once Every 36 Years, Primary Fight for India<strong>na</strong> Se<strong>na</strong>tor, 218<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
Disabilities Act Used by Lawyers in Flood of Suits, 220<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
City Settles Lawsuit That Claimed Bias and Retaliation, 222<br />
USA Today - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Ted Nugent's comments buzz around Romney, 223<br />
UY Press - Actualidad<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Diputados apura trámite que reduciría plazos para adopciones, 224<br />
181
Bizjour<strong>na</strong>is/ - News, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Third general counsel in three years hired<br />
at Lincoln Natio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Lincoln Natio<strong>na</strong>l Corp. has hired its third general<br />
counsel since 2010. Adam G. Ciongoli, 43 has been<br />
<strong>na</strong>med executive vice president and general counsel<br />
of the Radnor, Pa.-based insurance and fi<strong>na</strong>ncial<br />
services giant, effective May 7. He previously worked<br />
at Willis Group Holdings, where he was group general<br />
counsel and secretary. Prior to that, Ciongoli was<br />
senior vice president and general counsel for Time<br />
Warner Europe. After graduating from the University of<br />
Pennsylvania in 1991 and Georgetown University Law<br />
Center in 1995, Ciongoli was law clerk to U.S.<br />
Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who was<br />
then a member of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals<br />
based in Newark, N.J. After a stint in the Washington<br />
office of Kirkland & Ellis, where he worked with<br />
Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr, he served as<br />
chief counsel to the U.S. Se<strong>na</strong>te Constitution<br />
Subcommittee, which was chaired by then-U.S. Sen.<br />
John Ashcroft. When Ashcroft became U.S. Attorney<br />
General in 2001, Ciongoli joined him in the Justice<br />
Department. After joining the corporate world, he<br />
returned to clerk for Alito when the judge became a<br />
Supreme Court justice in 2006. Ciongoli replaces<br />
Nicole Jones, who left Lincoln Natio<strong>na</strong>l (NYSE:LNC),<br />
which does business as Lincoln Fi<strong>na</strong>ncial Group, last<br />
May only a year into the position to return to Cig<strong>na</strong><br />
Corp. as general counsel. Jones served as deputy<br />
general counsel at Cig<strong>na</strong> before leaving Natio<strong>na</strong>l in<br />
May 2010. She replaced Dennis Schoff, who left<br />
Lincoln Natio<strong>na</strong>l earlier in 2010 after serving as<br />
general counsel since 2002. Schoff said at the time<br />
that Dennis Glass, who became Lincoln Natio<strong>na</strong>l’s<br />
CEO in late 2007 shortly after joining the company<br />
from merger partner Jefferson Pilot Corp. in North<br />
Caroli<strong>na</strong>, had turned over much of the senior<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>gement team. Schoff consulted with the company<br />
while it sought his replacement.<br />
182
Bloomberg/ - Politics, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Have the Rich Ever Paid a Fair Share of<br />
Taxes? (Part 2)<br />
As the 19th century wound down, the industrialization<br />
of the U.S., by then the world's largest and most<br />
productive economy, was piling up fortunes of<br />
unprecedented size. Cornelius Vanderbilt had died the<br />
richest self-made man in the world when he left his<br />
heirs $105 million in 1877. His son William Henry<br />
Vanderbilt doubled his father's fortune in just eight<br />
years. When Andrew Carnegie agreed to sell Carnegie<br />
Steel Corporation to J.P. Morgan for $480 million in<br />
1901, Morgan told him, "Congratulations on becoming<br />
the richest man in the world." By 1910, John D.<br />
Rockefeller was worth $1 billion. But the rich remained<br />
undertaxed. The government still relied mostly on the<br />
tariff to fund its operations and the tariff fell most<br />
heavily on those at the lower end of the socioeconomic<br />
scale. An attempt to impose an income tax on the rich<br />
in 1894 had been thrown out by the Supreme Court<br />
the following year. The political pressure to make the<br />
rich "pay their fair share," however, had not abated. It<br />
had only increased as the country's political center<br />
moved to the left at the dawn of the new century.<br />
President Theodore Roosevelt belonged to the<br />
progressive wing of the Republican Party and had<br />
moved to enforce such measures as the Sherman<br />
Antitrust Act, long thought a dead letter. He even<br />
advocated an estate tax with the explicit purpose of<br />
preventing the "transmission in their entirety of those<br />
fortunes swollen beyond all healthy limits." By the time<br />
William Howard Taft became president in 1909, the<br />
short-lived recession of 1907 had thrown the federal<br />
government into deficit. Many, including<br />
Representative Cordell Hull of Tennessee -- later<br />
secretary of state under President Franklin D.<br />
Roosevelt -- wanted to simply repass the income tax of<br />
1894 and dare the Supreme Court, which had<br />
become more liberal, to nullify it a second time. This<br />
idea horrified Taft, who revered the Supreme Court.<br />
He was afraid that any such move would put in<br />
jeopardy the court's role as fi<strong>na</strong>l arbiter of the<br />
Constitution. (Taft would serve as Chief Justice from<br />
1921 to 1930, a job he much preferred to the<br />
presidency.) So Taft offered a very lawyerly alter<strong>na</strong>tive.<br />
He proposed a constitutio<strong>na</strong>l amendment that would<br />
allow the government to levy an income tax "without<br />
apportionment among the states and without regard to<br />
any census or enumeration," thus making moot the<br />
Supreme Court's 1895 ruling in Pollock v. Farmers'<br />
Loan & Trust. Congress passed the amendment and<br />
sent it to the states for ratification on July 12, 1909.<br />
Meanwhile, Taft proposed a 2 percent tax on corporate<br />
profits. In 1909, the overwhelming majority of stocks<br />
and bonds were owned by the wealthy. It was still<br />
uncommon in the early 20th century for people even to<br />
have bank accounts, let alone own securities. So a tax<br />
on corporate profits was, in effect, a tax on the rich.<br />
And it wouldn't have a Pollock problem because,<br />
technically, it wasn't an income tax at all. Rather, as<br />
Taft formulated it, it was an excise tax, measured in<br />
income, on the privilege of doing business as a<br />
corporation. There was, of course, a lawsuit regarding<br />
the matter, but the high court ruled u<strong>na</strong>nimously in<br />
1911 that the corporate tax was an indirect one and<br />
thus constitutio<strong>na</strong>l. The 16th Amendment was declared<br />
in effect on Feb. 25, 1913, after Delaware became the<br />
36th state to ratify it. A week later, Woodrow Wilson<br />
took office and a new, strongly Democratic Congress<br />
quickly passed a perso<strong>na</strong>l-income tax bill. Wilson<br />
signed it into law on Oct. 3, 1913. The law was only 14<br />
pages long and called for a 1 percent tax on income<br />
above $3,000. With an additio<strong>na</strong>l marital deduction of<br />
$1,000, only 2 percent of American families were<br />
affected. But the tax was also graduated so that it rose<br />
to 7 percent on income over $500,000, equal to<br />
earnings of about $10 million today. There were<br />
numerous other deductions as well, including the first<br />
$20,000 of dividend income, interest on all debt and<br />
other taxes. Among the 357,598 people who filed 1040<br />
forms (as they were called even then) in 1914 was<br />
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Roosevelt,<br />
whose form can be seen here. Although he had a very<br />
comfortable gross income of $14,244.86, Roosevelt's<br />
taxable income was only $989.67 and his effective tax<br />
rate (the percentage of total income taxed away) would<br />
have been only 0.6 percent. It was a modest tax at<br />
most, but the rich were, at last, beginning to pay their<br />
"fair share." Unfortu<strong>na</strong>tely, Congress didn't integrate<br />
the new perso<strong>na</strong>l-income tax with the corporate tax<br />
that had been origi<strong>na</strong>lly intended only as a stop-gap<br />
measure. The failure to do so would have many<br />
perverse effects. One is that bond interest is a<br />
deduction from corporate-income taxes, but dividends<br />
are paid out of after-tax income and then subject to<br />
taxation at the perso<strong>na</strong>l level, skewing corporate<br />
investment decisions. Worse, the rich -- or more<br />
accurately their accountants and lawyers -- soon<br />
learned how to exploit the two separate, unrelated tax<br />
systems in order to postpone taxes, reduce them or<br />
escape them altogether. The perso<strong>na</strong>l-corporate<br />
income-tax interaction has been the great engine of<br />
complexity that has now resulted in a tax code that<br />
183
stretches to tens of thousands of pages. No reform of<br />
the tax code can succeed unless these two taxes are<br />
integrated into a single system. Indeed, if they had<br />
been at the beginning, there would be no talk of a<br />
Bloomberg/ - Politics, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Buffett Rule today to get the rich to pay up. In fact, the<br />
Buffett Rule is purely an artifact of that larger failure,<br />
plus no little demagogy.<br />
184
Letters<br />
This refers to the editorial "Teaching India" ( Business<br />
Line, April 16). My comments are as follows: The<br />
Government's primary duty of providing educatio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
facilities to the poor cannot be simply transferred to<br />
private schools, taking advantage of the Supreme<br />
Court verdict. The Right to Education Act shouldn't be<br />
misused by politicians who have already mastered the<br />
art of grabbing land for educatio<strong>na</strong>l institutions.The<br />
problem of huge number of poor students cannot be<br />
ignored, but to expect the rich to come to the rescue of<br />
the poor is expecting too much. The solution lies in<br />
having a dialogue with private schools to guarantee<br />
proper implementation of the SC verdict. Without social<br />
reforms, (which include education for the<br />
under-privileged), mere political freedom won't be<br />
sufficient to make progress as a society.Public sector<br />
banks have reported a deposit growth of Rs 2-lakh<br />
crore, and a loan growth of Rs 93,000 crore in the last<br />
week of March, 2012. The impressive total business<br />
(deposits plus advances) growth of Rs 2.93 lakh can<br />
be attributed to "window-dressing". Bankers have been<br />
resorting to dressing up their books in the last week of<br />
every fiscal. There are customers willing to help their<br />
bankers in building up total business growth (deposits<br />
plus advances).The Reserve Bank of India is also<br />
aware of this aspect. These deposits/loans vanish after<br />
the first/second week of April. There is a small cost<br />
(difference between lending rate and deposit rate)<br />
involved to these customers, but this is made good by<br />
offering concessions in services rendered during the<br />
year.Most of the public sector banks are listed entities,<br />
and so shareholder activism can check this<br />
phenomenon.<br />
K. V. RaoBangalore<br />
Business Line/ - Markets, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
185
Right to education<br />
This refers to the editorial "Teaching India" (Business<br />
Line, April 16). My comments are as follows: The<br />
Government's primary duty of providing educatio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
facilities to the poor cannot be simply transferred to<br />
private schools, taking advantage of the Supreme<br />
Court verdict. The Right to Education Act shouldn't be<br />
misused by politicians who have already mastered the<br />
art of grabbing land for educatio<strong>na</strong>l institutions.The<br />
problem of huge number of poor students cannot be<br />
ignored, but to expect the rich to come to the rescue of<br />
the poor is expecting too much. The solution lies in<br />
having a dialogue with private schools to guarantee<br />
proper implementation of the SC verdict. Without social<br />
reforms, (which include education for the<br />
under-privileged), mere political freedom won't be<br />
sufficient to make progress as a society.Narendra M.<br />
AptePuneWindow-dressingPublic sector banks have<br />
reported a deposit growth of Rs 2-lakh crore, and a<br />
loan growth of Rs 93,000 crore in the last week of<br />
March, 2012. The impressive total business (deposits<br />
plus advances) growth of Rs 2.93 lakh can be<br />
attributed to "window-dressing". Bankers have been<br />
resorting to dressing up their books in the last week of<br />
every fiscal. There are customers willing to help their<br />
bankers in building up total business growth (deposits<br />
plus advances).The Reserve Bank of India is also<br />
aware of this aspect. These deposits/loans vanish after<br />
the first/second week of April. There is a small cost<br />
(difference between lending rate and deposit rate)<br />
involved to these customers, but this is made good by<br />
offering concessions in services rendered during the<br />
year.Most of the public sector banks are listed entities,<br />
and so shareholder activism can check this<br />
phenomenon.<br />
K. V. RaoBangalore<br />
Business Line/ - Markets, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
186
Business Line/ - Markets, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Vodafone serves arbitration notice on<br />
Indian Govt over new tax plan<br />
Vodafone has served on the Government of India a<br />
notice of dispute under the India-Netherlands<br />
investment treaty, in the latest escalation of the<br />
controversy over proposals in the Fi<strong>na</strong>nce Bill,<br />
2012.The move e<strong>na</strong>bles Vodafone commence<br />
inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l arbitration proceedings should the<br />
yet-to-be-e<strong>na</strong>cted legislation get passed. The<br />
proposals "violate the inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l legal protections<br />
granted to Vodafone and other inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l investors<br />
in India," the company said in a statement on<br />
Tuesday.The notice was the "first step required prior to<br />
the commencement of inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l arbitration," a<br />
London-based spokesperson for Vodafone told<br />
Business Line. If e<strong>na</strong>cted, the proposals would have<br />
"serious consequences for Vodafone," they said. "We<br />
have called on India to either abandon or suitably<br />
amend the tax proposals.""We are happy to meet and<br />
explain our position, however if legislation as it is<br />
currently crafted becomes law then we will do<br />
whatever it takes to protect ourselves and our<br />
shareholders, including commencing inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
arbitration," the spokesperson said.The notice has<br />
been issued by Vodafone Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l Holdings BV,<br />
the Dutch subsidiary of the British telecom giant under<br />
the Bilateral Investment Treaty between India and the<br />
Netherlands. Vodafone contends that the changes<br />
included in the Fi<strong>na</strong>nce Bill breached certain<br />
obligations of the Indian government, including giving<br />
investors fair and equitable treatment, and not denying<br />
justice to investors."The proposed legislation would<br />
also countermand the verdict of the Indian Supreme<br />
Court in January 2012, which ruled that Vodafone had<br />
no liability to account for withholding tax on its<br />
acquisition of indirect interests in Hutchison Essar<br />
Limited in 2007," the company said.Clarifying how the<br />
procedure would work should the company proceed<br />
with arbitration, the spokesperson said this would<br />
involve a panel of three arbitrators deciding on the<br />
matter in a neutral country, based on general<br />
inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l principles.The day before the Vodafone<br />
announcement, the Commerce and Industries Minister,<br />
Mr A<strong>na</strong>nd Sharma, on a visit to London, reiterated the<br />
government's position, <strong>na</strong>mely that the Fi<strong>na</strong>nce Bill<br />
proposals amounted to "clarificatory amendments" and<br />
that they were not intended to be "Vodafone<br />
specific."Our New Delhi Bureau adds:The Fi<strong>na</strong>nce<br />
Ministry today said that it has not as yet received the<br />
notice of dispute reported to have been served on the<br />
Indian Government by Vodafone in the matter of the<br />
controversial retrospective amendment proposed in<br />
the Fi<strong>na</strong>nce Bill 2012."I am yet to see the notice, then<br />
only can I give my view on it", said Mr R. Gopalan,<br />
Economic Affairs Secretary. Echoing this view, the<br />
Fi<strong>na</strong>nce Secretary, Mr R. S. Gujral, said, on the<br />
sidelines of a CII event: "We are in no position to talk<br />
about it as we are yet to see the<br />
notice."vidya.ram@thehindu.co.inkrsrivats@thehindu.c<br />
o.in<br />
187
Corriere Della Será/ - Politica, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Corte Costituzio<strong>na</strong>le)<br />
La Bardot sceglie Marine Le Pen<br />
«Insieme, dalla parte degli animali»<br />
L' ex modella ha sposato in ultime nozze un esponente<br />
del Front Natio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
PARIGI - La stra<strong>na</strong> coppia delle elezioni presidenziali<br />
francesi è da ieri Marine Le Pen-Brigitte Bardot. La<br />
prima è figlia del fondatore del Front Natio<strong>na</strong>l,<br />
educazione severa e vita improntata ai valori dell' alta<br />
borghesia cattolica, sia pure temperati da un divorzio.<br />
La seconda è stata per decenni l' attrice francese più<br />
famosa del mondo, protagonista degli Anni Sessanta<br />
creativi e dissoluti e immersa in quel mondo artistico di<br />
solito associato alla sinistra.<br />
Invece, B. B. è sempre stata di destra, e ora con un<br />
impegno chiaro e appassio<strong>na</strong>to a favore della Le Pen:<br />
con u<strong>na</strong> lettera aperta pubblicata del quotidiano Nice<br />
Matin , l' ormai 77enne diva di Saint Tropez invita<br />
duramente i sindaci francesi esitanti a firmare a favore<br />
della leader del Front Natio<strong>na</strong>l, in modo che possa<br />
partecipare alle elezioni del 22 aprile. «Sono<br />
scandalizzata dal fatto che i sindaci francesi siano così<br />
cauti, e non abbiano l' onestà di dare i loro voti a<br />
Marine Le Pen - si legge nella lettera con la carta<br />
intestata della "Madrague", la celebre villa della Bardot<br />
- che fa parte di u<strong>na</strong> équipe di punta per le<br />
presidenziali, che difende gli animali e ha il coraggio di<br />
voler ridare al nostro Paese, "la Francia" (tra virgolette,<br />
ndr ) il posto che le compete nel mondo».<br />
Non è chiaro quanto l' endorsement della Bardot farà<br />
bene a Marine Le Pen, visto che la popolarità dell'<br />
attrice è in caduta libera da decenni. La vita travagliata<br />
di B. B., i suoi tentativi di suicidio e le depressioni non<br />
le hanno mai fruttato grande compassione presso il<br />
pubblico francese, che sembra concordare con quanto<br />
scrisse di lei il secondo dei suoi quattro mariti, Jacques<br />
Charrier: «Per Brigitte l' umanità si divide in tre parti: gli<br />
esseri umani (razza inferiore e disprezzabile), gli<br />
animali (degni di essere amati) e lei stessa (deg<strong>na</strong> di<br />
essere adulata)». L' amore per gli animali, o<br />
quantomeno la comune intransigenza con alcuni<br />
aspetti della cultura islamica, è ciò che più la unisce a<br />
Marine Le Pen.<br />
In questi giorni la leader del Front Natio<strong>na</strong>l sta<br />
conducendo u<strong>na</strong> battaglia contro la carne halal, cioè<br />
macellata secondo il rito islamico: in deroga alla legge<br />
l' animale non viene stordito, e non viene ucciso con le<br />
speciali pistole che procurano u<strong>na</strong> morte immediata<br />
ma sgozzato, la testa rivolta alla Mecca, mentre<br />
vengono pronunciate formule religiose. «Tutta la carne<br />
mangiata nella regione di Parigi è halal», ha<br />
denunciato Marine Le Pen. Non è vero, ma la sua<br />
protesta ha risvegliato l' attenzione dell' animalista<br />
Brigitte Bardot, che è comunque da anni vicino alle<br />
posizioni del Front Natio<strong>na</strong>l anche perché ne ha<br />
sposato in ultime nozze un suo esponente, l'<br />
imprenditore Ber<strong>na</strong>rd d' Ormale. La questione delle<br />
firme è decisiva per Marine Le Pen, e forse per l'<br />
elezione presidenziale francese. Secondo la legge, per<br />
figurare sul bollettino di voto il candidato deve avere<br />
raccolto le firme di 500 sindaci, e due giorni fa la Corte<br />
costituzio<strong>na</strong>le ha confermato che tale sostegno deve<br />
essere pubblico e non anonimo, come avrebbe<br />
preferito la leader del Fn. Esporsi pubblicamente a suo<br />
favore espone al rischio di ostracismo, per questo<br />
Marine Le Pen è in grande difficoltà e a pochi giorni<br />
dalla scadenza (il 6 marzo) le mancano ancora un<br />
centi<strong>na</strong>io di firme.<br />
Dovesse restare fuori dall' elezione, ad<br />
avvantaggiarsene sarebbe Nicolas Sarkozy, che negli<br />
ultimi giorni conduce u<strong>na</strong> campag<strong>na</strong> elettorale<br />
spostata a destra proprio per rivolgersi ai potenziali<br />
elettori del Fn. Per questo sia il socialista François<br />
Hollande sia il centrista François Bayrou sperano<br />
esplicitamente che Marine Le Pen riesca a trovare le<br />
firme necessarie per presentarsi, togliendo così voti<br />
preziosi a Sarkozy. In questo clima di calcoli politici e<br />
di democrazia invocata talvolta per escludere Marine<br />
Le Pen, talvolta per farla partecipare, secondo le<br />
convenienze, Brigitte Bardot si lancia con un appoggio<br />
senza precedenti, ma come sempre priva di<br />
diplomazia: «Chiedo ai sindaci di avere un po' di<br />
coraggio, per u<strong>na</strong> volta nella loro vita, e di fare il loro<br />
dovere». In passato B. B. si è scagliata contro<br />
musulmani, omosessuali, collezio<strong>na</strong>ndo cinque<br />
condanne per incitamento all' odio razziale. Non sarà<br />
certo il sostegno a Marine, campionessa del lepenismo<br />
soft, a farle perdere un affetto che i francesi sembrano<br />
averle tolto da tempo.<br />
188
Diário de Notícias Lisboa/ - Globo, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Pe<strong>na</strong>l Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l (TPI))<br />
ONU diz que golpistas estão a agravar a<br />
crise política<br />
O secretário-geral das Nações Unidas, Ban Ki-moon,<br />
afirmou hoje estar "gravemente preocupado" por os<br />
líderes do golpe de Estado <strong>na</strong> Guiné -Bissau estarem<br />
a "agravar a crise política", em vez de ouvirem os<br />
apelos da comunidade inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l.<br />
Em declaração hoje divulgada pelo seu gabinete, Ban<br />
Ki-moon reitera ainda o apelo, também já feito pelo<br />
Conselho de Segurança da ONU e pelo Departamento<br />
de Estado norte-americano, para a "libertação<br />
imediata" dos líderes políticos detidos no golpe da<br />
passada quinta feira.<br />
Ban Ki-moon afirma estar "gravemente preocupado<br />
por, apesar dos apelos da comunidade inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
para o regresso da ordem constitucio<strong>na</strong>l à<br />
Este agravamento da crise resulta, adianta, do<br />
anúncio de planos para criação de um Governo de<br />
unidade <strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l.<br />
"Isto é particularmente perturbador, vindo numa altura<br />
em que o povo da<br />
Na quinta-feira à noite, um grupo de militares<br />
guineenses atacou a residência do primeiro-ministro e<br />
candidato presidencial, Carlos Gomes Júnior, e<br />
ocupou vários pontos estratégicos da capital da<br />
A ação foi justificada por um autodenomi<strong>na</strong>do<br />
Comando Militar, como visando defender as Forças<br />
Armadas de uma alegada agressão de militares<br />
angolanos, que teria sido autorizada pelos chefes do<br />
Estado interino e do Governo.<br />
A mulher de Carlos Gomes Júnior disse hoje que este<br />
foi levado por militares <strong>na</strong> noite do ataque e<br />
encontra-se em parte incerta, assim como o<br />
Presidente interino, Raimundo Pereira.<br />
Os acontecimentos militares <strong>na</strong><br />
Na declaração hoje divulgada, Ban Ki-moon afirma ter<br />
falado nos últimos dias, sobre a crise <strong>na</strong><br />
As conversas tiveram como objetivo "encontrar uma<br />
solução rápida e duradoura para a crise política" no<br />
país.<br />
Ban Ki-moon saúda ainda os esforços da CEDEAO,<br />
UA e outros parceiros da<br />
O golpe do fi<strong>na</strong>l da sema<strong>na</strong> passada foi conde<strong>na</strong>do<br />
em larga medida pela comunidade inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l.<br />
A presidência angola<strong>na</strong> da CPLP admitiu entretanto<br />
avançar para o Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Pe<strong>na</strong>l Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l contra as<br />
autoridades militares guineenses, "em particular" o<br />
chefe das Forças Armadas, António Indjai.<br />
Para tal, como para serem decretadas sanções<br />
inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>is individuais contra líderes golpistas ou<br />
envio de uma força de paz sob alçada das Nações<br />
Unidas, seria necessária uma resolução do Conselho<br />
de Segurança.<br />
189
El País/ - Sociedad, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Dos niñas se niegan a ir a EE UU con su<br />
madre pese a la orden de un juez<br />
La Audiencia da la custodia a la mujer, acusada de<br />
llevarse a las menores ilegalmente El fallo judicial data<br />
de 2011 y queda suspendido Dos niñas de 12 y 14<br />
años de Tarrago<strong>na</strong> se niegan a trasladarse a vivir a<br />
Estados Unidos con su madre, en contra de lo que<br />
establece u<strong>na</strong> sentencia que otorga a la progenitora la<br />
guardia y custodia de las menores. Tras u<strong>na</strong> larga<br />
batalla judicial en los juzgados de Estados Unidos y<br />
Valls (Alt Camp, Tarrago<strong>na</strong>), el padre debía entregar<br />
este martes las niñas a la madre, pero estas se<br />
opusieron en la misma sede judicial. La titular del<br />
juzgado de instrucción 1 de Valls ha decidido no<br />
ejecutar la sentencia. “Se ha tenido que suspender<br />
hasta nueva fecha por la situación emocio<strong>na</strong>l de las<br />
menores y los momentos de tensión vividos en el<br />
juzgado”, ha informado el Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Superior de<br />
Justicia de Cataluña (TSJC). Las dos niñas, según<br />
han confesado, quieren seguir viviendo con el padre,<br />
Quico Iborra, en la Vall de l’Arrabassada. Este es el<br />
enésimo capítulo de la historia que enfrenta desde<br />
hace casi tres años a un matrimonio divorciado en<br />
2006 y, sobre todo, a sus dos hijas. Iborra incluso<br />
cruzó el Océano Atlántico hace dos años para<br />
localizar a las niñas porque la madre se las había<br />
llevado sin consentimiento paterno a Estados Unidos<br />
aprovechando un error judicial: el juzgado no<br />
transmitió a la policía la prohibición de salir de España<br />
de las menores y la orden “se archivó por un error<br />
debido a la sobrecarga de trabajo”, según admitió<br />
hace un año el Consejo General del Poder Judicial.<br />
La progenitora, Luciane Almeida, brasileña de<br />
<strong>na</strong>cimiento pero también con <strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>lidad española,<br />
se casó de nuevo en Estados Unidos con un pastor<br />
evangélico, según explicaron este martes los abuelos<br />
paternos. El 30 de julio de 2010, el juzgado de Valls<br />
acordó otorgar la guardia y custodia de las dos niñas<br />
al padre, pero la madre recorrió la decisión ante la<br />
Audiencia Provincial de Tarrago<strong>na</strong>. Este último<br />
organismo, el 25 de noviembre del año pasado, estimó<br />
el recurso de Almeida, dejó sin efecto la resolución del<br />
juzgado de Valls y devolvió la custodia a la<br />
progenitora. Almeida llegó el lunes a España para<br />
recuperar a sus hijas, pero fue detenida en el<br />
aeropuerto de Barcelo<strong>na</strong>-El Prat. Sobre ella pesaba<br />
u<strong>na</strong> orden de arresto por desobediencia a la autoridad<br />
y sustracción de menores, vigente desde que se llevó<br />
a las menores a EEUU. La madre entró este martes<br />
en los juzgados de Valls discretamente poco antes de<br />
las diez de la maña<strong>na</strong>. Las niñas y el padre, con los<br />
abuelos paternos, lo hicieron minutos después. Las<br />
menores estaban visiblemente afectadas. La pequeña<br />
quería leer ante los medios u<strong>na</strong> carta dirigida a su<br />
madre, pero el llanto se lo impidió. “Mamá, no<br />
queremos ir contigo. Por favor, haznos caso. Tú<br />
siempre has dicho que querías lo mejor para nosotras,<br />
pues deja que nos quedemos aquí”, decía la carta,<br />
leída al fi<strong>na</strong>l por Iborra. Minutos después, la expareja<br />
protagonizó u<strong>na</strong> fuerte discusión dentro de los<br />
juzgados. Los padres se cruzaron graves acusaciones<br />
en presencia de las niñas, que no podían parar de<br />
llorar. Iborra incluso dio puñetazos en las puertas,<br />
explicaron algunos testigos. “Llevo trabajando aquí 35<br />
años y nunca había visto <strong>na</strong>da igual, es un caso muy<br />
delicado”, dijo u<strong>na</strong> funcio<strong>na</strong>ria. La tensión fue tal, que<br />
los guardias cerraron las puertas del edificio y se<br />
desplazaron hasta allí varias patrullas de los Mossos<br />
d’Esquadra y la policía local, además de u<strong>na</strong><br />
ambulancia del Sistema de Emergencias Médicas<br />
(SEM). Poco antes del mediodía, el padre salía de<br />
nuevo acompañado de sus hijas y su abogada. “Ha<br />
sido imposible ejecutar la sentencia porque las niñas<br />
se niegan a ir físicamente con su madre, ahora, no sé<br />
qué pasará”, explicó Iborra. Almeida y su abogada se<br />
negaron a realizar declaraciones. La custodia, por el<br />
momento, la sigue teniendo la madre, pero las niñas<br />
viven con el padre en Tarrago<strong>na</strong>. La ejecución de la<br />
sentencia fue pospuesta a u<strong>na</strong> nueva fecha, que este<br />
martes el TSJC no ha concretado.<br />
190
El País/ - Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
El CGPJ archiva la investigación abierta<br />
al presidente de la Audiencia de Lugo<br />
El órgano de gobierno de los jueces lo justifica en las<br />
"versiones contradictorias entre el interesado y la<br />
magistrada Estela San José La Comisión Permanente<br />
del Consejo General del Poder Judicial (CGPJ) ha<br />
acordado este martes por u<strong>na</strong>nimidad archivar la<br />
investigación abierta al presidente de la Audiencia<br />
Provincial de Lugo, José Antonio Varela Agrelo, en<br />
relación con la denuncia de la jueza instructora del<br />
'Caso Campeón', Estela San José, que le acusó de un<br />
posible comportamiento irregular en relación con un<br />
imputado en la causa en la que se investiga u<strong>na</strong><br />
supuesta trama de obtención fraudulenta de ayudas<br />
públicas. El órgano de gobierno de los jueces justifica<br />
el archivo de la investigación en las "versiones<br />
contradictorias entre el interesado y la magistrada del<br />
Juzgado de Instrucción número 3 de Lugo sobre la<br />
forma de producirse los hechos que dieron origen a la<br />
citada información previa, no existiendo otros<br />
elementos probatorios". A mediados del pasado mes<br />
de marzo, el CGPJ había tomado nota de u<strong>na</strong><br />
documentación anterior que le había remitido el propio<br />
Varela informando de que fue víctima de un intento de<br />
extorsión perpetrado por Jorge Dorribo, principal<br />
imputado en la 'Campeón'. Sin embargo, en el escrito<br />
de la jueza se daría u<strong>na</strong> versión diferente al <strong>na</strong>rrar<br />
San José la perso<strong>na</strong>ción en su juzgado del presidente<br />
de la Audiencia Provincial para conocer de primera<br />
mano lo que había declarado contra él Dorribo, con<br />
quien habría tenido relaciones de amistad y<br />
comerciales. En su escrito ante el CGPJ, Varela había<br />
informado al órgano de gobierno de los jueces de su<br />
intención de formular denuncia ante comentarios<br />
realizados sobre su posible relación con un proyecto<br />
empresarial vinculado a la denomi<strong>na</strong>da 'Operación<br />
Carioca', en la que se investiga, también en Lugo, u<strong>na</strong><br />
supuesta trama de explotación de mujeres y u<strong>na</strong> red<br />
de clubes de alterne. Varela Agrelo explicó en su día<br />
que había denunciado al farmacéutico gallego<br />
después de que éste le pidiese dinero "a través de un<br />
amigo común" para, supuestamente, no declarar en su<br />
contra.Tras producirse el supuesto intento de<br />
extorsión, el presidente de la Audiencia Provincial<br />
acudió al juzgado de guardia para dar cuenta de lo<br />
sucedido y, después de hablar con la jueza allí<br />
presente, Sonia Fernández Cortés, decidió aplazar la<br />
presentación de la denuncia hasta haber realizado u<strong>na</strong><br />
comunicación oficial al Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Superior de Xustiza de<br />
Galicia. El empresario Jorge Dorribo había declarado<br />
como testigo ante la jueza de la 'Operación Carioca',<br />
Pilar de Lara, a la que aseguró que había conocido a<br />
Varela Agrelo en la sociedad Accion&Klasse y que<br />
había negociado con él su salida de prisión en 2011,<br />
tras ser encarcelado en mayo por la 'Operación<br />
Campeón'. Estos hechos han sido negados por el<br />
presidente de la Audiencia Provincial.<br />
191
El País/ - Sociedad, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Recurso de Inconstitucio<strong>na</strong>lidad)<br />
Los ocho alcaldes del PP andaluces<br />
mantendrán el escaño<br />
El Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l admite a trámite el<br />
recurso contra la ley electoral de la Junta El alto<br />
tribu<strong>na</strong>l suspende la aplicación de la incompatibilidad<br />
con el escaño cuestio<strong>na</strong>da Los ocho alcaldes del PP<br />
que han sido elegidos parlamentarios en las<br />
elecciones autonómicas del 25 de marzo mantendrán<br />
por el momento el escaño. El Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
ha admitido esta maña<strong>na</strong> a trámite el recurso<br />
planteado por el Gobierno contra la recién reformada<br />
Ley electoral andaluza, que regula el estatuto de los<br />
expresidentes de la Junta, y contra la Ley de<br />
Incompatibilidades de Altos Cargos, que establece la<br />
incompatibilidad entre los cargos de diputado<br />
autonómico y alcalde o presidente de diputación. El<br />
alto tribu<strong>na</strong>l ha decidido además suspender hasta su<br />
decisión la aplicación de esta normativa. El Ejecutivo<br />
de José Antonio Griñán cambió la ley el pasado 23 de<br />
noviembre, en los últimos días de la legislatura. Su<br />
rival electoral, Javier Are<strong>na</strong>s, hizo del combate a esta<br />
norma uno de los puntales de la precampaña de su<br />
partido y de la ofensiva al socialista, quien había<br />
defendido que no se pudieran simultanear los cargos<br />
para evitar su acumulación, especialmente en tiempos<br />
de crisis y desempleo. El líder del PP llevó su desafío<br />
hasta el extremo de encabezar cinco de las listas con<br />
alcaldes, a los que se sumaron media doce<strong>na</strong> más en<br />
otros puestos. Y, además, el Gobierno de Mariano<br />
Rajoy planteó un recurso a la norma. De los 17<br />
alcaldes candidatos que presentó el PP, han sido<br />
elegidos ocho: Juan Ig<strong>na</strong>cio Zoido, alcalde de Sevilla;<br />
Esperanza Oña, Fuengirola (Málaga); Carlos Rojas,<br />
Motril (Gra<strong>na</strong>da); Pedro Rodríguez, Huelva; José<br />
Antonio Nieto, Córdoba; Dolores López, Valverde del<br />
Camino (Huelva); Manuel Andrés González, Lepe<br />
(Huelva), y José Cara, La Mojonera (Almería). La<br />
admisión de un recurso de inconstitucio<strong>na</strong>lidad del<br />
presidente del Gobierno suspende la vigencia y<br />
aplicación de las leyes comunitarias impug<strong>na</strong>das,<br />
suspensión que el Tribu<strong>na</strong>l deberá ratificar o levantar<br />
en un plazo no superior a cinco meses. En<br />
consecuencia, ambas normas quedan suspendidas<br />
desde que aparezca publicada la suspensión en el<br />
BOE. Transcurrido ese tiempo, si el alto tribu<strong>na</strong>l no se<br />
ha pronunciado, los alcaldes deberán dimitir como<br />
diputados o como regidores. El PP hasta ahora ha<br />
dado por hecho que al fi<strong>na</strong>l tendrán que elegir, habida<br />
cuenta de que la derogación de la norma ya no es<br />
posible al no conseguir el PP la mayoría absoluta para<br />
formar Gobierno y volver a cambiar Ley electoral<br />
andaluza. La providencia del Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l orde<strong>na</strong><br />
dar traslado de la demanda al Congreso y al Se<strong>na</strong>do.<br />
Así como a la Junta y al Parlamento de Andalucía<br />
para que en el plazo de 15 días puedan perso<strong>na</strong>rse y<br />
formular alegaciones al recurso.<br />
192
El Peruano/ - Noticia, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Reforma Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
Más participación y control ciudadanos<br />
Luis Ara<strong>na</strong> Galindo Periodista Han sido unificadas,<br />
sistematizadas y actualizadas once leyes electorales<br />
en el proyecto de ley del Código Electoral y Código<br />
Procesal Electoral presentado por el Jurado Nacio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
de Elecciones, cuyo debate para su aprobación fue<br />
iniciado por el Congreso de la República. U<strong>na</strong> de las<br />
normas comprendidas en dicho proyecto es la Ley de<br />
los Derechos de Participación y Control<br />
Ciudadanos–N°26300, vigente desde 1994, mediante<br />
la cual el pueblo viene ejerciendo su derecho político y<br />
decidiendo, con su voto libre y secreto, sobre diversos<br />
aspectos de los gobiernos <strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l, regio<strong>na</strong>l y local.<br />
Basado en esta importante norma de la democracia<br />
directa, la ciudadanía puede proponer y lograr la<br />
aprobación, por ejemplo, de u<strong>na</strong> reforma total o parcial<br />
de la Constitución Política, la dación de u<strong>na</strong> ley,<br />
decidir sobre u<strong>na</strong> propuesta de interés colectivo a<br />
través de la consulta de referéndum o plantear la<br />
formación de leyes u orde<strong>na</strong>nzas regio<strong>na</strong>les y locales.<br />
Igualmente, ejerciendo su derecho democrático de<br />
control político amparado por esta ley, decide la<br />
revocatoria o destitución de autoridades regio<strong>na</strong>les y<br />
locales elegidas, obliga a la remoción de autoridades<br />
desig<strong>na</strong>das y orde<strong>na</strong> a u<strong>na</strong> autoridad a rendir cuentas<br />
sobre su gestión. Pero, el caso es que estos derechos<br />
ciudadanos no se han viabilizado en toda su<br />
dimensión en casi dos décadas de su vigencia.<br />
Ape<strong>na</strong>s han venido plasmándose las consultas de<br />
revocatoria de autoridades regio<strong>na</strong>les y municipales y<br />
las de referéndum. Los otros derechos de<br />
participación, como las iniciativas de reforma<br />
constitucio<strong>na</strong>l, de formación de leyes o de<br />
orde<strong>na</strong>nzas, solo tuvieron limitadas aplicaciones e<br />
intentos fallidos, tal vez por falta de reglamentación,<br />
desconocimiento y procedimientos complicados. Igual<br />
suerte corrieron los derechos de control como la<br />
remoción y la demanda de rendición de cuentas. Así,<br />
el JNE propone que las solicitudes para ejercer estos<br />
derechos sean presentadas a través de los Jurado<br />
Electorales Descentralizados permanentes y/o<br />
temporales, y que, u<strong>na</strong> vez comprobados los<br />
requisitos básicos, autoriza al Reniec la venta del<br />
formato de acopio de firmas y, luego, la verificación de<br />
ellas. En el caso de la revocatoria de autoridades, el<br />
proyecto dispone que dichos formatos se adquieran<br />
desde 90 días antes del inicio del segundo año de<br />
gestión. Es decir, los promotores no esperarán la<br />
conclusión del primer año, lapso en que la ley impide<br />
el inicio de todo proceso revocatorio. Es más, esta<br />
consulta podrá realizarse solo u<strong>na</strong> vez durante el<br />
período de mandato y su convocatoria debe dictarse<br />
con anticipación de 210 días de la fecha de consulta.<br />
Asimismo, de aprobarse el proyecto, solicitar la<br />
reforma total o parcial de la Constitución Política ya<br />
no exigirá la presentación del 10 por ciento de firmas<br />
de adherentes, sino solo del 8 por ciento del padrón<br />
del último proceso electoral.<br />
193
El Peruano/ - Noticia, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Alcaldes pueden ser acusados<br />
Medida alcanzaría también a presidentes regio<strong>na</strong>les,<br />
dijo Andrade Sanción podría llegar hasta los dos años<br />
de pe<strong>na</strong> privativa de la libertad Los alcaldes y<br />
presidentes regio<strong>na</strong>les que no han cumplido hasta el<br />
momento con presentar o ejecutar sus planes de<br />
seguridad ciudada<strong>na</strong> podrían ser denunciados por<br />
omisión de funciones de acuerdo con el artículo 377°<br />
del Código Pe<strong>na</strong>l. Así lo informó el congresista<br />
Fer<strong>na</strong>ndo Andrade, quien precisó que tales denuncias<br />
pueden ser formuladas por los propios ciudadanos. Al<br />
respecto, el legislador precisó que según la<br />
normatividad perua<strong>na</strong>, la omisión de funciones se<br />
sancio<strong>na</strong> con u<strong>na</strong> pe<strong>na</strong> no mayor de dos años de<br />
cárcel o entre 30 a 60 días de multa. Sin embargo,<br />
Andrade advirtió que la sanción puede determi<strong>na</strong>r la<br />
vacancia de la autoridad local o regio<strong>na</strong>l, en el caso<br />
que el Poder Judicial emita la sentencia<br />
correspondiente dentro de su período de gestión. "En<br />
algunos municipios los vecinos han efectuado el<br />
seguimiento a sus alcaldes y están formulando las<br />
denuncias contra ellos por no haber presentado el<br />
referido plan. Lamentablemente, no todos los<br />
ciudadanos saben que tienen esa facultad", expresó.<br />
También indicó que hasta el momento cinco<br />
presidentes regio<strong>na</strong>les no han cumplido con presentar<br />
sus respectivos planes de seguridad ciudada<strong>na</strong>, lo que<br />
constituye un mal ejemplo para los alcaldes<br />
provinciales y distritales del país. Andrade –quien es<br />
miembro titular de la Comisión Especial Multipartidaria<br />
de Seguridad Ciudada<strong>na</strong> del Congreso– informó que<br />
se trata de las autoridades regio<strong>na</strong>les de Áncash,<br />
Cusco, Madre de Dios, Pasco y Tumbes. "Si el<br />
presidente regio<strong>na</strong>l, que es el encargado de dirigir<br />
toda la región incumple sus responsabilidades,<br />
entonces qué se puede esperar de los burgomaestres<br />
provinciales y distritales. En este tipo de actitudes<br />
radica el problema", puntualizó. Plazo vencido Por su<br />
parte, el congresista Octavio Salazar dijo que hasta el<br />
momento existen más de 900 municipios distritales de<br />
todo el país (de un total de 1,644), que no han<br />
cumplido con presentar estos planes pese a que el<br />
plazo para hacerlo venció el pasado 1 de enero de<br />
este año. Asimismo, indicó que falta instalar 67<br />
comités provinciales de seguridad ciudada<strong>na</strong>, lo que<br />
significa el 34.54% del total. Justifican la demora El<br />
presidente regio<strong>na</strong>l de Apurímac, Elías Segovia,<br />
explicó que la demora en la presentación de su plan<br />
de seguridad ciudada<strong>na</strong> (el documento fue entregado<br />
recién), se debió a que su región se encontraba en<br />
emergencia a consecuencia de las intensas lluvias.<br />
"Sin ánimo de justificarnos, nos dedicamos a atender<br />
la emergencia para evitar que se produzcan pérdidas<br />
de vidas y mayores daños en infraestructura." Por su<br />
parte, el presidente regio<strong>na</strong>l de Pasco, Klever<br />
Meléndez, sostuvo que ya tienen listo su plan de<br />
seguridad ciudada<strong>na</strong>, pero debido a u<strong>na</strong><br />
descoordi<strong>na</strong>ción de los funcio<strong>na</strong>rios encargados aún<br />
no ha sido entregado al Co<strong>na</strong>sec.<br />
194
El Universal/ - Nación, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Reforma Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
PRI y PAN, los principales contrincantes<br />
en Yucatán<br />
MÉRIDA Con u<strong>na</strong> población cerca<strong>na</strong> a los 2 millones<br />
de habitantes, Yucatán celebrará elecciones<br />
concurrentes el próximo 1 de julio, es decir, se<br />
elegirán simultáneamente autoridades federales y<br />
estatales, en las que estarán en juego el gobierno del<br />
Estado, 106 alcaldías —incluyendo Mérida, la<br />
capital—, así como 25 diputaciones locales (15 de<br />
mayoría y 10 de representación proporcio<strong>na</strong>l),<br />
comicios que marcarán principalmente el futuro para<br />
las dos fuerzas políticas de mayor votación en la<br />
entidad, el PRI y el PAN, de acuerdo con<br />
especialistas. El Partido de la Revolución Democrática<br />
(PRD) que entra a la justa electoral, busca romper el<br />
tradicio<strong>na</strong>l bipartidismo PRI-PAN. Sin embargo, el<br />
perredismo sólo aumentó su membresía en Yucatán<br />
en el año 2001, cuando fue en alianza con el PAN y<br />
obtuvo poco más de 12% de la votación. A partir de<br />
u<strong>na</strong> reforma constitucio<strong>na</strong>l del Congreso local de<br />
2006, las elecciones en Yucatán se efectuaron en<br />
2007 para elegir, por única ocasión, a un gobierno que<br />
duraría cinco años y dos meses. Ese gobierno lo ganó<br />
la priísta Ivonne Ortega Pacheco, cuyo período<br />
concluirá el próximo 30 de septiembre. Actores<br />
políticos Los dos principales protagonistas de la<br />
jor<strong>na</strong>da electoral son Rolando Zapata Bello, candidato<br />
del PRI. Aunque en los últimos meses parecía que no<br />
era el aspirante de la mandataria Ivonne Ortega, quien<br />
impulsaba a la alcaldesa de Mérida, Angélica Araujo<br />
Lara, de acuerdo con priístas. Ortega Pacheco y<br />
Zapata Bello regresaron a su antigua alianza y por<br />
tanto el aspirante priísta lleva el sello de la actual<br />
mandataria estatal. Por su parte, el PAN decidió<br />
postular a la guber<strong>na</strong>tura a Joaquín Díaz Me<strong>na</strong>, ex<br />
delegado de la SEP, ex diputado federal, ex alcalde<br />
del puerto de San Felipe y considerado incondicio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
del ex gober<strong>na</strong>dor Patricio Patrón Laviada. Por tanto,<br />
se considera que en la elección estatal se medirán las<br />
fuerzas políticas de Ortega Pacheco y Patrón Laviada.<br />
Irán con todo A decir de la investigadora de la<br />
Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas y Sociales<br />
Hideyo Noguchi, de la Universidad Autónoma de<br />
Yucatán, Gi<strong>na</strong> Villagómez Valdéz, el PRI busca<br />
consolidar su hegemonía y el PAN intenta regresar al<br />
esce<strong>na</strong>rio electoral y recuperar espacios perdidos.<br />
Mérida, la ciudad capital, será el punto medular en la<br />
disputa entre ambas fuerzas, tomando en cuenta que<br />
concentra 46% de los electores. Otro investigador,<br />
Arcadio Sabido Méndez, considera que los partidos<br />
políticos carecen de democracia y todos ellos buscan<br />
llegar al poder por el poder mismo. Ambos<br />
investigadores opi<strong>na</strong>ron que independientemente de<br />
simpatías partidistas, Yucatán requiere un gobierno de<br />
justicia social, ya que el desempleo y el abandono en<br />
el campo son asuntos medulares. La pobreza y falta<br />
de liquidez posiblemente vuelva a repercutir en el<br />
resultado electoral, si continúan las prácticas del<br />
clientelismo y el favoritismo con apoyos oficiales,<br />
indicó. Antecedentes electorales El PAN sólo ha<br />
gober<strong>na</strong>do en u<strong>na</strong> ocasión en Yucatán, en 2001,<br />
cuando ganó el panista Patricio Patrón Laviada al<br />
entonces candidato del PRI Orlando Paredes Lara;<br />
también obtuvo el PAN la mayoría en el Congreso y<br />
retuvo Mérida. En esas elecciones, el PAN obtuvo 334<br />
mil 280 votos, mientras que el PRI alcanzó 302 mil<br />
340 sufragios. Luego de seis años de gobierno<br />
panista, en 2007 el PRI postuló a Ivonne Ortega, quien<br />
superó al panista Xavier Abreu Sierra, por 60 mil<br />
votos. En las elecciones de 2009, el PRI retoma<br />
espacios y ga<strong>na</strong> las cinco diputaciones federales y en<br />
2010 recupera la alcaldía de Mérida, gober<strong>na</strong>da<br />
durante 19 años por el PAN. Elecciones 2011 El PRI y<br />
el PAN son los únicos partidos en Yucatán que<br />
presentaron candidatos propios en los 106 municipios<br />
de la entidad, en la guber<strong>na</strong>tura y en las 25<br />
diputaciones locales, 15 de mayoría y 10 de<br />
representación proporcio<strong>na</strong>l. Mientras tanto, el PRD,<br />
Partido del Trabajo (PT) y Movimiento Ciudadano<br />
(MC) postulan en coalición a candidatos a gober<strong>na</strong>dor,<br />
a la alcaldía de Mérida y a diputados locales. El<br />
presidente del partido del sol azteca en el estado,<br />
David Barrera Zavala, considera que entran a la<br />
contienda buscando vencer los recursos y malas<br />
prácticas del PRI y el PAN, y avanzar en las<br />
preferencias electorales. “Creemos que se puede<br />
aumentar la votación en Yucatán, sobre todo con la<br />
figura y arrastre de nuestro candidato presidencial,<br />
Andrés Manuel López Obrador”, sentenció.<br />
195
Expresso OnLine Lisboa / - Atualidade, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
Parlamento adia votação para juízes do<br />
Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Candidato socialista está de licença sem vencimento<br />
como juiz.<br />
Luisa Meireles e Rui Gustavo (www.expresso.pt)<br />
A votação <strong>na</strong> Assembleia da República para a eleição<br />
dos três juízes do Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l foi adiada<br />
para 4 de maio devido a um problema "burocrático"<br />
com a candidatura do nome proposto pelos<br />
socialistas, José Conde Rodrigues.<br />
A eleição estava prevista para esta sexta-feira, dia 20.<br />
O ex-secretário de Estado da Justiça de José<br />
Sócrates, que foi juiz durante pouco mais de um ano<br />
num tribu<strong>na</strong>l fiscal, pediu uma licença sem vencimento<br />
de longa duração em julho de 2011.<br />
Desde que saiu do Governo, Conde Rodrigues<br />
encontra-se a trabalhar como consultor num escritório<br />
de advogados, ABBC e associados, sendo colega de<br />
Rogério Alves e Luís Filipe Carvalho.<br />
De acordo com a lei do Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l, pelo<br />
menos seis dos 13 membros do Tribu<strong>na</strong>l têm de ser<br />
juízes em exercício.<br />
Os três nomes que deveriam ser votados <strong>na</strong><br />
sexta-feira desti<strong>na</strong>m-se a substituir os três membros<br />
que se reformaram ou termi<strong>na</strong>ram os seus mandatos,<br />
Borges Soeiro, Pamplo<strong>na</strong> de Oliveira e Gil Galvão,<br />
sendo que os dois primeiros são juízes.<br />
Ora, dos três nomes propostos para serem votados -<br />
Fátima Mata Mouros (pelo CDS), Paulo Saragoça da<br />
Matta (PSD) e José Conde Rodrigues (PS) - só a<br />
primeira exerce a profissão de juiz.<br />
PS mantém Conde Rodrigues<br />
O PS já disse que vai manter o nome de Conde<br />
Rodrigues, que terá assim 15 dias para "regularizar a<br />
sua situação", isto é, pedir o reingresso <strong>na</strong><br />
magistratura.<br />
Desde a sua fundação que a composição do Tribu<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l tem sido decidida entre os dois<br />
maiores partidos.<br />
O novo colégio de juízes terá também que eleger um<br />
novo presidente do Tribu<strong>na</strong>l, em substituição de Rui<br />
Moura Ramos, que terminou o seu mandato.<br />
A decisão de adiar a votação foi tomada pela<br />
presidente da Assembleia da República, Assunção<br />
Esteves, ela própria uma antiga juíza do Tribu<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l.<br />
Oficialmente, a explicação para o adiamento foi dar<br />
mais tempo para a audição dos candidatos <strong>na</strong> 1ª<br />
Comissão e a regularização das candidaturas.<br />
196
Expresso OnLine Lisboa / - Atualidade, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Suprema Corte de Justicia)<br />
Espinho: Casino conde<strong>na</strong>do a indemnizar<br />
em quase 83 mil euros cliente viciado no<br />
jogo<br />
Espinho, 17 abr (Lusa) - O Supremo Tribu<strong>na</strong>l de<br />
Justiça confirmou a conde<strong>na</strong>ção do Casino de<br />
Espinho ao pagamento de uma indemnização de<br />
82.893 euros a um cliente viciado no jogo, que em<br />
dois anos ali "destruiu" uma fortu<strong>na</strong>.<br />
A seu pedido, o cliente tinha sido proibido pela<br />
Inspeção Geral de Jogos (IGJ) de frequentar, durante<br />
dois anos, quaisquer salas de jogo, mas o Casino de<br />
Espinho continuou a facultar-lhe a entrada.<br />
Segundo o tribu<strong>na</strong>l, o casino não se ficou pela<br />
omissão do cumprimento da notificação da IGJ, tendo<br />
ainda adotado condutas que "aliciavam" o cliente a<br />
deslocar-se até às suas instalações, enviando-lhe<br />
convites para eventos sociais e para pernoitar no seu<br />
aparthotel e oferecendo-lhe gratuitamente os serviços<br />
de bar da sala de máqui<strong>na</strong>s e do restaurante.<br />
197
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/ - Politik, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Verfassungsgericht)<br />
Rederecht im Bundestag Schwache Chefs<br />
Wer das Rederecht von „Abweichlern“ einschränkt,<br />
sägt am Ast, auf dem er sitzt. Die<br />
Fraktionsvorsitzenden stärken damit nicht die<br />
Fraktionsdisziplin, sondern erweisen der<br />
repräsentativen Demokratie einen Bärendienst. Was<br />
würde Herbert Wehner dazu sagen? Wie schlecht<br />
muss es um die Fraktionsdisziplin im Bundestag<br />
bestellt sein, dass das Rederecht soge<strong>na</strong>nnter<br />
Abweichler neu geregelt werden soll? Wie schwach<br />
muss die Autorität der Fraktionsvorsitzenden sein,<br />
dass sie sich eine Wahrung dieser Disziplin offenbar<br />
anders nicht mehr vorstellen können? Wie schwach,<br />
dass sie um jede Sekunde eines Debattenbeitrags<br />
feilschen müssen, der ihren Fraktionsfrieden stören<br />
könnte? Wie selbstherrlich müssen sie gleichzeitig<br />
sein, dass sie deshalb den Bundestagspräsidenten an<br />
die Leine legen wollen? Die beabsichtigte Änderung<br />
der Geschäftsordnung des Bundestags ist nicht nur ein<br />
Machtkampf, der sich im Parlament abspielt. Schon die<br />
von Bundestagspräsident Lammert eigenmächtig<br />
ermöglichten Reden zweier Abgeordneter der<br />
Regierungsfraktionen, die der Euro-Politik von<br />
Regierung und Opposition nicht zustimmen wollten<br />
und nicht mit der üblichen Protokoll-Erklärung<br />
abgespeist werden sollten, fanden nicht im luftleeren<br />
Raum des Bundestags statt. Der Gegenstand selbst<br />
war Thema einer Mitwirkungs- und Demokratiedebatte,<br />
die bis vor das Bundesverfassungsgericht getragen<br />
wurde. Diese Debatte wiederum war vor dem<br />
Hintergrund von „Stuttgart 21“ Teil einer<br />
Ausei<strong>na</strong>ndersetzung darüber, ob direkte<br />
Bürgerbeteiligung nicht besser sei als Repräsentation<br />
und Parlamentarismus. Der „Lammert-Kontroverse“<br />
ge<strong>na</strong>nnte Streit über Rederecht und Redezeit gibt<br />
solchen Zweifeln wie auch Kritik an den nicht immer<br />
einfachen Regeln der repräsentativen Demokratie<br />
neue Nahrung. Die Fraktionsführungen, die so tun, als<br />
gehe es um eine Aufweichung der Fraktionsdisziplin,<br />
sowie der nicht an Selbstunterschätzung leidende<br />
Bundestagspräsident sind in Wahrheit Getriebene<br />
einer Entwicklung, in der aus immer mehr Richtungen<br />
immer umfassendere Beteiligungsrechte gefordert<br />
werden, ohne dass die Möglichkeiten zur Bündelung,<br />
zur Integration, zum Kompromiss und zur<br />
Entscheidungsfindung verbessert würden. Wer nur das<br />
eine sieht, gefährdet angeblich den Parlamentarismus,<br />
wer nur das andere, verpasst Abgeordneten angeblich<br />
einen „Maulkorb“, unterdrückt Minderheiten oder gleich<br />
die ganze Volkssouveränität. Unterstützt wird die<br />
Polarisierung durch den Niedergang alter und die<br />
Entstehung neuer Parteien, dazu durch die<br />
Bekräftigung alter Illusionen und Widersprüche - alles<br />
soll schneller gehen, aber jeder Bürger zu Wort<br />
kommen. Weitere Artikel Reform des Rederechts im<br />
Bundestag: Auch Abweichler dürfen lange reden „Kein<br />
Maulkorb für Abgeordnete“ Debatten im Bundestag:<br />
Widerrede erwünscht Abstimmung im Bundestag:<br />
Mehr als eine Mehrheit Das Parlament sollte der Ort<br />
sein, an dem solche Entwicklungen nicht nur<br />
tatsächlich repräsentiert werden. Die Kontroversen<br />
sollten auch ausgetragen, anschließend aber auch<br />
Entscheidungen getroffen werden. Deutschland hat in<br />
der Weimarer Zeit Erfahrungen mit einem Parlament<br />
gemacht, das erst zersplittert und<br />
entscheidungsschwach war, dann lächerlich gemacht<br />
und ausgehöhlt, schließlich von einer militanten<br />
„Volksbewegung“ entmachtet wurde. Derzeit ist der<br />
Bundestag noch nicht zersplittert, nicht<br />
entscheidungsschwach, schon gar nicht entmachtet.<br />
Aber es gehört im Bürgertum vom Schlage der<br />
Stuttgarter Selbstermächtiger, im Milieu der Linkspartei<br />
und in den Blogs der Piraten schon wieder zum guten<br />
Ton, das Parlament auszuhöhlen und lächerlich zu<br />
machen. Doch es wäre absurd, sollten die<br />
Fraktionsvorsitzenden der „Altparteien“ CDU/CSU,<br />
SPD und FDP deshalb fürchten, die<br />
Funktionstüchtigkeit des Parlaments sei gefährdet.<br />
Ihre Durchsetzungsfähigkeit und somit die Effektivität<br />
des Parlaments sinken nicht dadurch, dass sich<br />
einzelne Abgeordnete aus<strong>na</strong>hmsweise gegen den<br />
Willen der Fraktionsmehrheit im Plenum zu Wort<br />
melden dürfen. Denn auch die Durchsetzungsfähigkeit<br />
des Abgeordneten und die Freiheit des Mandats<br />
nehmen nicht dadurch zu, dass sich ein Mandatsträger<br />
neben, ja gegen seine Fraktion stellt. Die Fraktionen<br />
sind nicht Knebelungsinstrumente für Parteizwecke,<br />
sondern stärken den einzelnen Abgeordneten, indem<br />
sie ihn und das Parlament überhaupt erst<br />
handlungsfähig machen. In Karlsruhe zum Scheitern<br />
verurteilt Je individualistischer, je heterogener die<br />
Gesellschaft, desto wichtiger die Fraktion und die<br />
Fraktionsdisziplin. Nicht umsonst ist der Fall, der jetzt<br />
alles ins Rollen brachte, weniger als ein Präzedenzfall.<br />
Es ist die Aus<strong>na</strong>hme von der Regel, die gestattet sein<br />
muss, um das zulässige Maß an Fraktionsdisziplin<br />
nicht in einen unzulässigen Fraktionszwang zu<br />
verwandeln. Alles andere wäre nicht<br />
verfassungsgemäß: Eine Einschränkung des<br />
Rederechts, neben dem Stimmrecht so etwas wie das<br />
Königsrecht des Abgeordneten, wäre in Karlsruhe<br />
198
deshalb zum Scheitern verurteilt. Viel mehr Angst als<br />
vor Zersplitterung und Störungen parlamentarischer<br />
Abläufe müssen die Fraktionsvorsitzenden vor ihrer<br />
eigenen Schwäche haben. Die Kontroverse über das<br />
Rederecht wirft nicht nur ein Licht auf die Balance<br />
parlamentarischer Kräfte und Bräuche, sondern auch<br />
auf mangelnde Autorität an der Spitze von<br />
Regierungs- und Oppositionsfraktionen. Deren<br />
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/ - Politik, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Verfassungsgericht)<br />
Entscheidungsfreude hätte sich in dieser<br />
Legislaturperiode unter der Führung anerkannter<br />
Autoritäten (was würde Herbert Wehner dazu sagen?)<br />
längst in Gesetzen niederschlagen können. Wer aber<br />
das Rederecht braucht oder gar einschränken muss,<br />
um seine Autorität zu demonstrieren, der sägt an dem<br />
Ast, auf dem er sitzt.<br />
199
Das Stück <strong>na</strong>mens Vorratsdatenspeicherung schwankt<br />
zwischen Posse und Tragödie. Gespeichert wird<br />
vorerst der Streit darum - wer weiß, wann die Koalition<br />
wieder einen brauchen kann.<br />
Von Reinhard Müller<br />
In dem Stück mit dem Titel „Vorratsdatenspeicherung“<br />
wird alles geboten: Der Dauerstreit zwischen<br />
Bürgerrechtlern, die schon bei jeder Kartenzahlung<br />
den Eishauch totalitärer Überwachung spüren, und<br />
den Sicherheitspolitikern, die am liebsten auch von<br />
jedem Lurch vorsorglich eine DNA-Probe nehmen<br />
wollen - man weiß ja nie. Man findet die <strong>na</strong>ch<br />
zündenden Themen suchende FDP, wie die aus<br />
Prinzip opponierende Union - man hat ja schließlich<br />
einen Koalitionsvertrag geschlossen.<br />
Nicht fehlen darf auch das Dauer-Ressentiment<br />
gegenüber Brüssel, obwohl die einschlägige Richtlinie<br />
von allen Staaten gemeinsam beschlossen wurde.<br />
Und man hört das Raunen, wie eine EU-Kommissarin<br />
dazu gebracht wurde, die Bundesregierung an ihre<br />
Pflichten zu erinnern. Selbst Sprachpfleger kommen<br />
noch auf ihre Kosten; schließlich hat die politische<br />
Debatte wieder einmal ein sprachliches Ungetüm<br />
hervorgebracht.<br />
Mittelweg zwischen Bedrohung und Beeinträchtigung<br />
Davon abgesehen, ist die Vorratsdatenspeicherung<br />
kein Monster. Telekommunikationsunternehmen<br />
speichern die Verbindungsdaten (nur darum geht es)<br />
ohnehin - mal kürzer, mal länger. Der Streit geht seit<br />
Jahren nur darum, wann und warum der Staat auf<br />
diese Daten zugreifen kann. Nach den Anschlägen<br />
vom 11. September 2001 hat sich auch diese Frage<br />
gestellt. Gewiss: Mit dieser Zäsur ging nicht nur eine<br />
neuartige Bedrohung einher. Unter dem Banner des<br />
angeblichen „Kriegs gegen den Terror“ gab es auch<br />
Manipulationen und Übertreibungen. Die Wunschlisten<br />
der Sicherheitsbehörden konnten nicht lang genug<br />
sein. Und noch immer gilt: Der Trend geht hin zur<br />
Prävention.<br />
Warum? Die große, freie, elektronische Welt ist auch<br />
Schauplatz und Instrument von Verbrechen. Manche<br />
Delikte werden nur elektronisch begangen. Dass auf<br />
diesem Feld rechtsfreie Räume entstehen, kann kein<br />
Rechtsstaat zulassen, weil er Leben, Leib und Freiheit<br />
des einzelnen zu schützen hat. Richtig ist:<br />
Sicherheitsmaß<strong>na</strong>hmen beschränken die Freiheit<br />
vieler. Es kommt darauf an, zwischen Bedrohung und<br />
Beeinträchtigung die goldene Mitte zu finden.<br />
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/ - Politik, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Europäischen Gerichtshof )<br />
Bedrohliches Gefühl<br />
Mehr als nur ein Gefühl<br />
Das Bundesverfassungsgericht hält den Zugriff des<br />
Staates auf Verbindungsdaten für einen<br />
schwerwiegenden Eingriff in die Grundrechte. Der<br />
Erste Se<strong>na</strong>t entdeckte eine „Streubreite, wie sie die<br />
Rechtsordnung bisher nicht kennt“. Vor allem müsse<br />
jenem „diffus bedrohlichen Gefühl des<br />
Beobachtetseins“ begegnet werden. Das klingt - auch<br />
wenn die Verfassungsrichter die<br />
Vorratsdatenspeicherung nicht für generell unzulässig<br />
halten - schon sehr <strong>na</strong>ch Überwachungsstaat. Dessen<br />
Abwehr gehört für Karlsruhe zur deutschen Identität.<br />
Es wird aber auch umgekehrt ein Schuh draus: Wenn<br />
schwere Straftaten nicht mehr verhindert oder verfolgt<br />
werden können, weil Verbindungsdaten nicht<br />
zugänglich oder gelöscht sind, dann entsteht mehr als<br />
ein „diffus bedrohliches Gefühl“, und zwar nicht nur<br />
des „Beobachtetseins“.<br />
Verpflichtung gegenüber den eigenen Bürgern<br />
Immerhin hat die von den vehementen Gegnern der<br />
Vorratsdatenspeicherung sonst so gern beschworene<br />
europäische Rechtsgemeinschaft dieses Instrument<br />
nicht verworfen. Das ist der Grund, warum<br />
ausgerechnet jene EU-Kommission, die sich auf dem<br />
Feld des Datenschutzes von niemandem übertreffen<br />
lassen will, der Bundesregierung eine Frist bis zum<br />
Ende dieser Woche gesetzt hat, um die Richtlinie<br />
endlich in deutsches Recht zu überführen.<br />
Dass die Richtlinie noch vor dem Europäischen<br />
Gerichtshof bestehen muss, tut erst einmal nichts zur<br />
Sache. Deutschland muss dem europäischen Recht<br />
grundgesetzkonform Geltung verschaffen - eine<br />
Verpflichtung im Übrigen, die ganz u<strong>na</strong>bhängig von<br />
Brüsseler Fristen vor allem gegenüber den eigenen<br />
Bürgern besteht.<br />
Datenspeicherung unterliegt dem Zufall<br />
Eine Anordnung, Daten ohne Anlass zu speichern,<br />
wäre freilich nicht nur überflüssig, sondern<br />
rechtswidrig, wenn sie untauglich wäre. Doch dass die<br />
Vorratsdatenspeicherung nicht wirksam wäre, ergibt<br />
sich weder aus den Erfahrungen anderer Länder noch<br />
aus wissenschaftlichen Gutachten. Die von<br />
Bundesjustizministerin Leutheusser-Sch<strong>na</strong>rrenberger<br />
(FDP) bevorzugte Regelung, nur die<br />
Kommunikationsdaten Verdächtiger einzufrieren, taugt<br />
in vielen Fällen nicht.<br />
Davon abgesehen setzt die soge<strong>na</strong>nnte<br />
200
Quick-freeze-Regelung voraus, dass Daten überhaupt<br />
gespeichert werden. Zurzeit liegt es an den jeweiligen<br />
Telekommunikationsunternehmen und damit am<br />
Zufall, inwieweit Daten verfügbar sind. Soll das den<br />
Ausschlag geben dürfen, ob Verbrechen verhindert<br />
oder verfolgt werden können? Das wäre eine<br />
Tragödie.<br />
Von der Tragödie zur Posse<br />
Somit entpuppt sich das Stück<br />
„Vorratsdatenspeicherung“ als Koalitionsposse.<br />
Offenbar wird hier seit einiger Zeit ein Streit auf Vorrat<br />
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/ - Politik, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Europäischen Gerichtshof )<br />
gespeichert - man kann ja nie wissen, wann man ihn<br />
mal wieder brauchen kann. Freilich macht der Streit<br />
auch anschaulich, dass die Politik auf dem Feld des<br />
Internets <strong>na</strong>ch wie vor überfordert ist. Dort geht es<br />
nicht nur um die Bekämpfung von Krimi<strong>na</strong>lität und den<br />
Schutz von Daten, sondern etwa auch um das<br />
Urheberrecht. Der Bürger soll sich selbst schützen.<br />
Nicht zuletzt gegen private Firmen, welche die<br />
allermeisten Daten sammeln. Wenn aber der Staat<br />
ausfällt, kann auch die Debatte über Grundrechte,<br />
über Freiheit und Sicherheit, gelöscht werden.<br />
201
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/ - Politik, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Europäischen Gerichtshof )<br />
Kriegserklärung des Innenministers<br />
Bundesinnenminister Friedrich hat den Gesetzentwurf<br />
von Justizministerin Leutheusser-Sch<strong>na</strong>rrenberger zur<br />
Vorratsdatenspeicherung in der Luft zerrissen. Nun<br />
drängt die Zeit. Was tun?<br />
Von Peter Carstens, Berlin<br />
Bundes-Innenminister Friedrich (CSU) hat den<br />
Gesetzentwurf von Justizministerin<br />
Leutheusser-Sch<strong>na</strong>rrenberger (FDP) zur<br />
Vorratsdatenspeicherung rundweg abgelehnt. Nach<br />
dem Vorschlag der Ministerin soll die Verwendung von<br />
Handy- und Computerverbindungsdaten nur noch<br />
<strong>na</strong>ch dem „Quick-Freeze“-Verfahren möglich sein. Die<br />
Speicherfrist für diese Daten bei den privaten<br />
Anbietern will sie auf wenige Tage begrenzen.<br />
Frau Leutheusser-Sch<strong>na</strong>rrenberger wollte ihren<br />
Gesetzentwurf dem Kabinett vorlegen und damit zum<br />
Ablauf eines Ultimatums der EU-Kommission<br />
sig<strong>na</strong>lisieren, dass Deutschland sich um die<br />
Umsetzung der EU-Richtlinie zur<br />
Vorratsdatenspeicherung bemühe. Sollte die Brüsseler<br />
Forderung nicht bis zum 22. April 2012 erfüllt werden,<br />
droht Deutschland ein Vertragsverletzungsverfahren<br />
vor dem Europäischen Gerichtshof; im Falle einer<br />
Verurteilung auch eine Geldstrafe. Solche Verfahren<br />
sind für die betroffenen Regierungen unerfreulich, aber<br />
keine Seltenheit, auch nicht für Deutschland.<br />
Keine Korrektur, sondern eine Kriegserklärung<br />
Nachdem die abermalige Brüsseler Aufforderung in<br />
Berlin eingetroffen war, versprachen die<br />
Koalitionspartner ei<strong>na</strong>nder, noch einmal gemeinsam<br />
<strong>na</strong>ch einer Lösung zu suchen. Dazu sollte auch<br />
gehören, dass das Innenministerium (BMI) nunmehr<br />
zu dem Gesetzentwurf der Ministerin Stellung nimmt,<br />
der ihm erstmals Mitte 2011 zugeschickt worden war.<br />
Eine weitgehend korrigierte Fassung, die nun im<br />
Justizministerium angekommen ist, entspricht einer<br />
politischen Kriegserklärung. In einem Schreiben, das<br />
dieser Zeitung vorliegt, bescheinigt das<br />
Innenministerium dem Justizministerium eine ziemlich<br />
vollständige Unfähigkeit, den Anforderungen aus<br />
Brüssel, Karlsruhe und der Union gerecht zu werden.<br />
„Ich stelle fest, dass der übersandte Entwurf nicht<br />
geeignet ist, die Richtlinie 2006/24/EG umzusetzen<br />
und damit das laufende Vertragsverletzungsverfahren<br />
gegen Deutschland abzuwenden,“ schreibt der<br />
zuständige Beamte und moniert: „Auch werden die<br />
Vorgaben aus dem Urteil des<br />
Bundesverfassungsgerichts vom 2. März 2010 nur<br />
teilweise umgesetzt“.<br />
Belehrungen in patzigem Tonfall<br />
Deshalb, so das Schreiben, stimme das<br />
Bundesministerium des Innern „der Kabinettbefassung<br />
nur unter der Maßgabe zu, dass die aus der Anlage<br />
ersichtlichen Änderungen übernommen werden“. Die<br />
Änderungen, die dann seitenlang eingefügt sind,<br />
beginnen bereits mit der Überschrift, wo die<br />
Formulierung „Sicherung von Verkehrsdaten“ durch<br />
„Speicherung von Verkehrsdaten“ ersetzt wird. Die<br />
Präambel des Justizministeriums wird gelöscht mit der<br />
patzigen Bemerkung: „Derartige historische<br />
Ausführungen passen nicht in das Vorblatt eines<br />
amtlichen Gesetzentwurfs“. Im gleichen Ton fährt das<br />
Innenministerium fort. Inhaltlich entsprechen seinen<br />
Änderungswünsche ziemlich weitgehend der<br />
Gesetzgebung vor dem Urteil des<br />
Bundesverfassungsgerichts.<br />
Provokation und Reaktion<br />
Insbesondere besteht Friedrich auf eine Speicherfrist<br />
von sechs Mo<strong>na</strong>ten, <strong>na</strong>chdem Innenpolitiker der Union<br />
noch im vergangenen September erklärt hatten, sie<br />
könnten auch mit einer auf drei Mo<strong>na</strong>te verkürzten<br />
Speicherfrist leben. Der Gesetzentwurf hingegen sieht<br />
sieben Tage vor. Das wiederum empfindet das<br />
Innenministerium als Provokation. Nach seinem Willen<br />
soll auch der Verfassungsschutz künftig auf die<br />
Vorratsdaten zugreifen, denn die Kenntnis des<br />
Kommunikationsverhaltens sei „für die Aufklärung von<br />
Taten extremistischer oder terroristischer<br />
Vereinigungen“ sehr nützlich.<br />
Das Justizministerium bemühte sich am Dienstag<br />
darum, zumindest äußerlich die Form zu wahren. Es<br />
sei „mehr als bedauerlich, dass sich das BMI nicht<br />
ernsthaft mit der Alter<strong>na</strong>tive der anlassbezogenen<br />
Sicherung von Verkehrsdaten beschäftigt hat“, teilte ihr<br />
Sprecher mit. Das Innenministerium ließ verlautbaren,<br />
man habe „mehrere konkrete und konstruktive<br />
Änderungswünsche übersandt“. In dieser Woche noch<br />
wollen sich die beiden Minister treffen. Da<strong>na</strong>ch fährt<br />
die Justizministerin zum FDP-Parteitag. Friedrich sagte<br />
am Dienstag, er sei überzeugt, dass Frau<br />
Leutheusser-Sch<strong>na</strong>rrenberger „sehr bald“ einlenken<br />
werde.<br />
202
La Nacion/ - noticia, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Complicaciones en la Justicia bo<strong>na</strong>erense<br />
por las medidas de fuerza<br />
El reclamo salarial ya lleva más de un mes y medio y<br />
las protestas se profundizan; hoy hubo un corte en la<br />
autopista La Plata - Buenos Aires Por Valeria Musse<br />
LA PLATA.- El reclamo salarial de los empleados<br />
judiciales bo<strong>na</strong>erenses, que ya lleva más de un mes y<br />
medio, se agrava con el correr de los días. Luego de<br />
que el Ejecutivo provincial decidiera, por decreto,<br />
otorgar un incremento de hasta el 26 % y dar así por<br />
fi<strong>na</strong>lizada las negociaciones con los trabajadores que<br />
profundizaron las protestas. Esta maña<strong>na</strong>, un grupo<br />
de empleados interrumpió el tránsito en el ingreso y<br />
egreso de la autopista Buenos Aires - La Plata y en<br />
otros puntos de la capital provincial. Desde el Colegio<br />
de Abogados bo<strong>na</strong>erense, que nuclea a 50 mil<br />
profesio<strong>na</strong>les matriculados, se planea presentar, en<br />
los próximos días, un recurso de amparo para que se<br />
regularice el sistema judicial y permita avanzar con<br />
trámites retrasados y procesos inconclusos. La<br />
Asociación Judicial Bo<strong>na</strong>erense (AJB), que representa<br />
a unos 20 mil empleados, reclama que el gobierno<br />
provincial reimplante el Sistema de Porcentualidad<br />
Salarial. "Esta ley implica la aplicación de u<strong>na</strong> escala<br />
de remuneraciones expresada en porcentajes siendo<br />
el mayor sueldo, o sea el 100 % de esa escala, el de<br />
un juez de la Corte", explicó a LA NACION el<br />
Secretario General de la AJB, Hugo Blasco. Así, cada<br />
cargo del Poder Judicial tiene estipulada u<strong>na</strong><br />
proporción determi<strong>na</strong>da. El dirigente se quejó: "Si bien<br />
el aumento que decretó el gobierno provincial le da a<br />
los niveles jerárquicos más bajos un mayor incremento<br />
[el 26 %] que a los jueces [el 21 %], la recuperación<br />
porcentual es muy pequeña". El Ejecutivo determinó<br />
esas cifras el miércoles de la sema<strong>na</strong> pasada y así dio<br />
por cerrada las paritarias. Ante lo que consideró u<strong>na</strong><br />
decisión "unilateral, autoritaria y antidemocrática", la<br />
AJB convocó a endurecer las medidas de fuerza para<br />
esta sema<strong>na</strong>. Los trabajadores planearon paros<br />
activos (con concurrencia a los lugares de trabajo pero<br />
sin ejercer la actividad), cortes de calles y<br />
movilizaciones a la Casa de Gobierno provincial,<br />
ubicada en La Plata. El Colegio de Abogados<br />
provincial se manifestó a través de un comunicado: "Si<br />
bien resulta absolutamente legítimo el derecho a<br />
reclamar por mejoras en las condiciones de trabajo,<br />
cabe recordar que es igualmente legítimo el derecho<br />
de los ciudadanos que requieren la protección<br />
jurisdiccio<strong>na</strong>l, como así también el de los abogados,<br />
para que se les permita, con las limitaciones que<br />
puedan generar las legítimas protestas de los<br />
trabajadores judiciales, acceder al servicio de<br />
justicia.".<br />
203
La Repubblica/ - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Constitución)<br />
Severino: "Pene più alte per la<br />
corruzione" Intercettazioni, rispunta la<br />
"ammazza blog"<br />
l Guardasigilli presenta l'emendamento alle<br />
commissioni Affari costituzio<strong>na</strong>li e giustizia della<br />
Camera. L'esame del ddl riprende a maggio. In<br />
matti<strong>na</strong>ta vertice con i partiti di maggioranza. Nelle<br />
bozze riappare la norma già contenuta nel dl Aflano.<br />
Insorge Di Pietro ROMA - Sale a cinque anni la pe<strong>na</strong><br />
massima del reato di corruzione per l'esercizio della<br />
funzione: è u<strong>na</strong> delle novità contenute<br />
nell'emendamento del governo al ddl anti-corruzione<br />
depositato dal ministro della Giustizia Paola Severino<br />
alle Commissioni Affari costituzio<strong>na</strong>li e Giustizia della<br />
Camera riunite in maniera congiunta. Modifiche su cui i<br />
partiti saranno poi liberi di fare ulteriori cambiamenti. Al<br />
termine della seduta l'ufficio di presidenza delle<br />
commissioni ha fissato al 4 maggio il termine per i<br />
subemendamenti al testo. L'8 maggio, poi, le<br />
commissioni dovrebbero essere riconvocate<br />
sull'argomento. Il testo depositato dal Guardasigilli<br />
prevede che "il pubblico ufficiale che, in relazione<br />
all'esercizio delle sue funzioni o dei suoi poteri riceve<br />
per sè o per un terzo de<strong>na</strong>ro o altra utilità o ne accetta<br />
la promessa è punito con la reclusione da uno a<br />
cinque anni". La riformulazione dell'articolo 318 del<br />
codice pe<strong>na</strong>le consente, si legge nella motivazione<br />
che accompag<strong>na</strong> il testo, "di ricostruire con maggiore<br />
precisione i 'confini' fra le diverse forme di corruzione:<br />
da u<strong>na</strong> parte la corruzione propria che rimane<br />
ancorata alla prospettiva del compimento di un atto<br />
contrario ai doveri di ufficio; dall'altra l'accettazione o la<br />
promessa di utilità indebita da parte del pubblico<br />
ufficiale O dell'incaricato di pubblico servizio, che<br />
prescinde dall'adozione o dalla omissione di atti<br />
inerenti al proprio ufficio". Le norme anticorruzione<br />
incideranno sui processi in corso, spiega il ministro ai<br />
gior<strong>na</strong>listi al termine della seduta. "Bisog<strong>na</strong> avere il<br />
coraggio di intervenire seriamente e con razio<strong>na</strong>lità.<br />
Nessuno potrà dire che si è intervenuti per incidere su<br />
un processo o un altro. E' questa la normale fisiologia<br />
e non la patologia del sistema", aggiunge. Sul falso in<br />
bilancio, Severino assicura che il governo è pronto ad<br />
intervenire. "Ci sono dei disegni di legge pendenti<br />
presso il Parlamento. E' u<strong>na</strong> materia che avrà quindi la<br />
sua autonoma trattazione. E quando se ne parlerà il<br />
governo non si sottrarrà al suo dovere", spiega.<br />
Severino ha garantito poi di essere in grado di andare<br />
avanti anche sugli altri argomenti oggetto della<br />
trattativa di queste settimane fra il governo e le forze<br />
della maggioranza. Su intercettazioni e responsabilità<br />
civile dei magistrati "le bozze sono pronte - ha<br />
spiegato - e come tutte si tratta di bozze aperte al<br />
confronto parlamentare". Il lavoro fatto ai tavoli<br />
bilaterali "è stato estremamente proficuo - ha<br />
sintetizzato il Guardasigilli - il resto deve essere<br />
lasciato al dibattito parlamentare", auspicando di poter<br />
portare avanti i provvedimenti in tempi coerenti con le<br />
intese". Il testo depositato oggi rispecchia le bozze<br />
circolate in questi giorni, conferma Severino ai cronisti<br />
al termine della seduta. E in queste bozze rispunta la<br />
cosiddetta norma "ammazza-blog" 1, che ha subito<br />
suscitato u<strong>na</strong> nuova levata di scudi. "Il paese si<br />
aspetta severe norme contro la corruzione, il traffico di<br />
soldi pubblici, la pratica corrente degli appalti gonfiati e<br />
il Pdl non trova di meglio che infilare nella bozza<br />
Severino sulle intercettazioni la norma 'ammazza blog'<br />
che aveva finto di rimangiarsi in Aula appe<strong>na</strong> cinque<br />
mesi fa", denuncia in u<strong>na</strong> nota Flavia Peri<strong>na</strong> di Fli. "Giù<br />
le mani dalla rete", tuo<strong>na</strong> Antonio Di Pietro,<br />
scagliandosi contro "l'odiosa norma ammazza blog,<br />
voluta già dal governo Berlusconi". Per il leader<br />
dell'Italia dei valori "il web è un baluardo della<br />
democrazia, uno dei pochi spazi che consente ai<br />
cittadini di avere informazioni e di dire la propria" e<br />
promette che l'Idv "si batterà affinchè sia rispettato<br />
l'articolo 21 della costituzione e venga tutelata la<br />
libertà d'informazione e di espressione della rete". In<br />
matti<strong>na</strong>ta il ministro ha incontrato i partiti della<br />
maggioranza: sul tavolo i tre grandi temi della<br />
corruzione, delle intercettazioni e della responsabilità<br />
civile dei magistrati. Le proposte 2 depositate oggi<br />
"tengono conto del confronto di idee svoltosi nel corso<br />
degli incontri bilaterali", ha detto il Guardasigilli al<br />
termine del vertice, durato un'ora e mezza. "La scelta<br />
alla base della mia proposta, così come per gli altri<br />
due provvedimenti discussi in questi giorni, è stata rileva ancora Severino - quella di costruire attraverso il<br />
dialogo l'ossatura portante dei tre interventi normativi,<br />
in modo da delineare u<strong>na</strong> struttura dotata di coerenza<br />
e logica inter<strong>na</strong> anche sotto il profilo della misura delle<br />
pene". E sottolinea: sul ddl anti-corruzione "abbiamo<br />
rispettato la tempistica su cui c'eravamo impeg<strong>na</strong>ti con<br />
i presidente delle commissioni parlamentari".<br />
204
La Repubblica/ - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Constitución)<br />
Fmi alza stime Pil Italia, ripresa nel 2013<br />
Pareggio di bilancio in Costituzione<br />
MILANO - Per la ripresa dell"economia italia<strong>na</strong><br />
bisognerà aspettare fino al 2013, ma prima del 2017<br />
niente pareggio di bilancio. Parola del Fondo<br />
monetario inter<strong>na</strong>zio<strong>na</strong>le che, nel giorno in cui la<br />
regola del pareggio di bilancio entra in Costituzione, ha<br />
rivisto al rialzo le stime sul Prodotto interno lordo del<br />
Paese, ma ha confermato la recessione per<br />
quest"anno: il pil si contrarrà dell"1,9% quest"anno e<br />
dello 0,3% nel 2013. Il Fmi ha così alzato le precedenti<br />
previsioni di gen<strong>na</strong>io rispettivamente di 0,2 e 0,3 punti<br />
percentuali. Più ottimistiche le previsioni del governo<br />
italiano e inserite nel Def, che sarà domani allo studio<br />
del Consiglio dei ministri: secondo Palazzo Chigi, il pil<br />
si contrarrà quest"anno dell"1,2%, mentre crescerà di<br />
mezzo punto percentuale nel 2013.Pareggio di bilancio<br />
in Costituzione. Il ddl sul pareggio di bilancio in<br />
Costituzione ha avuto il via libera definitivo dall"aula<br />
del Se<strong>na</strong>to con i due terzi degli aventi diritto (cioè 214<br />
su 321) necessari per evitare il ricorso al referendum<br />
confermativo. I sì sono stati 235, i no 11, gli astenuti<br />
34. Hanno votato contro la Lega e l"Idv, si è astenuta<br />
Coesione Nazio<strong>na</strong>le, a favore tutti gli altri gruppi. In<br />
dissenso dai rispettivi gruppi, Mario Baldassarri (Terzo<br />
Polo) che non ha partecipato al voto; Mauro Cutrufo<br />
(Pdl) e Massimo Garavaglia (Lega) che si sono<br />
astenuti. Pressione fiscale record. Ma secondo il Def,<br />
l"Italia raggiungerà un livello di zero deficit<br />
"reale" (non corretto per il ciclo) solo nel 2015. E"<br />
quanto prevede la bozza del Def. L"indebitamento<br />
netto, a -0,5% nel 2013, scende a -0,1% nel 2014 e a<br />
zero solo nel 2015. Per quanto riguarda il deficit-Pil<br />
quest"anno dovrebbe attestarsi all"1,7% per poi<br />
arrivare al livello di "close to balance" dello 0,5% nel<br />
2013. Nel frattempo, vola la pressione fiscale che<br />
tocca un nuovo record assoluto: quest"anno il peso del<br />
fisco si attesterà al 45,1%, salendo dal 42,5% del<br />
2011. Il livello di tassazione salirà poi al 45,4% nel<br />
2013, per poi attestarsi al 45,3% nel 2014 e al 44,9%<br />
nel 2015.Le previsioni del Fondo Monetario. La ripresa<br />
economica secondo il Fmi inizierà, quindi, solo nel<br />
2013 dopo u<strong>na</strong> recessione più profonda rispetto a<br />
quella dell"area euro nel suo complesso, per la quale è<br />
comunque prevista u<strong>na</strong> contrazione del pil nella prima<br />
metà del 2012. A preoccupare il vertici del Fondo<br />
monetario è il tasso di disoccupazione che in Italia si<br />
attesterà al 9,5% nel 2012 per salire fino al 9,7%<br />
l"anno prossimo restando, tuttavia, sotto la media<br />
dell"Eurozo<strong>na</strong> al 10,9% quest"anno e al 10,8% il<br />
prossimo. La Spag<strong>na</strong> è il paese europeo con la<br />
disoccupazione più alta, al 24,2% nel 2012 e al<br />
23,09% nel 2013: il pil di Madrid si contrarrà<br />
quest"anno dell"1,8%, mentre nel 2013 crescerà dello<br />
0,1%. Negli ultimi mesi, sono stati messi in atto, "in<br />
modo corretto", molti aggiustamenti fiscali, u<strong>na</strong> riforma<br />
strutturale e "sono stati fatti passi molto positivi per<br />
aumentare i requisiti patrimoniali del sistema<br />
bancario", tuttavia "il 2012 sarà un anno difficile". Così<br />
Jorg Decressin, vicedirettore del dipartimento di ricerca<br />
e consigliere economico del Fmi ha spiegato perché<br />
sono state riviste al rialzo rispetto a gen<strong>na</strong>io le stime<br />
sull"economia italia<strong>na</strong>. "Abbiamo rivisto<br />
moderatamente al rialzo le stime perché tensioni sui<br />
mercati fi<strong>na</strong>nziari si sono allentate e l"outlook globale è<br />
leggermente migliore rispetto a gen<strong>na</strong>io", ha detto<br />
Decressin durante la conferenza stampa a commento<br />
del world economic outlook, sottolineando che in Italia<br />
"sono state messe in atto politiche corrette e ora è<br />
questione di aspettare che la crescita ritorni, nel<br />
2013".Doccia fredda sulle speranze dell"Italia di<br />
raggiungere il pareggio bilancio già il prossimo anno.<br />
Secondo il Fmi il deficit-pil italiano passerà dal 2,4%<br />
del 2012 all"1,1% nel 2017, per attestarsi all"1,5% nel<br />
2013, all"1,6% nel 2014, all"1,5% nel 2015 e all"1,3%<br />
nel 2016. L"avanzo primario passerà dal 3% del 2012<br />
al 5,1% del 2017. Il debito sarà pari al 123,4%<br />
quest"anno e al 123,8% il prossimo. L"Eurozo<strong>na</strong>. Il<br />
Fondo Monetario ha quindi migliorato le stime della<br />
crescita mondiale per il 2012 e il 2013: il pil crescerà<br />
quest"anno del 3,5% e il prossimo del 4,1%,<br />
rispettivamente 0,2 e 0,1 punti percentuali in più<br />
rispetto alle previsioni di gen<strong>na</strong>io. La ripresa partirà<br />
prima dagli Stati Uniti e solo dopo riguarderà<br />
l"Eurozo<strong>na</strong>. L"economia america<strong>na</strong> crescerà<br />
quest"anno del 2,1% per poi accelerare nel 2013 al<br />
+2,4%, mentre quest"anno il Vecchio continente<br />
arretrerà dello 0,3%, prima di crescere dello 0,9% nel<br />
2013. L"economia tedesca crescerà quest"anno dello<br />
0,6% e nel 2013 dell"1,5%, quella francese dello 0,5%<br />
e dell"1%. Il capo economista del Fondo, Olivier<br />
Blanchard sottolinea che le decisioni prese in Europa<br />
"rappresentano un significativo progresso" per argi<strong>na</strong>re<br />
la crisi, in un contesto globale in cui si notano<br />
miglioramenti, ma restano numerosi rischi e altro deve<br />
essere fatto. Per esempio "l"Europa dovrebbe<br />
205
prendere in considerazione un"offerta di eurobond". I<br />
firewall europei, ha detto l"economista, "non possono<br />
risolvere problemi di crescita e credibilità di alcuni<br />
Paesi europei", alcuni dei quali ancora rischiano "di<br />
innescare u<strong>na</strong> crisi come quella a cui si è assistito<br />
nell"autunno". Il consiglio, dice Blanchard, "è che<br />
alcuni aggiustamenti immediati sono necessari per<br />
ristabilire la credibilità, ma poi servono piani di lungo<br />
termine".Le previsioni. Insomma, secondo il Fmi le<br />
prospettive per l"economia mondiale si stanno<br />
gradualmente rafforzando, "ma i recenti miglioramenti<br />
sono fragili e i rischi al ribasso elevati". A cominciare<br />
dai dubbi sulla tenuta dell"Europa e sul petrolio, con le<br />
tensioni geopolitiche che hanno effetto sul mercato e<br />
potrebbero causare, in caso di distruzioni alla<br />
produzione in Iran, un balzo dei prezzi. "Le condizioni<br />
del mercato del lavoro resteranno molto difficili in<br />
diverse economie avanzate", mette in evidenza il Fmi,<br />
secondo il quale fra gli altri rischi che potrebbero<br />
pesare sull"economia ci sono le pressioni<br />
disinflazionistiche. "Nel breve termine il rischio<br />
maggiore è il reintensificarsi" dell"interazione negativa<br />
fra la qualità degli asset delle banche e il rischio<br />
sovrano". Il capo economista del Fondo Blanchard,<br />
sottolinea come "la decisa risposta politica ha<br />
cambiato il corso delle cose, le elezioni in Spag<strong>na</strong> e la<br />
scelta di un nuovo presidente del consiglio in Italia<br />
hanno in certa misura rassicurato gli investitori", così<br />
come l"adozione del "fiscal compact". Tuttavia la "la<br />
crescita resterà debole, soprattutto in Europa, e la<br />
disoccupazione alta". Secondo il Fmi le priorità restano<br />
quindi "il consolidamento fiscale, la riforma del sistema<br />
fi<strong>na</strong>nziario e la revisione di programmi collegati<br />
La Repubblica/ - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Constitución)<br />
all"invecchiamento della popolazione, che devono<br />
ridurre le spese future senza mi<strong>na</strong>re la domanda". Per<br />
risolvere i problemi delle economie avanzate sottolinea il Fmi - non basta l"austerity, ma servono<br />
politiche "meglio orientate a risolvere i problemi<br />
fondamentali". Come a dire che le strategie non<br />
convenzio<strong>na</strong>li "non possono essere un sostituto per<br />
riforme fondamentali".Recessione. Come a diche che<br />
c"è ancora un rischio "sostanziale" di un nuovo o<br />
prolungato periodo di recessione per varie economie<br />
avanzate. Secondo il global projection model, il<br />
modello usato dall"Fmi, "la probabilità di u<strong>na</strong><br />
contrazione del pil nel 2012 è del 55% circa<br />
nell"Eurozo<strong>na</strong>, del 15% negli Stati Uniti, del 14% in<br />
Giappone e del 3% in America Lati<strong>na</strong>". Inoltre lo<br />
stesso modello suggerisce che nel quarto trimestre del<br />
2013 "la probabilità di un calo dei prezzi al consumo è<br />
superiore al 25% nell"Eurozo<strong>na</strong> e sopra il 35% in<br />
Giappone, ma solo del 10% negli Stati Uniti".Debito. Il<br />
rapporto debito lordo-pil dovrebbe "crescere<br />
ulteriormente nelle economie avanzate, con un<br />
particolare drastico aumento nelle economie del G7 al<br />
130% entro il 2017". Il Fmi stima che senza azioni<br />
supplementari a quelle attualmente pianificate, il<br />
rapporto debito-pil raggiungerà "il 256% in Giappone, il<br />
124% in Italia, sia vicino al 113% negli Stati Uniti, e al<br />
91% nell"Eurozo<strong>na</strong>". Le economie del G7 che fanno<br />
parte dell"Eurozo<strong>na</strong>, "questi valori potrebbero essere<br />
raggiunti nel 2013, per poi calare". Al contrario, molte<br />
economie emergenti e in via di sviluppo vedranno<br />
calare il rapporto debito-pil, complessivamente al di<br />
sotto del 30% entro il 2017.<br />
206
Le Monde/ - Article, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Cour constitutionnelle)<br />
La Libye sous syndrome post-traumatique<br />
Que faire le soir à Benghazi ? Au choix, regarder l"une<br />
des dix-sept chaînes de télévision libyennes qui ont<br />
succédé à celle, unique, toute entière dévouée à la<br />
glorification du Guide aujourd"hui défunt. Aller dîner<br />
d"un repas de poisson frais, arrosé de soda, dans un<br />
des bons restaurants du front de mer. Visiter le Musée<br />
des martyrs, dans la cour de justice, théâtre des<br />
premières manifestations qui déclenchèrent<br />
l"insurrection libyenne, en février 2011.Ou encore,<br />
moins conventionnel, au volant de sa voiture, se<br />
défouler sur des parkings transformés en pistes de<br />
formule 1, dans un vacarme de crissement de pneus<br />
et de moteurs en surchauffe. Le jeudi soir, veille du<br />
week-end, le rodéo automobile de Benghazi joue au<br />
Grand Prix de Dayto<strong>na</strong>. Un bon moyen d"évacuer le<br />
stress, en même temps que les odeurs de caoutchouc<br />
brûlé et la fumée des gaz d"échappement.Quatorze<br />
mois après le début de la révolution, Benghazi fait<br />
bonne figure, mais elle a les nerfs à fleur de peau. Le<br />
rodéo en voiture, dira-t-on, c"est toujours mieux que de<br />
se tirer dessus. Or l"un n"empêche pas l"autre, vu le<br />
nombre d"armes en circulation. Chaque matin apporte<br />
son histoire de la nuit. Celle de ce matin raconte que<br />
100 à 500 voitures, selon les versions, mises à l"abri<br />
par les kadhafistes pendant la guerre, ont été<br />
découvertes tardivement dans un entrepôt isolé. Des<br />
jeunes se sont servis, mais se sont heurtés aux milices<br />
locales... quelques échanges de tirs nourris ont suivi.<br />
"Vous n"avez pas entendu ?"Qui contrôle la Libye ?<br />
Des hommes en armes assurent l"ordre aux points<br />
stratégiques, mais l"absence d"uniforme rend leur<br />
identification incertaine. Ceux qui contrôlent l"aéroport<br />
de Tripoli, blouson de cuir noir (la variante avec la<br />
griffe Gucci est apparemment admise) et paire de<br />
menottes dépassant du jean également noir,<br />
appartiennent à la brigade de Zintan, qui a pris<br />
l"aéroport aux forces kadhafistes en 2011 et ne le<br />
lâche plus. Les hommes qui, au départ de Benghazi,<br />
demandent les passeports et exigent de multiples<br />
tampons sur le billet d"avion portent un badge du<br />
"ministère de la défense". Où prennent-ils leurs ordres<br />
? Difficile à dire.Car les relations entre Tripoli et<br />
Benghazi sont tendues, depuis que, le 6 mars, la<br />
région de Benghazi, l"une des trois grandes provinces<br />
libyennes (Tripolitaine, Cyré<strong>na</strong>ïque et Fezzan) a<br />
annoncé la création d"un "Conseil intérimaire de<br />
Cyré<strong>na</strong>ïque". Pas de quoi crier à la sécession, rassure<br />
un professeur local de droit public, Abdelkader Kadura,<br />
qui a mis sur pied un groupe de travail sur le<br />
fédéralisme. Mais "il y a mainte<strong>na</strong>nt un conseil de<br />
défense de la Cyré<strong>na</strong>ïque, ajoute-t-il dans le même<br />
souffle. On n"accepte plus de militaires de Tripoli." A<br />
Ajdabiya, autre ville de la Cyré<strong>na</strong>ïque, ce sont les<br />
tribus qui commandent, affirme le rédacteur en chef du<br />
jour<strong>na</strong>l local : les milices y sont sous l"autorité des<br />
chefs de tribu. Un jeune médecin de l"armée explique<br />
que, lorsqu"il fait le trajet de Zaouïa à Misrata, sur 300<br />
km, il décline trois identités différentes suivant le<br />
check-point auquel il est contrôlé. Bref, les Libyens<br />
s"adaptent.Médecin français installé depuis 2008 à<br />
l"hôpital de Benghazi, ce fameux hôpital offert par la<br />
France à la Libye dans le cadre du règlement de la<br />
libération des infirmières bulgares, Jean Dufriche voit<br />
défiler dans son bureau, toute la journée, des gens qui<br />
ont un besoin irrépressible de s"épancher. A l"hôpital,<br />
les conditions se sont dégradées. Les vingt-cinq<br />
médecins étrangers évacués au début de la révolution<br />
ne sont pas revenus, le directeur a changé trois fois, le<br />
budget annuel a été divisé par dix.Comme ailleurs, il<br />
faut tout reconstruire. C"est le défi qu"affrontent aussi<br />
d"ex-rebelles reconvertis dans le jour<strong>na</strong>lisme. Maleek<br />
Elhasee est le rédacteur en chef d"un nouveau jour<strong>na</strong>l,<br />
Al-Kalima ("La Parole") où il tente d"appliquer "les<br />
principes d"impartialité et de crédibilité". Une enquête,<br />
dans le dernier numéro, dénonce précisément la<br />
situation à l"hôpital et montre que "la révolution a<br />
encore beaucoup de chemin à faire".Mais comme ses<br />
collègues, il sait qu"il existe "une ligne rouge", celle<br />
des groupes armés. Il n"y a, dans la Libye nouvelle, ni<br />
code de la presse ni loi pour protéger les jour<strong>na</strong>listes.<br />
"Si je franchis la ligne rouge, je peux prendre une<br />
balle, dit-il. Il y a des armes partout, la police et<br />
l"armée sont impuissantes. Alors, j"applique le<br />
précepte islamique : éviter le mal plutôt que de révéler<br />
la vérité."Faute de perspectives claires, encore<br />
incapables d"imaginer les contours de leur avenir, les<br />
Libyens, comme frappés du syndrome<br />
post-traumatique, baignent dans l"apologie de la<br />
révolution. La télévision n"en finit pas de projeter les<br />
images de l"insurrection et de la guerre. Les jeunes<br />
rappeurs ressemblent aux rappeurs du monde entier,<br />
casquette des New York Yankees vissée à l"envers<br />
sur la tête, mais eux chantent la révolution, dans des<br />
morceaux intitulés Benghazi, Libye ou Syrie."Merci la<br />
France !", proclame un grand panneau à l"aéroport de<br />
Benghazi. Nicolas Sarkozy gagnerait ici une élection<br />
haut la main. D"ailleurs, on en redemande. Invité, fin<br />
mars à Bruxelles, à la conférence annuelle du German<br />
Marshall Fund, l"ex-premier ministre libyen Mahmoud<br />
Jibril a accusé les Européens d"avoir déserté la Libye<br />
207
après l"opération de l"OTAN : "Nos parte<strong>na</strong>ires ont<br />
oublié que lorsque le régime est tombé, l"Etat aussi<br />
s"est effondré, a-t-il dit. Et puis tout le monde s"est<br />
envolé." C"est, à ses yeux, "une erreur tragique : il y a<br />
un vide politique et sécuritaire en Libye, et le vide ne<br />
reste jamais vide longtemps". Catherine Ashton, chef<br />
de la diplomatie européenne, lui a répondu que<br />
l"Europe était présente en Libye à travers des<br />
programmes pour la société civile et les femmes ; pour<br />
le reste, "en l"absence de fonction<strong>na</strong>ires et<br />
Le Monde/ - Article, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Cour constitutionnelle)<br />
d"administration", il est difficile de trouver des<br />
interlocuteurs.Les programmes pour les femmes sont<br />
certes appréciés, a répondu M. Jibril, un brin<br />
condescendant. "Mais le défi actuel, c"est de retirer les<br />
armes de la rue et de rétablir l"ordre avant les<br />
élections de juin." C"est vrai. Et c"est d"abord un défi<br />
pour les Libyens. Car les Européens, soucieux de ne<br />
pas reproduire les erreurs américaines en Irak, vont<br />
les laisser faire eux-mêmes ce travail-là.<br />
208
Reuters General/ - Article, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Ohio to execute farm hand who murdered<br />
boy<br />
By Kim Palmer CLEVELAND | Tue Apr 17, 2012<br />
7:40pm EDT (Reuters) - Ohio is scheduled on<br />
Wednesday to execute a 49-year-old man who<br />
stabbed a tee<strong>na</strong>ge boy to death when the boy<br />
discovered the farm hand burglarizing his horse farm<br />
in 1985. Mark Wiles is set to be put to death by lethal<br />
injection at 10 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Facility in Lucasville. He would be the 14th person<br />
executed in the United States this year. He was<br />
sentenced to die for the August 7, 1985, murder of<br />
15-year-old Mark Klima, a top student who aspired to<br />
be a doctor. Wiles stabbed the boy 24 times with a<br />
kitchen knife. Wiles worked at Klima's family horse<br />
farm in Rootstown in northern Ohio and had been<br />
stealing from the family for some time. A panel of three<br />
judges convicted Wiles the following year, not<br />
persuaded by a doctor's testimony that Wiles had<br />
suffered a head injury 12 days before the murder that<br />
may have affected his impulse control. At his clemency<br />
hearing last month, Wiles said he "was not sure he<br />
was worthy of clemency." It was denied. The execution<br />
was allowed to proceed after U.S. District Judge<br />
Gregory Frost lifted an order that had postponed two<br />
previously scheduled executions this year. On April 4,<br />
Frost denied Wiles' motion to delay his execution,<br />
ruling the state had fixed problems with its death<br />
pe<strong>na</strong>lty protocols after the botched execution of<br />
Romell Broom in September 2009. Prison<br />
spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said Wiles requested for<br />
his fi<strong>na</strong>l meal the night before the execution a<br />
pepperoni pizza, a bag of cheese puffs, strawberries, a<br />
salad with Ranch dressing, cheesecake, and a vanilla<br />
wafer. Ohio has executed 46 people since the state<br />
resumed executions in 1999. Executions were<br />
temporarily halted by a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court<br />
ruling that threw out federal and state death pe<strong>na</strong>lty<br />
statutes, prompting states to revamp their laws and<br />
procedures. Executions resumed in 1976. There were<br />
43 executions in the United States in 2011. (Editing by<br />
Andrew Stern and Greg McCune; Desking by Cynthia<br />
Osterman)<br />
209
Reuters General/ - Article, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
U.S. top court rules for generic<br />
drugmaker on patent<br />
By An<strong>na</strong> Yukha<strong>na</strong>nov and James Vicini<br />
WASHINGTON | Tue Apr 17, 2012 3:07pm EDT<br />
(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on<br />
Tuesday in favor of a generic drugmaker in a case<br />
over how companies can fight brand-<strong>na</strong>me rivals in an<br />
effort to get their cheaper medicines to market. The<br />
high court u<strong>na</strong>nimously ruled that the generics<br />
company, Caraco Pharmaceuticals, could sue a<br />
brand-<strong>na</strong>me drugmaker to get it to <strong>na</strong>rrow its patent<br />
description with the Food and Drug Administration.<br />
The FDA uses this information to decide whether to<br />
approve a generic "copycat" version of a medicine<br />
before the patent has expired. Caraco, a unit of India's<br />
Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, argued that the<br />
description of the patent for the diabetes drug,<br />
Prandin, was too broad and therefore prevented any<br />
generic from entering the market. It raised a<br />
"counterclaim" to challenge the description. The U.S.<br />
government said generic drugs saved consumers<br />
billions of dollars each year, and it opposed a lower<br />
court ruling in favor of the brand-<strong>na</strong>me company,<br />
Denmark's Novo Nordisk. The justices agreed, and<br />
overturned a U.S. appeals court ruling that Caraco<br />
could not file a legal counterclaim to challenge the way<br />
Novo had described its patent to the FDA. Justice<br />
Ele<strong>na</strong> Kagan said in the opinion that when the FDA<br />
evaluated an application to market a generic drug, it<br />
considered whether the proposed drug would infringe<br />
a patent held by the manufacturer of the brand-<strong>na</strong>me<br />
version. The FDA requires brand-<strong>na</strong>me manufacturers<br />
to submit descriptions of the scope of their patents,<br />
known as use codes, and it assumes the information is<br />
accurate, she said. "We hold that a generic<br />
manufacturer may employ this provision to force<br />
correction of a use code that i<strong>na</strong>ccurately describes<br />
the brand's patent as covering a particular method of<br />
using the drug in question," Kagan concluded. The<br />
FDA approved Prandin, known generically as<br />
repaglinide, for three separate uses to help patients<br />
with Type 2 diabetes to control their blood sugar<br />
levels. Novo Nordisk's main patent on the drug already<br />
expired, but it has another that covers the use of<br />
repaglinide only when it is used in combi<strong>na</strong>tion with<br />
another diabetes drug, metformin. This patent expires<br />
in 2018. That means Caraco could get FDA approval<br />
to "carve out" two other uses for the drug without<br />
infringing on Novo Nordisk's specific patent. But Novo<br />
Nordisk, the world's biggest insulin producer,<br />
submitted a more general description of its remaining<br />
Prandin patent to the FDA, effectively covering all<br />
three uses. Novo Nordisk said its description of the<br />
patent for Prandin fulfilled FDA requirements and that<br />
the "counterclaim" provision was a minor point in the<br />
law that was never supposed to fix patent descriptions.<br />
But the Supreme Court rejected the company's<br />
arguments. The Supreme Court case is Caraco<br />
Pharmaceutical Laboratories v. Novo Nordisk, No.<br />
10-844. (Reporting By An<strong>na</strong> Yukha<strong>na</strong>nov and James<br />
Vicini; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)<br />
210
Reuters General/ - Article, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Florida judge in Trayvon Martin case to<br />
decide on recusal<br />
By Barbara Liston ORLANDO, Florida | Tue Apr 17,<br />
2012 4:21pm EDT (Reuters) - A Florida judge will<br />
decide this week whether to step down from the<br />
second-degree murder trial of George Zimmerman, the<br />
neighborhood watch volunteer charged in the shooting<br />
death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Circuit Judge<br />
Jessica Recksiedler disclosed last week that her<br />
husband's law partner previously had been contacted<br />
by Zimmerman seeking representation. Zimmerman's<br />
lawyer, Mark O'Mara, on Monday filed a motion asking<br />
Recksiedler to recuse herself. Recksiedler is on<br />
temporary assignment from the Florida Supreme<br />
Court, hearing oral arguments at the Fifth District<br />
Court of Appeal in Dayto<strong>na</strong> Beach, Florida. She will<br />
issue a written order by Friday on the recusal motion,<br />
according to a court news release issued on Tuesday.<br />
A bond hearing is set for Zimmerman on Friday. The<br />
court spokesman was u<strong>na</strong>vailable to comment on<br />
Tuesday on whether that hearing would go forward as<br />
scheduled if another judge takes over the case. In<br />
what the court spokesman previously acknowledged<br />
was an unusual decision, a different judge at<br />
Zimmerman's first appearance on Thursday sealed all<br />
court records filed in the case after that date. Martin<br />
was killed February 26 after he went to a convenience<br />
store to buy s<strong>na</strong>cks before watching the NBA All-Star<br />
game on television. As he walked through a gated<br />
residential community where he was staying with his<br />
father and father's fiancee, Martin, a black teen, was<br />
spotted by Zimmerman, a white Hispanic. Prosecutors<br />
allege Zimmerman profiled Martin, disregarded police<br />
instructions, confronted and then killed Martin with a<br />
single gunshot to the chest. Zimmerman has claimed<br />
self-defense in the shooting in the central Florida town<br />
of Sanford. Police initially failed to arrest him or charge<br />
him with any crime because Florida's so-called "Stand<br />
Your Ground" law allows individuals who feel<br />
threatened in a public place to use lethal force in<br />
self-defense. (Editing By Tom Brown and Eric Walsh)<br />
211
Reuters General/ - Article, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
U.S. top court: lawyers hired by cities can<br />
seek immunity<br />
By James Vicini WASHINGTON | Tue Apr 17, 2012<br />
1:41pm EDT (Reuters) - The Supreme Court ruled on<br />
Tuesday that private attorneys or others temporarily<br />
hired by local governments to conduct investigations<br />
can assert immunity from civil rights lawsuits alleging<br />
constitutio<strong>na</strong>l violations and seeking damages. The<br />
high court ruled such individuals were not barred from<br />
getting immunity solely because they do not work for<br />
the government on a permanent or full-time basis. The<br />
justices u<strong>na</strong>nimously overturned a U.S. appeals court<br />
decision and ruled a private attorney retained by city<br />
officials to help with a personnel investigation can<br />
claim immunity in a lawsuit alleging constitutio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
violations. The ruling was a victory for lawyer Steve<br />
Filarsky, who had been hired by the city of Rialto,<br />
California, to investigate possible misuse of sick leave.<br />
Nicholas Delia, a firefighter suspected of improperly<br />
taking sick days, sued Filarsky after the investigation.<br />
Delia was filmed by an investigator buying fiberglass<br />
insulation at a home improvement store while on<br />
medical leave. As part of the investigation, Filarsky<br />
interviewed Delia and asked him about the insulation.<br />
Delia was ordered by the fire chief to retrieve the<br />
insulation from his home. Two department officers<br />
accompanied Delia to his house to get the unopened<br />
rolls of insulation to use in the city's case against him.<br />
City officials ultimately closed the investigation and<br />
took no action against Delia. Delia claimed in his<br />
lawsuit it was an unconstitutio<strong>na</strong>l search that violated<br />
his rights and sued the city, the fire department and<br />
Filarsky. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, but the<br />
appeals court ruled that Delia could proceed against<br />
Filarsky only. The Supreme Court in an opinion<br />
written by Chief Justice John Roberts ruled for<br />
Filarsky. Roberts wrote that affording immunity to<br />
those hired temporarily allowed the government to<br />
attract individuals with specialized knowledge or<br />
expertise, and that the public interest was served by<br />
their ability to work free from the distraction of potential<br />
lawsuits and liability. He concluded that individuals<br />
temporarily retained by the government should receive<br />
the same immunity enjoyed by their public employee<br />
counterparts. The Obama administration, 27 states,<br />
the American Bar Association and groups representing<br />
cities, mayors and state legislatures all supported<br />
Filarsky while a group representing trial lawyers<br />
backed Delia. Supporters of Filarsky said cities and<br />
counties have been struggling to contain costs amid<br />
massive budget cuts and have hired private attorneys<br />
for work normally done by government employees.<br />
The Supreme Court case is Filarsky v. Delia, No<br />
10-1018. (Editing by Doi<strong>na</strong> Chiacu)<br />
212
Reuters General/ - Article, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Cherokee adoption battle in South<br />
Caroli<strong>na</strong> high court<br />
By Harriet McLeod CHARLESTON, South Caroli<strong>na</strong> |<br />
Tue Apr 17, 2012 11:04am EDT (Reuters) - The<br />
adoptive parents of a 2-1/2-year-old Cherokee girl at<br />
the center of a custody battle stemming from her<br />
Native American heritage will ask the South Caroli<strong>na</strong><br />
Supreme Court on Tuesday to return her to them.<br />
Authorities took Veronica Capobianco from Matt and<br />
Melanie Capobianco of Charleston, South Caroli<strong>na</strong>, on<br />
New Year's Eve and turned the toddler over to her<br />
biological father, Dusten Brown, a member of the<br />
Cherokee Nation. Brown had sued for custody under<br />
the federal Indian Child Welfare Act that protects<br />
Native American families from being separated. The<br />
court proceedings Tuesday afternoon will be closed<br />
and records are sealed because it is an adoption case.<br />
A ruling is expected in mid-May, and parties and<br />
attorneys have been ordered by the court not to<br />
comment. The Capobiancos legally adopted Veronica<br />
at birth in 2009 through an open adoption in<br />
Oklahoma, said family spokeswoman Jessica Munday.<br />
According to "Save Veronica," a website set up by the<br />
couple's supporters, Veronica's birth mother, Christi<strong>na</strong><br />
Maldo<strong>na</strong>do, who is not Native American, offered the<br />
child for adoption because she could not care for the<br />
baby and had no support from Brown. Maldo<strong>na</strong>do lives<br />
in Oklahoma, Munday said. The biological parents<br />
were not married, and Brown was in the Army in<br />
Oklahoma when Veronica was born in September<br />
2009, Munday said. Brown contested the adoption and<br />
began petitioning for custody of Veronica under the<br />
federal law when she was four months old. "He loves<br />
this child with all his heart," Brown's attorney, Shannon<br />
Jones, said in January. A family court judge in<br />
Charleston found last fall that the federal law trumped<br />
South Caroli<strong>na</strong>'s adoption law, which ends a father's<br />
paternity rights when he has not provided pre-birth<br />
support or taken steps to be a father before and shortly<br />
after birth. The Capobiancos have spoken to Veronica<br />
by telephone only once since Brown, whom she had<br />
just met, drove away with her in December, Munday<br />
said. PETITION CONGRESS Friends and supporters<br />
of the couple have gathered almost 22,000 sig<strong>na</strong>tures<br />
on a petition to Congress asking for changes to the<br />
Indian Child Welfare Act. "We're not saying the whole<br />
law has to go away," Munday said on Monday. "There<br />
was obviously an intent for it. You hear about tribes<br />
with only 1,000 members. They don't want to lose their<br />
culture." The 1978 law gives tribes a right to intervene<br />
in adoption and child welfare cases and provides extra<br />
protections against the parent of an American Indian<br />
child having parental rights removed, said Chrissi<br />
Nimmo, assistant attorney general of the Cherokee<br />
Nation. Under the law, a child should be placed with a<br />
member of the child's extended family, whether they<br />
are Indian or not; a member of the child's tribe; or a<br />
member of another Indian tribe. The law was passed<br />
"as a result of studies that found that Indian children<br />
were being removed from their families at a<br />
disproportio<strong>na</strong>tely higher rate than other children,"<br />
Nimmo said in an email. "And 99 percent of Indian<br />
children in adoptive placements were in non-Indian<br />
homes." The Cherokee Nation, which has about<br />
317,000 current enrolled members, is involved in about<br />
1,100 various types of child custody proceedings<br />
<strong>na</strong>tionwide, Nimmo said. Nimmo said only one Indian<br />
Child Welfare Act case has reached the U.S. Supreme<br />
Court, which ruled in 1989's Mississippi Band of<br />
Choctaw Indians vs. Holyfield that "the tribal court had<br />
exclusive jurisdiction over a private adoption even<br />
though the mother left the reservation to give birth to<br />
twins." South Caroli<strong>na</strong> law allows a reaso<strong>na</strong>ble amount<br />
of time before and after birth for a father to establish<br />
paternity rights, said Stephanie Brinkley, a Charleston<br />
adoption lawyer who has researched the laws that<br />
apply to Veronica Capobianco's case. After that, a<br />
father's rights can be termi<strong>na</strong>ted if he hasn't provided<br />
support in some form, she said. "You've got to have<br />
more than biology," Brinkley said. "It's biology plus<br />
action. It's not always about money. Did he provide<br />
diapers? Did he set up a nursery in his own home?<br />
The court will look at whether Brown had a<br />
constitutio<strong>na</strong>l right to establish parentage." (Editing By<br />
Colleen Jenkins and Eric Beech)<br />
213
Reuters General/ - Article, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Howard Stern lawsuit vs Sirius XM<br />
Radio thrown out<br />
By Jo<strong>na</strong>than Stempel and Karen Freifeld Tue Apr 17,<br />
2012 6:54pm EDT (Reuters) - A judge has dismissed<br />
radio DJ Howard Stern's $330 million lawsuit accusing<br />
Sirius XM Radio of failing to pay him stock awards he<br />
was due for helping the domi<strong>na</strong>nt U.S. satellite radio<br />
company exceed growth targets. New York State<br />
Supreme Court Justice Barbara Kapnick in Manhattan<br />
said Stern and his agent Don Buchwald were bound by<br />
the language of the 2004 agreement that brought the<br />
now 58-year-old "shock jock" to what became Sirius<br />
XM from traditio<strong>na</strong>l radio. "While it may be true that<br />
Stern and Buchwald hoped and expected to reap the<br />
benefits from any significant growth that Sirius<br />
experienced after they entered into the agreement,<br />
that subjective expectation cannot suffice to override<br />
the clear, u<strong>na</strong>mbiguous language of the agreement,"<br />
Kapnick wrote. Seth Rothman, a lawyer who<br />
represents Stern, did not immediately respond to<br />
requests for comment. Sirius spokesman Patrick Reilly<br />
had no immediate comment. The case centered on<br />
whether to count subscribers of the former XM Satellite<br />
Radio Inc, which Sirius bought in 2008, to help<br />
determine performance-based awards for Stern's<br />
production company, One Twelve Inc, and fees for<br />
Buchwald. Sirius ended 2011 with 21.9 million<br />
subscribers, up from 3.3 million at the end of 2005,<br />
when the company was known as Sirius Satellite<br />
Radio Inc. Stern moved his radio show to Sirius on<br />
January 9, 2006. He renewed his contract for five<br />
years in December 2010, only to file his lawsuit three<br />
months later. According to the lawsuit, Stern's<br />
presence helped New York-based Sirius exceed<br />
subscriber targets by at least 2 million in each of<br />
several years beginning in 2006, triggering a new<br />
stock award every time. Sirius awarded $75 million to<br />
One Twelve and $7.5 million to Buchwald after the first<br />
year. Kapnick wrote that had all the performance<br />
awards been triggered, Sirius could have owed One<br />
Twelve another $300 million and Buchwald another<br />
$30 million. But Kapnick agreed with Sirius that XM<br />
subscribers did not count toward the subscriber base<br />
used to determine the awards. She said the only<br />
contractual provision that even mentioned or referred<br />
to XM or a potential merger called for Sirius to pay $25<br />
million to One Twelve and $2.5 million to Buchwald if<br />
the XM merger took place. These payments were<br />
made, she said. (Reporting by Karen Freifeld and<br />
Jo<strong>na</strong>than Stempel in New York; Additio<strong>na</strong>l reporting by<br />
Yinka Adegoke; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and John<br />
Wallace)<br />
214
The Economic Times/ - Politics/Nation, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Border security policy is not foolproof:<br />
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat<br />
RAJKOT: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has said that<br />
terrorists can enter India easily because the country's<br />
"border security policy" is not foolproof. "Our defence<br />
forces are capable of meeting any security challenge,<br />
but our border security policy is not foolproof and<br />
therefore terrorists can enter India easily," Bhagwat<br />
said, addressing RSS workers at Virani High School<br />
ground here last night.<br />
215
The New York Times/ - Politics, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Impact of Atlantic Yards, for Good or Ill,<br />
Is Already Felt<br />
The battle over Atlantic Yards has already raged<br />
longer than the Civil War, with eight years of protests,<br />
petitions and lawsuits seeking to halt a project that<br />
promised to reshape the heart of Brooklyn. Even now,<br />
as the oyster-shaped basketball are<strong>na</strong> that will anchor<br />
a 22-acre housing and office complex rises against the<br />
low-slung Brooklyn skyline, die-hard opponents are still<br />
resisting. Last week they packed a hearing held by two<br />
community boards to block the are<strong>na</strong> from speedily<br />
receiving a liquor license. But almost six months<br />
before the Barclays Center opens its doors to the Nets,<br />
Brooklyn’s first major professio<strong>na</strong>l sports team since<br />
the lamented Dodgers, the reality is that the Atlantic<br />
Yards project has already done the very thing that<br />
critics feared and supporters promoted: transform<br />
surrounding neighborhoods prized for their streets of<br />
tree-lined brownstones and low-key living. Shops<br />
along the workaday stretch of Flatbush Avenue south<br />
of the are<strong>na</strong> that for generations sold unglamorous<br />
products like hardware, paint, plumbing supplies,<br />
prescription drugs, even artificial limbs, are seeing new<br />
businesses pop up that sell high-heel shoes for $3,500<br />
a pair, revealing party dresses, exotic cheeses and, of<br />
course, high-priced martinis. Dozens of restaurants<br />
and bars, with beguiling <strong>na</strong>mes like Fish and Sip and<br />
Va beh’ (Italian slang for “It’s all good!”), have sprouted<br />
on major thoroughfares and serene side streets. “The<br />
neighborhood is now becoming an entertainment<br />
mecca — anything that’s hip and of the moment,” said<br />
Robert Schulman, who fits prosthetic devices for Allied<br />
Orthopedics, which has been on Flatbush Avenue for<br />
25 years. “The change was slowly growing, but once<br />
the are<strong>na</strong> came into play, it was exponential. Once a<br />
week, a new restaurant or clothing store is opening<br />
up.” The commercial avenues radiating from the are<strong>na</strong><br />
— through Prospect Heights, Park Slope, Boerum Hill<br />
and Fort Greene — had already been undergoing<br />
significant changes anyway as a result of the flood of<br />
young newcomers to the borough, who have driven up<br />
real estate prices and infused the area with an often<br />
parodied mix of the trendy and precious. Along with<br />
community gardens and farm-to-table restaurants,<br />
visitors will find a purveyor of artisa<strong>na</strong>l mayon<strong>na</strong>ise, an<br />
“eco-friendly bar” made of recycled oak floorboards<br />
from an old dairy farm, and, not far from the are<strong>na</strong>,<br />
Bark Hot Dogs, which offers franks topped with “baked<br />
heirloom beans.” But the changes have been visibly<br />
accelerated by the construction of the $450 million<br />
are<strong>na</strong>, the flagship of a $4.9 billion housing and office<br />
complex to be built over 25 years and known as<br />
Atlantic Yards, stoking the fears of longtime residents<br />
and even some of the new arrivals that traditions like<br />
stoop conversations at dusk and spring bulb-planting<br />
parties may be bleeding away. For Forest City Ratner,<br />
the developer of the project, which was strongly<br />
backed by many city leaders, the changes are<br />
evidence that the are<strong>na</strong> has already met its goal of<br />
transforming a dreary section of Brooklyn — the Long<br />
Island Rail Road’s rail yards and surrounding industrial<br />
buildings, which the company’s spokesman described<br />
as “ a scar that divided the neighborhood.” “That’s a<br />
sign of economic vitality, something that’s good for the<br />
borough,” said Joe DePlasco, the Ratner spokesman.<br />
Indeed, some here have watched the construction with<br />
excitement, including condo owners who imagine a<br />
sharp rise in home values, new shop owners who<br />
anticipated the are<strong>na</strong> in their calculations, and even<br />
some longtime merchants looking forward to a surge of<br />
foot traffic. Among these supporters is Moussa Dia, a<br />
Senegalese immigrant who owns Versailles, a year-old<br />
custom party-dress store that has been featured on<br />
MTV, who figured fans heading to Barclays will “notice<br />
we’re here.” “It’s a beautiful piece of art, the are<strong>na</strong><br />
across the street,” he said. “The face of Flatbush is<br />
changing.” In addition to the many changes that are<br />
already visible, opponents are even more concerned<br />
about those still to come after the are<strong>na</strong> opens Sept.<br />
28, with a concert by Jay-Z, the rapper and part owner<br />
of the Nets. They envision their <strong>na</strong>rrow blocks<br />
inundated nightly with drunken, celebrating basketball<br />
fans — though, to be fair, victories have been few and<br />
far between for the long-struggling franchise — and<br />
concertgoers still reveling in the music and honking<br />
cars stalled in traffic. The 19,000-seat are<strong>na</strong> plans 220<br />
events a year. That kind of building should never have<br />
been allowed in a residential neighborhood, said Peter<br />
Krashes, president of the Dean Street Block<br />
Association. “Most are<strong>na</strong>s and stadiums are either<br />
outside an urban area or in a commercial area,” Mr.<br />
Krashes said. “If the kids have school the next day and<br />
you have an are<strong>na</strong> event that night, are the kids going<br />
to get a night of sleep?” “Potentially,” said Tracy<br />
Collins, a photographer who owns a brownstone on<br />
Dean Street, “there will be fans who’ve had a few<br />
beers in the are<strong>na</strong> being rowdy after a win or loss<br />
walking in front of my home, keeping me awake,<br />
possibly damaging my property, leaving trash.” Sam<br />
Schwartz, the project’s traffic engineering consultant,<br />
said the are<strong>na</strong> was working to limit the numbers of<br />
drivers and pedestrians by ensuring that most of the<br />
216
dozen subway lines to the area empty out directly into<br />
the are<strong>na</strong>’s plaza; that express trains are provided at<br />
night; and that shuttle buses at remote parking areas<br />
pick up those who choose to drive. The concerns<br />
about crowds prompted about 100 residents to attend<br />
a community board meeting last Tuesday night to fight<br />
an application for a liquor license by Barclays and the<br />
are<strong>na</strong> concessio<strong>na</strong>ire, Levy Restaurants. Residents<br />
have also been fighting other proposed drinking<br />
establishments in the area. The 14 promised<br />
residential towers, with 6,430 apartments, and two<br />
commercial buildings are so far in the future that they<br />
are not much on residents’ lips. Mr. DePlasco said that<br />
work would start this year on the first of the apartment<br />
buildings, and that others could be built two decades<br />
from now. But the company has repeatedly scrapped<br />
or scaled back more ambitious plans for the area,<br />
including the origi<strong>na</strong>l design by Frank Gehry. A ruling<br />
by a state appeals court last week, stemming from one<br />
of the lawsuits over the project, may cause additio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
delays in putting up most of the housing — though not<br />
in building the are<strong>na</strong> itself — by requiring the state to<br />
conduct a new environmental impact statement. The<br />
ruling by the Appellate Division of State Supreme<br />
Court said that the Empire State Development<br />
Corporation conducted its environmental review based<br />
on a 10-year time frame, but that a 25-year schedule<br />
The New York Times/ - Politics, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
could force residents to “tolerate vacant lots,<br />
above-ground are<strong>na</strong> parking and Phase II construction<br />
staging for decades.” Yet Da<strong>na</strong>e Oratowski,<br />
chairwoman of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood<br />
Development Council, said the shift from stores selling<br />
things people need to those selling things people want<br />
was already taking its toll on organically functioning<br />
neighborhoods and complicating residents’ lives.<br />
“People who live in Prospect Heights still need to get<br />
their clothes dry cleaned and shoes repaired,” she<br />
said, “and these businesses won’t be around in a<br />
year.” Though some stores, like the prosthetic device<br />
shop, are protected because their owners also own the<br />
buildings and are not worried about skyrocketing rents,<br />
others, like Flatbush Hardware, already fear what will<br />
happen when their leases expire. Paul Nation, a<br />
Jamaican immigrant who owns the hardware store, is<br />
negotiating with his landlord for a new lease. “It’s<br />
ridiculous what they’re asking for,” he said. Yagil<br />
Kadosh, who opened Kulushkät Gourmet Falafel 10<br />
months ago and bicycles to work from his nearby<br />
home, expects an upsurge in demand once the are<strong>na</strong><br />
opens, though he denies that the are<strong>na</strong> motivated his<br />
choice of location. “As a businessman it’s good,” he<br />
said. “As a resident not so much. It turns a<br />
neighborhood into Midtown Manhattan.”<br />
217
The New York Times/ - Politics, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Once Every 36 Years, Primary Fight for<br />
India<strong>na</strong> Se<strong>na</strong>tor<br />
INDIANAPOLIS — At age 80, Richard G. Lugar, one of<br />
the longest-serving members of the United States<br />
Se<strong>na</strong>te, is getting a crash course in what a campaign<br />
looks like. At his campaign office here the other day,<br />
Mr. Lugar smiled politely while volunteers boxed up<br />
thousands of yard signs to distribute to India<strong>na</strong>’s 92<br />
counties. He spoke with admiration of the<br />
sophistication of his campaign’s mobile, computerized,<br />
microtargeting phone bank, with which, he explained,<br />
volunteers “can just press a button and they’re on line<br />
with somebody.” He described how his campaign had,<br />
in essence, gone “to school” on the methods of<br />
campaigns around the country. Mr. Lugar, who has not<br />
had a primary challenger since he first won election in<br />
1976 and last contended with a race where the margin<br />
was close in 1982, is locked in a Republican primary<br />
fight for the seat he has held for six terms with the May<br />
8 election fast approaching. A poll conducted late last<br />
month, the Howey/DePauw India<strong>na</strong> Battleground Poll,<br />
showed Mr. Lugar leading Richard E. Mourdock, the<br />
state’s treasurer, 42 percent to 35 percent among<br />
likely primary voters, an advantage that is within the<br />
poll’s margin of sampling error of plus or minus five<br />
points. Craig Dunn, the Republican chairman in<br />
Howard County, said he was stunned last year when<br />
he asked the 15 members of his local steering<br />
committee how many would vote for Mr. Lugar. “Not a<br />
hand went up,” said Mr. Dunn, who has supported Mr.<br />
Mourdock, as did, his campaign said, nearly<br />
three-quarters of the party’s county chairmen back<br />
when he announced plans to run more than a year<br />
ago. (Mr. Lugar’s supporters say those numbers have<br />
since shifted and shrunk.) “This never would have<br />
happened to Dick Lugar in his prime,” Mr. Dunn said.<br />
Mr. Lugar sees his troubles as a product of forces<br />
outside India<strong>na</strong>. “You can say, ‘Why in the world are<br />
we having such a time?’ ” he said. Then he offered an<br />
answer to the question: “Because there are others in<br />
America who are very interested in this, sort of as a<br />
battleground, or I’d even say a playground, for their<br />
thoughts.” To hear others tell it, Mr. Lugar, the product<br />
of a more genial era of politics, faces a confluence of<br />
opposition. Tea Party groups and organizations like<br />
the Club for Growth and the Natio<strong>na</strong>l Rifle Association<br />
are questioning his conservative credentials, some<br />
pointing to positions he has taken in favor of the bank<br />
bailout, President Obama’s Supreme Court nominees,<br />
the New Start nuclear arms control treaty, and more.<br />
Meanwhile, some India<strong>na</strong> residents, including active<br />
members of the Republican Party, say they wonder<br />
whether Mr. Lugar, in all those years in Washington<br />
and around the world in his influential role on the<br />
Foreign Relations Committee, has failed to come<br />
home enough for ordi<strong>na</strong>ry Lincoln Day dinners and the<br />
like. Along the way, some say, he lost touch. And just<br />
below the surface is an uncomfortable question about<br />
age and how long in Washington is too long. Beyond<br />
India<strong>na</strong>, much is at stake. Democrats hoping to hold<br />
on to a majority in the Se<strong>na</strong>te see a glint of opportunity<br />
to take a Republican seat — a possibility that polls<br />
suggest is more likely if Mr. Lugar loses and leaves Mr.<br />
Mourdock, 60, to face Representative Joe Donnelly, a<br />
Democrat, in November. Tea Party members view the<br />
potential defeat of Mr. Lugar as a crucial chance to<br />
prove their muscle as some observers try to declare<br />
their movement over. “If we win, the Tea Party goes<br />
into a higher level as a credible force,” said Greg<br />
Fettig, a supporter in India<strong>na</strong>. Last fall, he said, 55 of<br />
the state’s Tea Party groups convened and<br />
overwhelmingly favored Mr. Mourdock. Organizers at<br />
FreedomWorks, a <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l group that has helped build<br />
the Tea Party movement and has assisted efforts here,<br />
have already begun likening this race to Mike Lee’s<br />
defeat of Se<strong>na</strong>tor Robert F. Bennett, a fellow<br />
Republican, in Utah in 2010. But others say that the<br />
strength and unity of the Tea Party here have been<br />
overblown, and that Mr. Lugar, a former Eagle Scout,<br />
Rhodes scholar and Navy officer, has clear wells of<br />
strength. These include more money in the bank than<br />
his opponent and support from Mitch Daniels, the<br />
popular governor who, as a student, worked for Mr.<br />
Lugar when he was mayor of India<strong>na</strong>polis in the 1960s<br />
and ’70s and stayed on for years. Mr. Daniels, who<br />
asked Mr. Lugar to be godfather to one of his<br />
daughters, fended off assertions that Mr. Lugar might<br />
not be conservative enough or had compromised too<br />
often across party lines. Mr. Lugar’s supporters say he<br />
has pressed for less government spending and a<br />
balanced budget amendment, and fought President<br />
Obama’s health care overhaul and regulations that<br />
stifle business. “It’s ironic and it’s just i<strong>na</strong>ccurate to<br />
suggest that somehow he’s not very strongly<br />
Republican in his viewpoints,” Mr. Daniels said. Lately,<br />
Mr. Lugar has taken blow after blow. A challenge that<br />
he did not meet a residency requirement for<br />
candidates because he lives much of the time in<br />
McLean, Va., failed. However, he was required to<br />
change his voter registration to the farm his family has<br />
owned for decades, rather than the India<strong>na</strong>polis house<br />
that he sold in 1977. Then his office announced that he<br />
218
was returning $14,500 to the government for nights he<br />
had spent in India<strong>na</strong> hotel rooms during adjournments<br />
— a technical oversight of a Se<strong>na</strong>te expenses rule, but<br />
one more reminder of his long time away. All the while,<br />
the onslaught of ads and critiques came, denouncing<br />
Mr. Lugar as a friend of President Obama, recipient of<br />
an F-rating from the N.R.A., and someone who once<br />
opposed a ban on earmarks and supported the Dream<br />
Act. Mr. Lugar, who dismissed claims of a closeness to<br />
President Obama, is u<strong>na</strong>pologetic for working the<br />
other side of the aisle, an approach that in the 1990s<br />
brought the accomplishment for which he may be best<br />
known — a program, with Sam Nunn, a Democratic<br />
se<strong>na</strong>tor, for disarmament in the former Soviet Union.<br />
“It’s a fact of life,” Mr. Lugar said, “if you are a legislator<br />
for any period of time, and if you are attempting to<br />
pass what you believe is very constructive legislation<br />
for the country, either domestically or in terms of<br />
foreign policy, that in the Congress of the United<br />
States, you’re going to deal with members of the other<br />
party.” Mr. Mourdock has told audiences, like the one<br />
at a recent Rotary breakfast in Noblesville, that<br />
bipartisanship has taken the <strong>na</strong>tion to the brink of<br />
bankruptcy. “The time for being collegial is past,” Mr.<br />
Mourdock said in an interview. “It’s time for<br />
The New York Times/ - Politics, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
confrontation.” A former coal executive who remains<br />
far less known among India<strong>na</strong> voters, Mr. Mourdock<br />
lauded Tea Party members for their support and grew<br />
teary-eyed when reflecting on the devotion of a large<br />
Tea Party group he addressed several years ago. Still,<br />
Mr. Mourdock, who first won election as state treasurer<br />
in 2006, recoils at the way he says Mr. Lugar has tried<br />
to paint him: in Mr. Mourdock’s words, as a “wild-eyed<br />
Tea Party candidate.” Back inside Mr. Lugar’s<br />
campaign office last week, volunteers gushed over his<br />
debate performance a night earlier, his first such<br />
debate in a dozen years after Democrats did not even<br />
field an opponent in 2006. Pamela Altmeyer Alvey, a<br />
volunteer, recalled how friends, including one who is<br />
upward of 80, had voiced doubt about Mr. Lugar<br />
before the debate but sounded different now. “They<br />
said, ‘He was so vibrant!’ ” Ms. Altmeyer Alvey told the<br />
se<strong>na</strong>tor. If finding himself in a battle now, in his 36th<br />
year in the Se<strong>na</strong>te, feels insulting or painful or a little<br />
awkward, Mr. Lugar is not saying. “I’ve long since<br />
forgotten about whether it’s odd,” he said. “This is just<br />
what I do all my life. And so we just take each day as<br />
happily as possible, look at it as optimistically as we<br />
can.”<br />
219
The New York Times/ - Politics, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
Disabilities Act Used by Lawyers in<br />
Flood of Suits<br />
A small cadre of lawyers, some from out of state, are<br />
using New York City’s age and architectural quirkiness<br />
as the foundation for a flood of lawsuits citing<br />
violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act. The<br />
lawyers are generally not acting on existing complaints<br />
from people with disabilities. Instead, they identify local<br />
businesses, like bagel shops and delis, that are not in<br />
compliance with the law, and then aggressively recruit<br />
plaintiffs from advocacy groups for people with<br />
disabilities. The plaintiffs typically collect $500 for each<br />
suit, and each plaintiff can be used several times over.<br />
The lawyers, meanwhile, make several thousands of<br />
dollars, because the civil rights law entitles them to<br />
legal fees from the noncompliant businesses. The<br />
practice has set off a debate about whether the<br />
lawsuits are a laudable effort, because they force<br />
businesses to make physical improvements to comply<br />
with the disabilities act, or simply a form of<br />
ambulance-chasing, with no one actually having been<br />
injured. The suits may claim a host of problems: at a<br />
deli grocery in West Harlem, an overly steep ramp<br />
without guardrails, high shelves and a <strong>na</strong>rrowing<br />
pathway near the refrigerators; at a yogurt shop in the<br />
theater district, no ramp, no bathroom doorknob that<br />
can be opened with a closed fist and exposed hot<br />
water drains under the bathroom sink; at a flower shop<br />
on the Upper East Side, no ramp and shelves that are<br />
too high. All of those suits were filed by Ben-Zion<br />
Bradley Weitz, a lawyer based in Florida, who has a<br />
regular group of people with disabilities from whom he<br />
selects plaintiffs. One of them, Todd Kreisler, a man in<br />
a wheelchair who lives on the East Side of Manhattan,<br />
sued 19 businesses over 16 months — a Chinese<br />
restaurant, a liquor store and a sandwich shop among<br />
them. The results of the suits were almost immediate:<br />
workers grabbed their hammers, installing new ramps,<br />
lowering counters and shelves and making businesses<br />
more accessible to people with disabilities. And as a<br />
product of the litigation, the businesses had to pay<br />
thousands of dollars in legal fees to Mr. Weitz and his<br />
associates. Mr. Weitz is leading the charge into New<br />
York’s courtrooms. Since October 2009, he has sued<br />
almost 200 businesses in the state, mostly in Federal<br />
District Court in Manhattan. He has eight years of<br />
experience filing these suits in Florida, where his<br />
practice does not seem to be lagging. Two weeks ago,<br />
he brought claims against four Tampa businesses — a<br />
strip mall, a convenience store, a bar and a print shop.<br />
Another lawyer with a thriving practice, Martin J.<br />
Coleman of Long Island, has filed almost 130 cases in<br />
the Eastern District of New York. Mr. Coleman said he<br />
was aware the lawsuits had drawn criticism. “Folks go<br />
out there and say, ‘I’m mad at the plaintiffs,’ and ‘I see<br />
the same <strong>na</strong>mes,’ and ‘Let’s go bash the plaintiffs’<br />
attorneys,’ “ Mr. Coleman said. “I don’t mind that, but<br />
the law has been there, don’t kid yourself.” “As a<br />
private attorney, every lawsuit that I file is to make<br />
money, because that’s how I make a living,” he added.<br />
“And in that regard, I’m no different than any other<br />
private attorney.” Few, if any, cases have gone to trial,<br />
according to a review of electronic court records; the<br />
defendants usually agree to settle, often in less than<br />
six months, closing the cases at a breakneck pace for<br />
federal court. Suit by suit, the lawyers are forcing this<br />
tough and intensely pedestrian city, so resistant to<br />
change, to meet standards for accessibility that are<br />
more than 20 years old. In doing so, they are part of a<br />
<strong>na</strong>tionwide trend: In the last year, 3,000 similar suits,<br />
including more than 300 in New York, were brought<br />
under the Americans With Disabilities Act, more than<br />
double the number five years ago. Most of the cases<br />
involve claims against businesses filed by<br />
nonemployees. Lawmakers and federal judges have<br />
questioned the practice, contending that the lawyers<br />
are only interested in generating legal fees; they say<br />
the lawyers typically do not give the businesses a<br />
chance to remedy the problem before filing suit. Those<br />
who defend the lawsuits say the means are justified to<br />
bring more businesses into compliance. Because the<br />
settlements are invariably bound by confidentiality<br />
agreements, it is impossible to calculate the precise<br />
amount lawyers earn in total. One defense lawyer said<br />
his client had paid Mr. Weitz and the lawyers who<br />
worked with him $6,000 in legal fees. At that rate, Mr.<br />
Weitz would take in more than $600,000 for the 106<br />
cases he has closed in New York. The Americans With<br />
Disabilities Act of 1990 prohibits discrimi<strong>na</strong>tion by<br />
private entities that are open to the public. When<br />
Congress was considering the law, advocates for<br />
people with disabilities wanted to be able to sue for<br />
damages. But Congress allowed litigants to sue only<br />
for injunctive relief, or court-ordered remedies to the<br />
problems that were raised in lawsuits. As a<br />
compromise for disabled plaintiffs, Congress also<br />
awarded fees to the lawyers that bring their<br />
discrimi<strong>na</strong>tion cases. Ruth Colker, a law professor at<br />
The Ohio State University, who specializes in disability<br />
law, said the lawsuits were an effective enforcement<br />
strategy. “It would be really be impossible for people to<br />
find a lawyer if there was no way for lawyers to get<br />
220
paid,” she said. In Florida, editorial boards, lawmakers<br />
and federal judges have long argued against the<br />
practice. In 2004, Judge Gregory A. Presnell of<br />
Federal District Court in Orlando said in a written<br />
opinion in favor of a business owner: “Plaintiff’s<br />
testimony left the distinct impression that he is merely<br />
a professio<strong>na</strong>l pawn in an ongoing scheme to bilk<br />
attorney’s fees from defendant.” Former<br />
Representative Mark Foley of Florida regularly<br />
introduced legislation to amend the Americans With<br />
Disabilities Act to require that business owners receive<br />
90 days notice before being sued. Similar legislation is<br />
pending now. Mr. Weitz, described on his firm’s Web<br />
site as an “advocate for the disabled community,” filed<br />
cases in New York with a local lawyer at first, but then<br />
on his own after his admission to the state bar in 2010.<br />
He did not return calls seeking comment. Mr. Weitz’s<br />
use of Mr. Kreisler was not unique. Zoltan Hirsch, a<br />
double leg amputee, was represented by Mr. Weitz in<br />
143 suits, filing as many as nine suits on a single day.<br />
Maryann Santiago filed six suits. Carr Massi, who uses<br />
a wheelchair, sued five businesses in Manhattan. Ms.<br />
Massi said she learned about Mr. Weitz’s efforts at a<br />
meeting of Disabled in Action, an advocacy group in<br />
The New York Times/ - Politics, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
New York. “He gave a presentation about access and<br />
stuff,” she recalled. “Let’s give it a shot,” she said she<br />
thought to herself. “Stop complaining and do<br />
something about it.” Asked if she ever patronized the<br />
businesses she sued after they made improvements,<br />
Ms. Massi said, “Unfortu<strong>na</strong>tely, no.” While the disabled<br />
plaintiffs cannot collect damages under the disabilities<br />
act, they are entitled to receive awards as long as they<br />
also sue under city or state human rights law. Local<br />
business owners, who say they are often sued without<br />
warning, call the suits shakedowns, invariably signing<br />
settlement agreements with strict confidentiality<br />
requirements. “All they want is money; they get the<br />
money, and they move on to the next target,” said<br />
Ming Hai, a Queens lawyer who has defended<br />
businesses from the suits. “It has become a profession<br />
to go out and look for a little problem here and there.”<br />
Ms. Massi did not agree with critics of the aggressive<br />
litigation by Mr. Weitz. “He is fighting for something he<br />
believes in, and if he gets a few bucks, why not?” she<br />
said. “I feel like whatever he is doing I am benefiting<br />
from it and other wheelchair users are benefiting from<br />
it.”<br />
221
The New York Times/ - Politics, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
City Settles Lawsuit That Claimed Bias<br />
and Retaliation<br />
New York City has agreed to pay $750,000 to a black<br />
official of the city’s Human Resources Administration<br />
who had claimed in a lawsuit that the agency’s<br />
commissioner and others had retaliated against her<br />
because she had complained about contracting<br />
practices. The settlement, which on Friday was<br />
disclosed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, came<br />
three days after the official, Sandra Glaves-Morgan,<br />
won a jury trial on her discrimi<strong>na</strong>tion and retaliation<br />
claims; the jury awarded her $420,000 in<br />
compensatory damages. A portion of those damages,<br />
$320,000, was found by the jury against the agency’s<br />
commissioner, Robert Doar, who was widely praised<br />
when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg appointed him in<br />
2007 to head the Human Resources Administration, an<br />
agency that serves more than three million New<br />
Yorkers. Ms. Glaves-Morgan, 55, had accused Mr.<br />
Doar and others of demoting her, cutting her salary<br />
and reassigning her duties to less qualified white men<br />
and women. The jury also found that Ms.<br />
Glaves-Morgan was entitled to punitive damages on<br />
her claims, although the city agreed to the settlement<br />
before the jury had begun to deliberate on what that<br />
amount might be. On Monday, Ms. Glaves-Morgan’s<br />
lawyer and the city disagreed sharply over the<br />
significance of the jury’s findings and of the settlement,<br />
which also calls for the city to pay for Ms.<br />
Glaves-Morgan’s legal fees (her lawyer estimated that<br />
to be about $720,000). “The city has an abysmal<br />
record of timely addressing civil rights complaints and<br />
only does so after it is facing a significant jury award,<br />
as in this case,” Ms. Glaves-Morgan’s lawyer, Samuel<br />
O. Maduegbu<strong>na</strong>, said. But James Lemonedes, a<br />
lawyer for the city, said in a statement: “H.R.A. and its<br />
leaders did nothing wrong, and the evidence does not<br />
support any finding of wrongdoing. Given the risks of<br />
litigation and appeal, and the desire to save the<br />
taxpayers money, we felt that before the jury issued a<br />
fi<strong>na</strong>l verdict, a settlement was in the city’s best<br />
interest.” Mr. Lemonedes told the jury that Mr. Doar<br />
came from a family tradition of fighting for civil rights.<br />
He noted that Mr. Doar’s father, John, had served as<br />
an assistant attorney general in the Justice<br />
Department during the Kennedy administration and<br />
helped enforce civil rights laws. “That’s the man we’re<br />
talking about,” he said. The settlement will include no<br />
admission of liability, and the jury’s verdict against the<br />
city, Mr. Doar and a second official, Thomas DePippo,<br />
will be vitiated, Mr. Lemonedes said on Monday. Ms.<br />
Glaves-Morgan, a <strong>na</strong>turalized citizen from Jamaica,<br />
entered the United States in 1961, her lawyer told the<br />
jury. She graduated from Yale and obtained a law<br />
degree at Brooklyn Law School. After working for the<br />
Legal Aid Society, the state comptroller’s office and the<br />
Board of Education, she joined the social services<br />
agency in 1995, initially as a deputy general counsel.<br />
She was later appointed chief contracts officer, and it<br />
was in that capacity, her lawyer told the jury, that she<br />
objected to what she felt was preferential treatment in<br />
contracting being given to vendors whose employees<br />
were members of Local 32BJ of the Service<br />
Employees Inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l Union. In 2007, she raised the<br />
issue with Mr. Doar, after his appointment, and he later<br />
demoted her, Mr. Maduegbu<strong>na</strong> told the jury. Each time<br />
officials took assignments and duties away from her,<br />
Mr. Maduegbu<strong>na</strong> said in his summation last week, they<br />
went to “somebody who was not black.” After Ms.<br />
Glaves-Morgan had been told that her salary would be<br />
cut by 20 percent and that she would be relocated to<br />
an office in Brooklyn, Mr. DePippo allegedly said that<br />
at least she was not going to be “cleaning<br />
washrooms.” Mr. Lemonedes, the city’s lawyer,<br />
rejected the allegations of discrimi<strong>na</strong>tion , and said,<br />
for example, that Mr. DePippo’s comment had been<br />
twisted out of context. He had been trying to reassure<br />
her, he told the jury, adding, “What happens? No good<br />
deed goes unpunished.” In court, the city argued that<br />
Mr. Doar had a solid record of advancing members of<br />
minority groups, and that he had removed or demoted<br />
whites and promoted blacks in his administration.<br />
Connie Ress, a spokeswoman for the agency, said on<br />
Monday that the accusations of discrimi<strong>na</strong>tion<br />
against the officials were “wholly without merit.”<br />
“H.R.A.’s key leaders are as diverse as New York City,<br />
and Commissioner Doar’s record throughout his tenure<br />
in promoting women, people of color and ensuring<br />
integrity throughout H.R.A.’s programs stands on its<br />
own,” she said. Ms. Glaves-Morgan declined to<br />
comment, but in court on Friday, she told the judge,<br />
Harold Baer Jr., that although she was disappointed<br />
with some aspects of the deal, “we have a settlement; I<br />
am agreeable to it.” This article has been revised to<br />
reflect the following correction:<br />
222
USA Today/ - News, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Ted Nugent's comments buzz around<br />
Romney<br />
Rocker Ted Nugent's controversial remarks about<br />
President Obama this weekend have put a spotlight on<br />
his support of Mitt Romney, as the likely GOP<br />
presidential nominee ratchets up his White House<br />
campaign. Nugent slammed the Obama administration<br />
and singled out four members of the Supreme Court<br />
as not supporting the Constitution during his remarks<br />
at the Natio<strong>na</strong>l Rifle Association's annual conference in<br />
St. Louis. Nugent, best known for his hit Cat Scratch<br />
Fever, is an NRA board member. "If you want more of<br />
those kinds of evil anti-American people in the<br />
Supreme Court, then don't get involved and let<br />
Obama take office again," Nugent said Saturday.<br />
"Because I'll tell you this right now: If Barack Obama<br />
becomes the president in November again, I will either<br />
be dead or in jail by this time next year." Nugent's<br />
comments sparked an outcry from Obama's allies.<br />
Democratic Natio<strong>na</strong>l Committee Chairwoman Debbie<br />
Wasserman Schultz said in an e-mail to supporters<br />
that Nugent's remarks were "clearly beyond the pale"<br />
and called on Romney to denounce them. Andrea<br />
Saul, a spokeswoman for the Romney campaign, said<br />
in a statement, "Divisive language is offensive no<br />
matter what side of the political aisle it comes from.<br />
Mitt Romney believes everyone needs to be civil."<br />
Asked about Nugent's comments, White House<br />
spokesman Jay Carney did not directly respond to its<br />
specifics. "We can't as a general rule police the<br />
statements of every supporter," Carney said, adding<br />
Obama is focused on issues such as the economy.<br />
The U.S. Secret Service is looking into the matter. "We<br />
are aware of the situation, and we're conducting an<br />
appropriate follow-up," said Brian Leary, a Secret<br />
Service spokesman.<br />
223
UY Press/ - Actualidad, Ter, 17 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Diputados apura trámite que reduciría<br />
plazos para adopciones<br />
MONTEVIDEO (Uypress) - La Comisión de<br />
Constitución de la Cámara de Representantes<br />
decidió dar prioridad al proyecto de ley de adopciones,<br />
que modifica el sistema actual y reduce los plazos del<br />
proceso. Se busca que sea probado cuanto antes.<br />
Según información divulgada por El País digital, hay<br />
diferencias entre el oficialismo y la oposición en<br />
relación a este tema. Sin embargo, la comisión de<br />
Constitución de diputados decidió apurar el<br />
tratamiento del proyecto cuya fi<strong>na</strong>lidad es acelerar los<br />
plazos previos a u<strong>na</strong> adopción legal. Para eso, la<br />
Comisión recibirá, en u<strong>na</strong> sesión extraordi<strong>na</strong>ria el<br />
próximo miércoles 25 de abril, a todas las<br />
delegaciones que solicitaron ser recibidas, además de<br />
a los actores involucrados, que en este caso son el<br />
Instituto del Niño y el Adolescente del Uruguay (INAU)<br />
y el Poder Judicial. Luego se remitirá el documento al<br />
pleno de la Cámara de representantes para su<br />
aprobación, según anunció el lunes el diputado Julio<br />
Bango (FA,PS). Actualmente, son dos los proyectos<br />
de ley que están bajo estudio. Uno de ellos fue<br />
presentado por u<strong>na</strong> comisión multipartidaria que<br />
trabajó durante el 2011. El segundo fue elaborado por<br />
el Frente Amplio el pasado mes de marzo, y recoge<br />
los puntos de consenso alcanzados por la comisión,<br />
más algu<strong>na</strong>s modificaciones planteadas por el<br />
oficialismo. Es precisamente entre estos dos proyectos<br />
que se manifiesta el conflicto entre oposición y<br />
oficialismo. Los primeros reclaman que el texto a<br />
tomar en cuenta sea el primero, mientras que el<br />
Frente Amplio afirma que su proyecto recoge los<br />
puntos de consenso. Sin embargo, las diferencias se<br />
ubican en torno a u<strong>na</strong> figura que se denomi<strong>na</strong><br />
"tenencia preadoptiva", contemplada en el primero de<br />
los proyectos y elimi<strong>na</strong>do del segundo. La oposición<br />
insiste en que esa figura privilegia los lazos afectivos y<br />
el bienestar del niño, mientras que el oficialismo<br />
sostiene que ese arreglo "perfora" el sistema. Bango,<br />
encargado de seguir el tema para la bancada<br />
oficialista, se manifestó totalmente en contra de las<br />
incorporaciones de la oposición y adelantó que<br />
rechazará incorporarlas en el proyecto, según El País.<br />
La diputada Verónica Alonso (PN,UN), u<strong>na</strong> de las<br />
redactoras del proyecto multipartidario, dijo a ese<br />
medio de prensa que está dispuesta a votar los<br />
cambios al sistema que reú<strong>na</strong> mayorías. "Si el FA es a<br />
lo último que está dispuesto a llegar y no acepta<br />
modificaciones que creemos importantes, yo voy a<br />
acompañar las modificaciones, aunque me hubiera<br />
gustado estar de acuerdo y no esperar todo este<br />
tiempo. Me parece un crimen modificar de nuevo el<br />
Código para algo que es limitado y corto, pero<br />
sabemos cual es la realidad de las mayorías". El<br />
se<strong>na</strong>dor Alfredo Solari (PC,VU), también redactor del<br />
primer proyecto, manifestó asimismo su voluntad de<br />
negociar hasta último momento para que se<br />
incorporen al proyecto del oficialismo al menos u<strong>na</strong> "o<br />
u<strong>na</strong> y media" de las cosas excluidas del proyecto<br />
inicial, para evitar que pueda tener lugar otro "caso<br />
Mía" (la niña que tras haber estado 17 meses con u<strong>na</strong><br />
familia cuidadora, fue entregada en enero, por la<br />
justicia, a u<strong>na</strong> familia adoptiva). s.p.<br />
224
18/04/2012
Quinta-feira, 19 de Abril de 2012<br />
18/04/2012<br />
Business Line - Markets<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Sun Pharma scrip jumps on US Supreme Court ruling on patent litigation, 229<br />
Business Line - Markets<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Party symbols: SC upholds EC criteria, 230<br />
Diário de Notícias Lisboa - Globo<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
PS diz que Conde Rodrigues "reúne todos os requisitos", 231<br />
Diário de Notícias Lisboa - Globo<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Eleição de juízes do Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l adiada, 232<br />
El Dia - Noticia<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Otro día de paro en Tribu<strong>na</strong>les, 233<br />
El Dia - Noticia<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Justicia: siguen los paros y piden mediación de la Corte, 234<br />
El Dia - Noticia<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Re<strong>na</strong>ce la embestida kirchnerista en busca de dividir la Procuración, 235<br />
El País - Sociedad<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Derecho Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Las Cortes piden publicitar la lista de cargos que cobran ayuda por vivienda, 236<br />
El País - Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Cuestión de Inconstitucio<strong>na</strong>lidad<br />
Un juez plantea al Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l sus dudas sobre la reforma laboral, 237<br />
El País - Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Archivada la investigación al presidente de la Audiencia de Lugo, 238<br />
El Universal - Nación<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Corte Pe<strong>na</strong>l Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
La imagen del “México seguro”, 239<br />
El Universal - Nación<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Debe & Haber, 240<br />
El Universal - Política<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Exigen respetar cuota de género, 241<br />
La Nacion - Política<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Casal, un blanco en la mira de la comisión investigadora, 242<br />
La Nacion - Política<br />
226
Quinta-feira, 19 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Poder Judicial<br />
Prostitución y escándalo en la justicia santafeci<strong>na</strong>, 243<br />
La Repubblica - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Constitución<br />
Hollande contro il fiscal compact "Serve un patto per la crescita", 244<br />
La Repubblica - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Constitución<br />
La perdita dell"olfatto, 245<br />
La Repubblica - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Constitución<br />
Nel Veneto tradito da Bossi "Ora Maroni deve trattare con noi", 247<br />
Le Figaro - économie<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Cour pé<strong>na</strong>le inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>le<br />
Le procureur de la CPI en Libye, 249<br />
Le Monde - Article<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Conseil Constitutionnel<br />
Le harcèlement sexuel examiné par le Conseil constitutionnel, 250<br />
Los Angeles Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
LAUSD considers lowering the bar for graduation, 251<br />
Los Angeles Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
State Se<strong>na</strong>te panel backs bill to deregulate Internet phone service, 253<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung - Politik<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Europäischen Gerichtshof<br />
Der Grund der Absage , 254<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung - Politik<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Verfassungsgericht<br />
Wie die katholische Kirche eine Professorin verhinderte , 256<br />
The Economic Times - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Aarushi murder case: Non-bailable warrant against Nupur Talwar extended till April 30, 257<br />
The Economic Times - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Apex court rejects plea on election symbols, 258<br />
The Economic Times - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Mamata Banerjee <strong>na</strong>med among world's most influential people, 259<br />
The Economic Times - Politics/Nation<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
CBI seeks fresh warrant to arrest Nupur Talwar, 260<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Romney Warns Gun Lobby of a Second Obama Term, 261<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
227
Quinta-feira, 19 de Abril de 2012<br />
Phony Mommy Wars, 262<br />
The New York Times - Politics<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Abiding by the Fair Sentencing Act, 263<br />
USA Today - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Lin, Tebow included on Time 100 list, 264<br />
USA Today - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Supreme Court<br />
Tell us: What happens with Kentucky?, 265<br />
USA Today - News<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL | Civil Rights<br />
Latest celeb feuds: Why are these stars fighting?, 266<br />
228
Business Line/ - Markets, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Sun Pharma scrip jumps on US Supreme<br />
Court ruling on patent litigation<br />
MUMBAI, APRIL 18: Shares of Sun Pharmaceutical<br />
Industries surged over 2 per cent after the US<br />
Supreme Court ruling on a patent litigation by its<br />
subsidiary Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories. In a<br />
regulatory filing, Sun Pharma said the US Supreme<br />
court has ruled in favour of Caraco in its patent<br />
litigation against Novo-Nordisk over Caraco’s generic<br />
version of Prandin, Repaglinide tablets. The company<br />
said that it is a landmark judgment for generic<br />
companies. Reacting to the development, the shares<br />
of the company witnessed a record high of Rs 599 on<br />
the BSE, a jump of 2.53 per cent over its last closing<br />
price of Rs 584.20. The scrip was later trading at Rs<br />
596.90, up 2.17 per cent. A similar movement was<br />
witnessed on the Natio<strong>na</strong>l Stock Exchange as well,<br />
where the stock opened at Rs 588.05, then jumped<br />
2.61 per cent to see a high of Rs 600. It was later<br />
trading at Rs 597.15, up 2.13 per cent. Marketmen<br />
said the positive news helped the stock gain<br />
momentum. Besides, the broader market was also<br />
trading in the positive territory.<br />
229
Business Line/ - Markets, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Party symbols: SC upholds EC criteria<br />
NEW DELHI, APRIL 18: In a majority verdict, the<br />
Supreme Court today upheld the criteria of the<br />
Election Commission (EC) for granting symbols to<br />
unrecognised registered political parties. A three-judge<br />
bench comprising Justices Mr Altamas Kabir, Mr S.S.<br />
Nijjar and Mr Jasti Chelameswar upheld the panel’s<br />
symbol order by a two-to-one majority. Justice<br />
Chelameswar wrote the dissenting order against the<br />
EC’s symbol order. The court passed the order on a<br />
batch of petitions filed by State political parties<br />
challenging the symbol order of the EC. According to<br />
the EC’s order, a permanent symbol is granted to<br />
political parties that have garnered at least five per<br />
cent votes in the Assembly elections or have ma<strong>na</strong>ged<br />
to win two assembly seats or one seat in parliamentary<br />
elections from the State. Several parties including the<br />
Praja Rajyam Party, the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi and the<br />
Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam had approached<br />
the apex court in 2008 against the EC’s decision to<br />
change their symbol from what was allotted to them<br />
previously.<br />
230
Diário de Notícias Lisboa/ - Globo, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
PS diz que Conde Rodrigues "reúne todos<br />
os requisitos"<br />
O vice-presidente da bancada parlamentar do PS<br />
Ricardo Rodrigues afirmou hoje que Conde Rodrigues<br />
"reúne todos os requisitos" para ser eleito para o<br />
Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l, tal como os socialistas<br />
propuseram, não tendo o partido "dúvidas sobre essa<br />
matéria".<br />
"Conde Rodrigues reúne os requisitos [para ser eleito<br />
para o Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l] e não temos dúvidas<br />
sobre essa matéria. E portanto é o nome que o PS<br />
indicou. Quem diz que não reúne os requisitos está<br />
mal informado, não sabe o que está a dizer", disse o<br />
deputado à<br />
Ricardo Rodrigues comentava assim notícias<br />
avançadas pelo Jor<strong>na</strong>l de Negócios e pelo Expresso<br />
segundo as quais a eleição de três juízes para o<br />
Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l, marcada para sexta-feira,<br />
foi adiada por, entre outros aspetos, existirem dúvidas<br />
quanto ao candidato indicado pelo PS, o ex-secretário<br />
de Estado da Justiça Conde Rodrigues.<br />
Segundo essas notícias, Conde Rodrigues foi<br />
magistrado num tribu<strong>na</strong>l administrativo e fiscal, mas<br />
não está neste momento no ativo, por ter pedido uma<br />
licença sem vencimento de longa duração. A lei<br />
estabelece que pelo menos seis dos 13 membros do<br />
TC têm de ser juízes, tendo o nome de Conde<br />
Rodrigues sido indicado para preencher essa quota de<br />
magistrados.<br />
Ricardo Rodrigues disse à<br />
"E, portanto, é juiz. Primeiro ponto. Mas mesmo para<br />
quem tivesse essa dúvida, tanto quanto tomei<br />
conhecimento, ele terá feito um requerimento para<br />
levantar essa condição de estar em licença sem<br />
vencimento. Em todo o caso, mesmo assim, se vier a<br />
faltar um juiz pelas contas da composição que o<br />
tribu<strong>na</strong>l deve ter, a verdade é que o tribu<strong>na</strong>l pode<br />
cooptar um que falte e aí não havia dúvida nenhuma.<br />
Portanto, qualquer que seja a perspetiva que se<br />
a<strong>na</strong>lise, está a a<strong>na</strong>lisar-se mal quando se diz que o<br />
candidato do PS não reúne os requisitos",<br />
acrescentou.<br />
A eleição dos novos juízes do Tribu<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l, prevista para sexta-feira, foi adiada<br />
para "salvaguardar o tempo e a serenidade<br />
necessários" à audição dos candidatos no Parlamento,<br />
uma decisão que resultou de "um consenso largo"<br />
entre os grupos parlamentares.<br />
Esta informação foi dada hoje à agência<br />
Questio<strong>na</strong>da sobre se está em causa alguma questão<br />
de preenchimento de requisitos por parte de algum<br />
dos candidatos, a mesma fonte respondeu: "O<br />
gabinete da presidente não comenta nenhum nome, o<br />
que o gabinete da presidente disse aos jor<strong>na</strong>is mas<br />
nem sempre foi bem citado, infelizmente, foi que a<br />
presidente da Assembleia da República está ainda a<br />
verificar os requisitos de admissibilidade dos<br />
candidatos. Portanto, trata-se de uma questão de<br />
verificação e não de dúvida".<br />
A agência<br />
Além de Conde Rodrigues, foram indicados mais dois<br />
nomes para substituir os três juízes do TC que se<br />
reformaram e termi<strong>na</strong>ram mandatos: Fátima Mata<br />
Mouros, pelo CDS, e Paulo Saragoça da Matta, pelo<br />
PSD.<br />
231
Diário de Notícias Lisboa/ - Globo, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
Eleição de juízes do Tribu<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l adiada<br />
A eleição dos novos juízes do Tribu<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l, prevista para sexta-feira, foi adiada<br />
para "salvaguardar o tempo e a serenidade<br />
necessários" à audição dos candidatos no Parlamento,<br />
uma decisão que resultou de "um consenso largo"<br />
entre os grupos parlamentares.<br />
Esta informação foi dada à agência<br />
"A eleição vai ser adiada para salvaguardar o tempo e<br />
a serenidade necessários à audição dos candidatos<br />
ao Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l <strong>na</strong> comissão de Assuntos<br />
Constitucio<strong>na</strong>is, Direitos, Liberdades e Garantias, <strong>na</strong><br />
Assembleia da República", acrescentou a mesma<br />
fonte.<br />
Questio<strong>na</strong>da sobre se está em causa alguma questão<br />
de preenchimento de requisitos por parte de algum<br />
dos candidatos, como se pode ler <strong>na</strong> imprensa de<br />
hoje, a mesma fonte respondeu: "O gabinete da<br />
presidente não comenta nenhum nome, o que o<br />
gabinete da presidente disse aos jor<strong>na</strong>is mas nem<br />
sempre foi bem citado, infelizmente, foi que a<br />
presidente da Assembleia da República está ainda a<br />
verificar os requisitos de admissibilidade dos<br />
candidatos. Portanto, trata-se de uma questão de<br />
verificação e não de dúvida".<br />
O Jor<strong>na</strong>l de Negócios e o Expresso (numa notícia<br />
colocada <strong>na</strong> sua pági<strong>na</strong> <strong>na</strong> internet) escrevem que a<br />
eleição dos juízes do TC foi adiada, estando em<br />
causa, entre outos aspetos, o nome do ex-secretário<br />
de Estado da Justiça Conde Rodrigues, proposto pelo<br />
PS.<br />
Segundo essas notícias, Conde Rodrigues foi<br />
magistrado num tribu<strong>na</strong>l administrativo e fiscal, mas<br />
não está neste momento no ativo, por ter pedido uma<br />
licença sem vencimento de longa duração.<br />
A lei estabelece que pelo menos seis dos 13 membros<br />
do TC têm de ser juízes em exercício, tendo o nome<br />
de Conde Rodrigues sido indicado para preencher<br />
essa quota de magistrados.<br />
De acordo com a lei do Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l, pelo<br />
menos seis dos 13 membros do Tribu<strong>na</strong>l têm de ser<br />
juízes em exercício.<br />
A agência<br />
Além de Conde Rodrigues, foram indicados mais dois<br />
nomes para substituir os três juízes do TC que se<br />
reformaram e termi<strong>na</strong>ram mandatos: Fátima Mata<br />
Mouros, pelo CDS, e Paulo Saragoça da Matta, pelo<br />
PSD.<br />
A audição dos candidatos no Parlamento não é<br />
obrigatória, mas não é inédita, tendo as bancadas<br />
decidido fazê-la.<br />
232
El Dia/ - Noticia, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Otro día de paro en Tribu<strong>na</strong>les<br />
Los trabajadores judiciales cortan la avenida 13 en<br />
u<strong>na</strong> nueva jor<strong>na</strong>da de protesta. La AJB pide la<br />
mediación de la Corte Trabajadores judiciales realizan<br />
un nuevo paro de actividades de 48 horas, con otro<br />
corte de tránsito en la Avenida 13, frente a los<br />
tribu<strong>na</strong>les, en medio de un conflicto queno exhibe<br />
visos de solución, el gremio reclamó a la Suprema<br />
Corte "que se involucre" en la discusión. Ayer, a<br />
través de u<strong>na</strong> nota dirigida al alto tribu<strong>na</strong>l, la AJB le<br />
pidió a la Corte "que asuma su papel de cabeza del<br />
Poder Judicial, se involucre en el conflicto<br />
interesándose por la suerte de sus trabajadores y que<br />
desista de acciones represivas que a <strong>na</strong>da bueno<br />
conducen", en relación ala presencia policial en la<br />
sede del tribu<strong>na</strong>l. De esta forma, el sindicato planteó<br />
un esquema de retorno a la negociación similar al que<br />
se terminó configurando el año pasado y que permitió<br />
superar el conflicto: que el alto tribu<strong>na</strong>l inicie u<strong>na</strong><br />
suerte de mediación entre el Ejecutivo y los<br />
trabajadores. La otra movida del gremio fue un<br />
pedidopor carta al gober<strong>na</strong>dor, Daniel Scioli, para que<br />
reabra la discusiónsalarial cerrada la sema<strong>na</strong> pasada<br />
por la Provincia, al anunciar quedispondrá por decreto<br />
el aumento rechazado por el sindicato. La sucesión de<br />
paros obedece a la decisión de la Provincia de<br />
rechazar la pretensión del gremio deavanzar con la<br />
Porcentualidad salarial, un mecanismo que engancha<br />
los sueldos de los trabajadores, en distintas escalas,<br />
con los de los ministros de la Corte. En ese contexto,<br />
el gobierno de Scioli ofreció aumentos que van del 21<br />
al 26% y los liquidará por decreto ante la negativa del<br />
gremio a aceptarlos por considerar que no se<br />
enmarcan en la recuperación porcentual.<br />
233
El Dia/ - Noticia, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Justicia: siguen los paros y piden<br />
mediación de la Corte<br />
El gremio reclamó al alto tribu<strong>na</strong>l "que se involucre" en<br />
el conflicto. Gestión ante el Gober<strong>na</strong>dor Trabajadores<br />
de la Justicia bo<strong>na</strong>erense retomarán hoy las medidas<br />
de fuerza, cuando inicien un paro que se extenderá<br />
por 48 horas y que volverá a afectar la actividad en los<br />
tribu<strong>na</strong>les. Y en medio de un conflicto que no exhibe<br />
visos de solución, el gremio reclamó a la Suprema<br />
Corte "que se involucre" en la discusión. A través de<br />
u<strong>na</strong> nota dirigida al alto tribu<strong>na</strong>l, la Asociación Judicial<br />
Bo<strong>na</strong>erense le pidió a la Corte "que asuma su papel<br />
de cabeza del Poder Judicial, se involucre en el<br />
conflicto interesándose por la suerte de sus<br />
trabajadores y que desista de acciones represivas que<br />
a <strong>na</strong>da bueno conducen", en relación a la presencia<br />
policial en la sede del tribu<strong>na</strong>l. De esta forma, el<br />
sindicato planteó un esquema de retorno a la<br />
negociación similar al que se terminó configurando el<br />
año pasado y que permitió superar el conflicto: que el<br />
alto tribu<strong>na</strong>l inicie u<strong>na</strong> suerte de mediación entre el<br />
Ejecutivo y los trabajadores. La otra movida del gremio<br />
fue un pedido por carta al gober<strong>na</strong>dor Daniel Scioli<br />
para que reabra la discusión salarial cerrada la<br />
sema<strong>na</strong> pasada por la Provincia, al anunciar que<br />
dispondrá por decreto el aumento rechazado por el<br />
sindicato. La sucesión de paros obedece a la decisión<br />
de la Provincia de rechazar la pretensión del gremio<br />
de avanzar con la Porcentualidad salarial, un<br />
mecanismo que engancha los sueldos de los<br />
trabajadores, en distintas escalas, con los de los<br />
ministros de la Corte. En ese contexto, el gobierno de<br />
Scioli ofreció aumentos que van del 21 al 26% y los<br />
liquidará por decreto ante la negativa del gremio a<br />
aceptarlos por considerar que no se enmarcan en la<br />
recuperación porcentual. MEDIDAS DE FUERZA<br />
Frente a este panorama, el gremio cumplió el lunes un<br />
nuevo paro y ayer sacó el conflicto a la calle en<br />
distintas zo<strong>na</strong>s de la Provincia. En nuestra región, un<br />
grupo de trabajadores cortó la Autopista La<br />
Plata-Buenos Aires en la subida de Ense<strong>na</strong>da. El corte<br />
fue total entre las 9 y las 10,30, cuando se liberó u<strong>na</strong><br />
mano. Actividades similares se registraron en la ruta 2<br />
a la altura de Dolores. En tanto, un grupo de<br />
trabajadores pretendió cortar la avenida General Paz y<br />
Constituyentes, pero la actividad fue impedida por la<br />
Policía Federal. Los judiciales cumplirán hoy un nuevo<br />
paro de actividades y maña<strong>na</strong> repetirán la protesta<br />
acompañada de u<strong>na</strong> movilización a Casa de Gobierno.<br />
No se descarta la profundización del reclamo en caso<br />
de que no se abra un ca<strong>na</strong>l de diálogo con el Ejecutivo<br />
y la Corte. Frente a las medidas que afectan la<br />
actividad en los tribu<strong>na</strong>les, el Colegio de Abogados<br />
volvió a reclamar la normalización de la atención y la<br />
Corte ratificó que descontará los días no trabajados.<br />
234
El Dia/ - Noticia, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Re<strong>na</strong>ce la embestida kirchnerista en busca<br />
de dividir la Procuración<br />
El vicegober<strong>na</strong>dor Gabriel Mariotto envió ayer un claro<br />
mensaje al Ejecutivo bo<strong>na</strong>erense para que apure el<br />
envío a la Legislatura el proyecto que apunta a<br />
desdoblar la estructura de la Procuración General de<br />
la Suprema Corte y otorgar autonomía al cuerpo de<br />
Defensores Oficiales, que el gober<strong>na</strong>dor bo<strong>na</strong>erense<br />
anunció a fines del año pasado. Y afirmó que esa<br />
iniciativa "debe ser tratada en conjunto" con la que<br />
propone la creación de la Policía Judicial, que ingresó<br />
a la Cámara alta en marzo pasado."Muchos<br />
ciudadanos, muchos sectores, han establecido que los<br />
proyectos de Policía Judicial y de desdoblamiento de<br />
la Procuración son parte de u<strong>na</strong> misma matriz y que<br />
es importante que uno salga junto con el otro, que no<br />
se pueden abordar desdobladamente, por separado,<br />
que tienen que abordarse juntos", dijo ayer<br />
Mariotto.De esa forma, el Vicegober<strong>na</strong>dor condicionó<br />
el tratamiento de la ley de Policía Judicial al ingreso de<br />
la iniciativa que apunta a reformar la Procuración para<br />
crear dos áreas independientes, u<strong>na</strong> que nuclee al<br />
cuerpo de fiscales y otra, autónoma, a los defensores<br />
oficiales, que viene siendo reclamada por organismos<br />
de Derechos Humanos.Como este diario informó, si<br />
bien el gober<strong>na</strong>dor Daniel Scioli anunció en la apertura<br />
de sesiones ordi<strong>na</strong>rias que enviaría esa iniciativa a las<br />
cámaras, el proyecto parece haber quedado<br />
"congelado" en el Ejecutivo, desde la idea de que<br />
debería ser la Legislatura quien lo impulse.Sectores<br />
del Poder Judicial han dejado trascender sus dudas<br />
respecto de la posible inconstitucio<strong>na</strong>lidad de u<strong>na</strong><br />
reforma de estas características. La duda es<br />
compartida por algunos sectores del propio<br />
oficialismo. Incluso la propia Procuradora María del<br />
Carmen Falbo expuso sus resistencias.El planteo de<br />
Mariotto, que apuntó directamente al Ejecutivo, fue<br />
presentado en la misma jor<strong>na</strong>da en la que el<br />
gober<strong>na</strong>dor Scioli mantuvo un encuentro con el<br />
presidente de la Suprema Corte de Justicia, Eduardo<br />
Petiggiani, y la Procuradora de la Corte María del<br />
Carmen Falbo.MAGISTRATURALas declaraciones<br />
fueron formuladas por Mariotto en el Se<strong>na</strong>do en el<br />
marco de u<strong>na</strong> nueva sesión de la Comisión Especial<br />
de seguimiento a la investigación del crimen de<br />
Candela Rodríguez que se realizó ayer en la Cámara<br />
alta (ver pág. 18). En ese marco, el Vicegober<strong>na</strong>dor<br />
anunció que desde el bloque oficialista se busca<br />
avanzar también con u<strong>na</strong> reforma en el reglamento del<br />
Consejo de la Magistratura para que el organismo "no<br />
actúe de espaldas a la sociedad"."Queremos que las<br />
reuniones sean públicas, que lo que se trate sea de<br />
dominio público y que no sea un establecimiento<br />
cerrado donde muchas veces las corporaciones llevan<br />
adelante sus acciones a espaldas de la sociedad. Se<br />
trata de darle luz a aquellos lugares donde muchas<br />
veces las corporaciones llevan adelante sus acciones<br />
sin dar cuenta al resto de la sociedad", dijo.En<br />
conferencia de prensa, Mariotto defendió el rol de la<br />
denomi<strong>na</strong>da "Comisión Candela", al señalar que<br />
trabaja "para que no haya connivencia de ningún tipo<br />
entre el delito, la policía, la justicia y la política". "Cada<br />
poder debe trabajar por sí solo y el delito no puede<br />
tener la cobertura de <strong>na</strong>die. Es necesario echar luz<br />
sobre las acciones y que esta matriz de connivencia<br />
que se advierte en algunos hechos pueda ser<br />
desentrañada".<br />
235
El País/ - Sociedad, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Derecho Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
Las Cortes piden publicitar la lista de<br />
cargos que cobran ayuda por vivienda<br />
La iniciativa del PSPV sale con los votos favorables<br />
del PP y de EU y la oposición de Compromís Las<br />
Cortes valencia<strong>na</strong>s han aprobado u<strong>na</strong> proposción no<br />
de ley por la que se insta al Gobierno de la Generalitat<br />
a publicar en el Diari Oficial de Comunitat Valencia<strong>na</strong><br />
(DOCV) el listado de sus altos cargos que reciben u<strong>na</strong><br />
indemnización mensual por el traslado de su<br />
residencia a Valencia. La iniciativa, aprobada por los<br />
votos a favor del PSPV-PSOE, PP y Esquerra Unida<br />
(EU) y en contra de Compromís, pide al Ejecutivo<br />
valenciano que modifique el acuerdo de 1995 por el<br />
que se establecía que los altos cargos que debían<br />
trasladar su residencia percibieran u<strong>na</strong> ayuda mensual<br />
equivalente al 14% de su sueldo. Las Cortes también<br />
piden que se "modifiquen" los criterios para su<br />
percepción, que en la actualidad sólo pasa por la<br />
presentación de un certificado de empadro<strong>na</strong>miento,<br />
que se presenta al principio de tomar posesión del<br />
cargo y no se tiene que volver a ratificar, según ha<br />
explicado el portavoz adjunto del PSPV, Rafael Rubio.<br />
Rubio, que ha defendido esta propuesta en la<br />
comisión parlamentaria de Coordi<strong>na</strong>ción, Organización<br />
y Régimen de las Instituciones de la Generaltat, ha<br />
considerado "insuficiente" la presentación del padrón,<br />
y ha propuesto que se acompañe de un recibo del<br />
gasto que supone para estas perso<strong>na</strong>s el alquiler de<br />
un inmueble. En este sentido, se ha mostrado<br />
contrario a que esta ayuda se conceda a aquellas<br />
perso<strong>na</strong>s que van y vienen todos los días a Valencia<br />
en coche oficial o que aunque empadro<strong>na</strong>dos en otra<br />
ciudad, viven en Valencia en un piso de su propiedad,<br />
y ha puesto el ejemplo del consejero de Sanidad, Luis<br />
Rosado, quien en concepto de esta ayuda recibiría<br />
9.000 euros anuales, según ha apuntado Rubio. El<br />
diputado socialista, quien ha informado de que en la<br />
actualidad hay 19 perso<strong>na</strong>s que cobran esta ayuda,<br />
entre las que está el presidente de la Generalitat, ha<br />
explicado que esto supone un gasto anual entorno a<br />
los 160.000 euros y ha defendido que el dinero público<br />
no debe servir para que un alto cargo pueda<br />
incrementar su patrimonio. El diputado del PP, Rubén<br />
Ibáñez, ha destacado que la publicación de este<br />
listado va en la línea de la "transparencia" defendida<br />
desde el Gobierno de la Generalitat y ha sostenido<br />
que la concesión de estas ayudas sigue "u<strong>na</strong><br />
fiscalización absoluta y correcta" que garantiza que se<br />
conceden conforme a ley. Por otra parte, el PP ha<br />
rechazado con sus votos u<strong>na</strong> proposición no de ley de<br />
Compromís para que se retire la orden para modificar<br />
los módulos de compensación económica aplicables a<br />
las actuaciones del turno de oficio y asistencia al<br />
detenido, y que se retome el diálogo con todas las<br />
asociaciones profesio<strong>na</strong>les afectadas. La diputada del<br />
PP María José García Herrero ha sostenido que con<br />
esta orden se "garantiza" el servicio de asistencia<br />
gratuita y u<strong>na</strong> "retribción dig<strong>na</strong>" para los profesio<strong>na</strong>les,<br />
mientras que el portavoz de Compromís, Enric Morera,<br />
ha defendido que este "derecho constitucio<strong>na</strong>l" en<br />
estos momentos "se ve ame<strong>na</strong>zado por la insolvencia"<br />
del Consell. La comisión también ha rechazado, con<br />
los únicos votos en contra del PP, u<strong>na</strong> iniciativa de EU<br />
para que se dejara de exigir el número de<br />
identificación del extranjero a aquellos inmigrantes que<br />
acuden a inscribirse en el registro de uniones de<br />
hecho de la Comunitat Valencia<strong>na</strong>.<br />
236
El País/ - Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Cuestión de Inconstitucio<strong>na</strong>lidad)<br />
Un juez plantea al Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l sus<br />
dudas sobre la reforma laboral<br />
El magistrado pone en duda la elimi<strong>na</strong>ción de los<br />
salarios de tramitación en caso de despido<br />
improcedente Consulta aquí el auto íntegro Un caso<br />
de despido discipli<strong>na</strong>rio seguido en un juzgado de lo<br />
Social de Madrid ha servido para que el juez presente<br />
u<strong>na</strong> de las primeras cuestiones de constitucio<strong>na</strong>lidad<br />
contra la reforma laboral aprobada por el Gobierno el<br />
pasado 10 de febrero, que motivó la oleada de<br />
protestas sociales que culmi<strong>na</strong>ron con la última huelga<br />
general, y que sigue en tramitación en el Parlamento.<br />
El magistrado titular del juzgado número 30, José<br />
Ángel Folguera, cuestio<strong>na</strong> ante el Tribu<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l, en concreto, la práctica elimi<strong>na</strong>ción<br />
de los salarios de tramitación, los que debe abo<strong>na</strong>r el<br />
empresario desde que el despido se hace efectivo<br />
hasta que un juez lo declara, en su caso,<br />
improcedente. El juez recuerda que, con la reforma,<br />
en caso de que se declare improcedente un despido,<br />
lo que implica un juicio de culpabilidad sobre el<br />
empresario, este último tiene la prerrogativa de<br />
readmitir al empleado en las mismas condiciones<br />
laborales que tenía y abo<strong>na</strong>rle los salarios de<br />
tramitación (los que ha dejado de percibir entre el<br />
despido y la sentencia) o dejarlo en la calle, caso en el<br />
cual no tendría que pagar esas nómi<strong>na</strong>s. En este<br />
último caso, el trabajador cobraría únicamente el paro.<br />
El magistrado considera que esta última posibilidad<br />
–que se consume el despido y no se paguen los<br />
salarios de tramitación- afecta a los derechos del<br />
empleado, ya que “las prestaciones de desempleo son<br />
manifiestamente inferiores a los salarios dejados de<br />
percibir (…) y no compensan en su integridad el<br />
salario perdido”. Además, recuerda que en caso de<br />
que el trabajador no haya cumplido el período mínimo<br />
de cotización, no tendrá derecho a recibir ese<br />
subsidio, lo que supondría u<strong>na</strong> clara discrimi<strong>na</strong>ción.<br />
Pero además, percibir el paro en lugar de los salarios<br />
de tramitación, implica que sea el propio trabajador el<br />
que asuma con cargo a sus cotizaciones por<br />
desempleo el período de espera entre el despido y la<br />
sentencia, lo que a juicio del magistrado constituye<br />
u<strong>na</strong> “subvención pública” al empresario a pesar de<br />
haber cometido “un acto ilícito”, el despido<br />
improcedente. El nuevo régimen de los salarios de<br />
tramitación, que en la práctica supone su elimi<strong>na</strong>ción,<br />
afecta también según el juez Folguera, al derecho al<br />
trabajo que recoge el artículo 35 de la Constitución,<br />
ya que el cambio legal “constituye no solo un evidente<br />
estímulo contrario a la recuperación del empleo y<br />
favorable a la generación de desempleo, sino que se<br />
ven minorados esencialmente los derechos<br />
constitucio<strong>na</strong>les de los trabajadores a la prestación<br />
por desempleo”, dice en su cuestión de<br />
constitucio<strong>na</strong>lidad. La resolución judicial pone en<br />
duda, además, que existan los requisitos de<br />
“extraordi<strong>na</strong>ria y urgente necesidad” que exige la<br />
Constitución para aprobar un decreto ley, la norma<br />
utilizada por el Gobierno para sacar adelante la<br />
reforma. La presentación de la cuestión paralizará el<br />
proceso de despido hasta que el Tribu<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Constitucio<strong>na</strong>l la resuelva.<br />
237
El País/ - Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Archivada la investigación al presidente<br />
de la Audiencia de Lugo<br />
El Consejo General del Poder Judicial justifica el<br />
cierre del expediente en las "versiones contradictorias"<br />
de Varela Agrelo y la juez que lo denunció La<br />
Comisión Discipli<strong>na</strong>ria del Consejo General del Poder<br />
Judicial (CGPJ) acordó ayer por u<strong>na</strong>nimidad archivar<br />
la investigación abierta al presidente de la Audiencia<br />
Provincial de Lugo, José Antonio Varela Agrelo, tras la<br />
denuncia de la juez instructora de la Operación<br />
Campeón, Estela San José, que le acusó de intentar<br />
acceder de forma irregular a la declaración del<br />
empresario Jorge Dorribo. Según la juez, Varela<br />
Agrelo trató de enterarse de lo que había declarado el<br />
imputado sobre él. El órgano de gobierno de los<br />
jueces justifica el archivo de la investigación en las<br />
“versiones contradictorias entre el interesado y la<br />
magistrada” y a la falta de “otros elementos<br />
probatorios”. Varela Agrelo ha denunciado que Dorribo<br />
intentó extosio<strong>na</strong>rle a cambio de no declarar contra él.<br />
238
El Universal/ - Nación, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Corte Pe<strong>na</strong>l Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l)<br />
La imagen del “México seguro”<br />
Sin que se sepan sus nombres, sin que se hayan<br />
divulgado sus historias, discretamente hospedados en<br />
un hotel de lujo de la Riviera Nayarit, desde el fin de<br />
sema<strong>na</strong> están en México perso<strong>na</strong>s como las<br />
siguientes:El contacto de los rebeldes de Siria y Libia<br />
con gobiernos de Europa; el hombre que cabildea<br />
políticamente detrás del millo<strong>na</strong>riamente visto video de<br />
Kony-2012 para que caiga el ugandés Joseph Kony en<br />
manos de la Corte Pe<strong>na</strong>l Inter<strong>na</strong>cio<strong>na</strong>l; un príncipe<br />
de los Países Bajos; el opositor que quiere tumbar de<br />
la presidencia a Mugabe en Zimbabwe. Está la<br />
primera mujer africa<strong>na</strong> en la televisión del Estado<br />
chino, el abogado que desde su despacho en<br />
Washington logró liberar a la premio nobel de<br />
Birmania, el niño soldado de Sudán del Sur que de<br />
adulto se volvió cantante de hip-hop, el chavo con<br />
discapacidad que unió a toda Venezuela cuando<br />
completó el maratón de Nueva York en 15<br />
horas.Todos tienen menos de 40 años de edad y<br />
forman parte del grupo de los Jóvenes Líderes<br />
Globales del Foro Económico Mundial, cuya reunión<br />
se lleva al cabo desde el lunes en Puerto Vallarta,<br />
Jalisco. Perdón que te lo pregunte —se muestra<br />
ape<strong>na</strong>do uno de ellos— pero, ¿es seguro estar<br />
aquí?—Cuando le dije a mi familia que venía a México<br />
todos se asustaron muchísimo (se incorporó otro a la<br />
conversación).Los guías del transporte que los lleva<br />
rumbo a u<strong>na</strong> cami<strong>na</strong>ta por Las ánimas se apuran a<br />
responder que en la zo<strong>na</strong> de Vallarta y la Riviera<br />
Nayarit no hay problemas de seguridad. Que las<br />
playas, los restaurantes, los hoteles, los bares son<br />
confiables. Que se puede cami<strong>na</strong>r por las calles y<br />
tomar un taxi sin miedo. Que “la bronca del <strong>na</strong>rco”<br />
está más bien en las entidades del norte, y algunos<br />
otras como Guerrero y Veracruz.Lo escuchan<br />
atentamente. Al llegar a su destino, bajan del autobús<br />
para abordar cuatro lanchas tipo pescador que usan<br />
para transportar turistas. El recorrido de la Mari<strong>na</strong> a la<br />
zo<strong>na</strong> de Las ánimas demora como media hora.<br />
Durante el trayecto por el mar, custodian al grupo tres<br />
lanchas de guerra de la Mari<strong>na</strong> Armada de México y<br />
un elemento de seguridad va como parte de la<br />
tripulación de cada embarcación de los visitantes. Más<br />
tarde, se atoraron en la ruta del hotel sede de la<br />
reunión al Centro de Convenciones de Vallarta: duró<br />
más del doble de lo previsto porque un retén de la<br />
Policía Federal generó u<strong>na</strong> cola de tráfico de varios<br />
kilómetros.Por la noche, en el coctel de bienvenida en<br />
la playa, elementos del Ejército coordi<strong>na</strong>dos con la<br />
policía local custodiaban con vallas metálicas<br />
colocadas sobre la are<strong>na</strong> para aislar el sitio. Para<br />
llegar hasta ahí, cualquiera debía sortear retenes con<br />
elementos del Estado Mayor Presidencial. Si es tan<br />
seguro, ¿por qué tanta seguridad?, preguntó, asfixiado<br />
y asustado por el despliegue, uno de los invitados al<br />
foro.Un extranjero se apresuró a contestar que el país<br />
no se podía dar el lujo de un incidente en u<strong>na</strong> reunión<br />
de tal tamaño. U<strong>na</strong> mexica<strong>na</strong> dijo que no era para<br />
tanto, que el despliegue era innecesario.<br />
239
Debe & Haber<br />
El Poder Judicial otorgó a la Profeco un amparo que<br />
establece que los derechos de los consumidores<br />
deben catalogarse como derechos humanos, con lo<br />
que se avala que los 9 mil 781 representados en el<br />
concurso mercantil de Mexica<strong>na</strong> sean considerados<br />
acreedores privilegiados para el pago de los créditos.<br />
Con esta determi<strong>na</strong>ción, alcanzada por el Séptimo<br />
Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Colegiado en Materia Civil, los consumidores<br />
representados por la Profeco se ubican en el segundo<br />
lugar dentro del orden de prelación que se siga en la<br />
resolución del concurso interpuesto por la aerolínea,<br />
después de los trabajadores de la empresa. Juez<br />
emplaza a línea a pagar adeudo La Comisión Federal<br />
de Competencia (CFC) impuso multas a productores,<br />
a dos asociaciones y a un par de servidores públicos<br />
por coludirse y controlar la venta de tortilla en Tuxtla<br />
Gutiérrez, Chiapas. Las multas superan los 400 mil<br />
pesos para las asociaciones Consejo Estatal de la<br />
Industria de la Masa y la Tortilla de Chiapas (CEIMT) y<br />
para SOMOS CHIAPAS, y 30 mil pesos para dos<br />
funcio<strong>na</strong>rios públicos al participar en la práctica<br />
monopólica absoluta. Los presidentes de estas<br />
asociaciones responsables: serán sancio<strong>na</strong>dos<br />
también con 30 mil pesos a cada uno. Prácticas<br />
monopólicas en la venta<br />
El Universal/ - Nación, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
240
El Universal/ - Política, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Exigen respetar cuota de género<br />
34 mujeres políticas de NL acusan a partidos de<br />
exclusión MONTERREY Alrededor de 34 mujeres de<br />
diferentes organismos políticos de Nuevo León<br />
presentaron un recurso de inconformidad y u<strong>na</strong> queja<br />
ante la Comisión Estatal Electoral al considerar que<br />
son excluidas en la selección y desig<strong>na</strong>ción de<br />
candidaturas por los partidos con registro en la<br />
entidad. El grupo, conformado por destacadas<br />
académicas, políticas, funcio<strong>na</strong>rias y escritoras,<br />
encabezado por María Ele<strong>na</strong> Chapa, ex se<strong>na</strong>dora del<br />
PRI, entregó el documento a fin de que el presidente<br />
de la Comisión Estatal Electoral, Luis Daniel López,<br />
llamara a los partidos a mantener la equidad de<br />
género en las candidaturas, que deben ser de 30%<br />
para el sector femenil. En la denuncia, las mujeres<br />
precisan que de las 51 presidencias municipales, al<br />
menos 13 deben ser candidaturas femeniles. Y al<br />
menos cinco curules del Poder Legislativo local<br />
también debe ser ocupado por mujeres. Por eso,<br />
instaron a respetar lo establecido en el artículo 112 de<br />
la ley estatal electoral, así como el cuarto de la<br />
Constitución Política Mexica<strong>na</strong>, el cual establece la<br />
igualdad entre varón y mujer, y el artículo primero de<br />
la Constitución local, en el que se lee: “El derecho del<br />
ser humano son la base y el objetivo de las<br />
instituciones sociales. Todas las leyes y todas las<br />
autoridades deben de respetar y hacer respetar las<br />
garantías que otorga la presente constitución”. Se<br />
unen para protestar A la denuncia se sumaron<br />
Guadalupe Rodríguez de A<strong>na</strong>ya, del PT; María de<br />
Jesús Huerta, del PRI; Martha Zamarripa, del PRD;<br />
Lilia<strong>na</strong> Flores Be<strong>na</strong>vides, del PRD; y Dia<strong>na</strong> Perla<br />
Chapa, del Movimiento Ciudadano; de igual manera,<br />
la actriz Ne<strong>na</strong> Delgado, del PAN, entre otras activistas<br />
sociales del estado de Nuevo León. María Ele<strong>na</strong><br />
Chapa, quien dirige el Instituto Estatal de la Mujer,<br />
indicó que de no llamar el presidente ciudadano de la<br />
CEE a los partidos políticos a cumplir con la cuota de<br />
género en la selección y desig<strong>na</strong>ción de candidatos,<br />
llevarán ante el Tribu<strong>na</strong>l Electoral del Poder Judicial<br />
de la Federación su inconformidad. “Buscamos<br />
respeto para la equidad de género en cuanto a la<br />
postulación de candidatos a diputados locales y a<br />
alcaldes, por eso presentamos esta denuncia que la<br />
comisión estatal electoral se negaba a recibir, pero de<br />
no haberlo aceptado ese recurso, nosotros<br />
hubiéramos ido a inconformarnos ante el Tribu<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación”,<br />
advirtió María Ele<strong>na</strong> Chapa. La Oficialía de Partes<br />
demoró aproximadamente cinco horas para la<br />
recepción de la queja interpuesta por el grupo de<br />
mujeres políticas neoleoneses, quienes buscan que<br />
los partidos en los que simpatizan puedan fijar sus<br />
ojos en algu<strong>na</strong>s de ellas. Algu<strong>na</strong>s de las mujeres<br />
inconformes han servido como funcio<strong>na</strong>rias en el<br />
gobierno estatal, municipales y federal; otras han sido<br />
Se<strong>na</strong>doras de la República y otras diputadas federales<br />
y locales.<br />
241
La Nacion/ - Política, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Casal, un blanco en la mira de la<br />
comisión investigadora<br />
LA PLATA.- La decisión de la Cámara Pe<strong>na</strong>l de<br />
Apelaciones de Morón que anuló bue<strong>na</strong> parte del<br />
proceso de investigación por el crimen de Candela Sol<br />
Rodríguez alimenta la preocupación del gobierno<br />
bo<strong>na</strong>erense sobre la situación del ministro de Justicia<br />
y Seguridad, Ricardo Casal. Tras la medida judicial, el<br />
gobierno de Daniel Scioli espera ahora el dictamen de<br />
la Comisión Especial de Acompañamiento para el<br />
Esclarecimiento del Asesi<strong>na</strong>to de Candela Sol<br />
Rodríguez del Se<strong>na</strong>do bo<strong>na</strong>erense, que plantea u<strong>na</strong><br />
inusual investigación paralela a la llevada adelante por<br />
el Poder Judicial. La pesquisa por el crimen de<br />
Candela, hallada sin vida el 9 de agosto de 2011,<br />
estuvo plagada de versiones y testigos contradictorios,<br />
groseras fallas en la comunicación oficial e indicios<br />
sobre connivencia policial con el delito, todo lo que<br />
terminó con los sospechosos libres por falta de<br />
pruebas contundentes para incrimi<strong>na</strong>rlos. Ayer, el<br />
vicegober<strong>na</strong>dor Gabriel Mariotto, promotor de la<br />
conformación de la comisión legislativa para investigar<br />
la investigación, aseguró que "se van a instrumentar<br />
todas las acciones para que no haya connivencia<br />
entre el delito y la policía, y entre la Justicia, la policía<br />
y el delito, y entre la política, la Justicia, la policía y el<br />
delito. Cada poder tiene que trabajar por sí mismo y el<br />
delito no tiene que tener cobertura de <strong>na</strong>die". Mariotto<br />
anunció, a modo de vocero del cuerpo, que dentro de<br />
15 días se citará a declarar al ex jefe de la policía<br />
bo<strong>na</strong>erense Juan Carlos Paggi. Trascendió, al mismo<br />
tiempo, que no se descarta convocar al ministro de<br />
Justicia y Seguridad bo<strong>na</strong>erense, Ricardo Casal.<br />
UNA LUCHA POLÍTICA En realidad, la actividad<br />
desarrollada por la comisión persigue un fin político no<br />
enunciado: horadar a Casal como figura que expresa<br />
u<strong>na</strong> "matriz" que, según la mirada que impulsa la<br />
iniciativa, facilita y reproduce la connivencia entre los<br />
poderes -incluido el político- y el delito. Pese a<br />
destacar en los fundamentos de su creación la<br />
existencia de la división e independencia de poderes,<br />
la comisión especial del caso Candela avanza<br />
atribuyéndose facultades propias de la Justicia con el<br />
aval del vicegober<strong>na</strong>dor. Si bien la Legislatura posee<br />
atribuciones para controlar a otros poderes, la<br />
comisión especial no indaga las acciones de jueces y<br />
fiscales en el marco de lo que establece la ley de<br />
enjuiciamiento de magistrados provincial, sino que<br />
aborda -directa y críticamente- el desarrollo del<br />
proceso jurisdiccio<strong>na</strong>l. A esta altura, no queda<br />
suficientemente claro el alcance del trabajo<br />
investigativo, a excepción del impacto político que, sin<br />
dudas, provocará. Es ostensible, en cambio, la tensión<br />
generada entre ambos poderes ante la puesta en<br />
marcha de la nueva modalidad. Y no se sabe si, en el<br />
futuro, el Se<strong>na</strong>do será receptivo ante planteos de<br />
crear comisiones idénticas para casos en los que las<br />
partes denuncian irregularidades.<br />
242
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CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Poder Judicial)<br />
Prostitución y escándalo en la justicia<br />
santafeci<strong>na</strong><br />
U<strong>na</strong> funcio<strong>na</strong>ria presa por reclutar menores Por José<br />
E. Bordón SANTA FE.- Un caso promete hacer estallar<br />
un gran escándalo en la justicia santafeci<strong>na</strong>. U<strong>na</strong><br />
empleada del Poder Judicial provincial que se<br />
desempeñaba en los tribu<strong>na</strong>les del departamento de<br />
Vera, 330 kilómetros al norte de esta capital, fue<br />
detenida el pasado fin de sema<strong>na</strong>, acusada de<br />
corrupción de menores. Pero lo más explosivo es que<br />
la detención se produjo como consecuencia de las<br />
declaraciones que en sede judicial ofrecieron seis<br />
adolescentes -de entre 12 y 16 años-, en las que<br />
admitieron haber sido llevadas a fiestas noctur<strong>na</strong>s,<br />
donde "primos" de la acusada (así denomi<strong>na</strong>ba ella a<br />
los funcio<strong>na</strong>rios y empleados de los tribu<strong>na</strong>les de esa<br />
ciudad y a otros varones que aportaban suculentas<br />
sumas para concretar las mentadas reuniones<br />
privadas) las invitaban con bebidas alcohólicas y<br />
posiblemente drogas para, luego, hacerlas partícipes<br />
de diversas prácticas sexuales. El caso cobró<br />
notoriedad cuando las mujeres reconocieron que "a<br />
las fiestas de «la Bibi» habrían asistido importantes<br />
perso<strong>na</strong>jes que en el mismo acto de consumir la oferta<br />
sexual prohibida y pe<strong>na</strong>da por ley desplegaban un<br />
halo de complicidad e impunidad que ahora podría<br />
comenzar a descorrerse", relató uno de los<br />
investigadores del hecho. El juez de Vera Ireneo<br />
Berzano ordenó la inmediata detención de "la Bibi",<br />
Nilda Emilia Catali<strong>na</strong> Sánchez, de 51 años, separada,<br />
empleada judicial de los tribu<strong>na</strong>les de Vera, acusada<br />
de corrupción de menores. La detención se produjo a<br />
las 3 de la madrugada del sábado de la sema<strong>na</strong><br />
pasada al cabo de un importante operativo policial que<br />
se desplegó frente al domicilio de Rosario al 2000, en<br />
esa ciudad del norte provincial. La causa, que promete<br />
avanzar hacia la revelación de la identidad de<br />
importantes figuras de la noche verense involucradas<br />
en estas denomi<strong>na</strong>das "fiestas negras", se inició<br />
después de que tres adolescentes sindicaron a "la<br />
Bibi" Sánchez como la perso<strong>na</strong> que las captaba "para<br />
entregarlas a hombres mayores en fiestas privadas en<br />
las que corrían el alcohol y las pastillas", según<br />
explicaron fuentes de la investigación. Horacio Coutaz,<br />
secretario de Derechos Humanos de la provincia,<br />
admitió: "Estamos percibiendo que en Vera y en<br />
Reconquista [ambas poblaciones del norte<br />
santafecino] los casos de abusos de menores se<br />
reiteran y, no obstante, la respuesta judicial es<br />
prácticamente nula e ineficiente. En Vera tenemos dos<br />
casos paradigmáticos. En este último, el juez tomó<br />
conocimiento del hecho en el mismo momento que<br />
nosotros y recién se abocó a la causa el lunes pasado.<br />
En este caso no sólo hay abusos de menores, sino<br />
que también está involucrada u<strong>na</strong> empleada del Poder<br />
Judicial", explicó. Según coincidieron en señalar varios<br />
dirigentes políticos y sociales consultados por LA<br />
NACION, en Vera corre desde hace tiempo el rumor<br />
de que a las fiestas de "la Bibi" Sánchez asistían<br />
reconocidos perso<strong>na</strong>jes de la actividad política,<br />
empresarial y comercial del norte de esta provincia. Y<br />
alertaron sobre que "si «la Bibi» cuenta lo que sabe,<br />
muchos políticos y respetados habitantes de la región<br />
se verán en problemas".<br />
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CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Constitución)<br />
Hollande contro il fiscal compact "Serve<br />
un patto per la crescita"<br />
Il candidato socialista alle presidenziali francesi<br />
attacca l'Unione europea: "Senza nuove misure non<br />
potrò sostenere la sua ratifica. L'ho promesso agli<br />
elettori". Il mercato teme l'attacco degli speculatori.<br />
Sarkozyin difficoltà nei sondaggi PARIGI - François<br />
Hollande non cambia linea: senza un cambiamento, la<br />
Francia non ratificherà il trattato europeo sul fiscal<br />
compact. Lo conferma in un'intervista all'Handelsblatt :<br />
"Se il patto non contiene misure per la crescita, non<br />
potrò sostenere la sua ratifica all'Assemblea <strong>na</strong>zio<strong>na</strong>le.<br />
L'ho promesso ai francesi e mi atterrò a questa linea".<br />
Il candidato socialista sostiene di avere alleati in<br />
Europa: "Ho incontrato parecchi capi di Stato europei.<br />
Non ce ne sono molti soddisfatti dalla situazione<br />
economica. Non sono isolato". Tutti i paesi, Germania<br />
compresa, hanno interesse a u<strong>na</strong> strategia di crescita :<br />
"U<strong>na</strong> discipli<strong>na</strong> di bilancio a livello <strong>na</strong>zio<strong>na</strong>le è<br />
necessaria, ma non dobbiamo economizzare per<br />
economizzare". Hollande si mostra anche restìo<br />
all'idea di introdurre u<strong>na</strong> regola d'oro nella costituzione,<br />
"u<strong>na</strong> pura operazione di relazioni pubbliche", dice<br />
riferendosi all'idea difesa da Sarkozy. Se la linea<br />
generale è chiara, più difficile sapere cosa voglia<br />
davvero il candidato socialista e grande favorito dei<br />
sondaggi. Si dice che i contatti informali con Berlino<br />
siano in corso da tempo e che Angela Merkel sia<br />
disposta ad aggiungere al trattato un documento, con<br />
valore giuridico, relativo alla crescita. U<strong>na</strong> soluzione<br />
che sarebbe caldeggiata anche da verdi e<br />
socialdemocratici tedeschi. Ma su questo punto, le<br />
cose sono ancora vaghe. La probabile vittoria di<br />
Hollande suscita interrogativi sulla futura politica<br />
economica francese e sulla reazione dei mercati. La<br />
destra agita lo spettro della speculazione, ma più che<br />
la vittoria del candidato socialista può essere la<br />
situazione francese a creare tensioni. Il deficit pubblico<br />
è alto (5,2% nel 2011), l'avanzo primario è ancora<br />
lontano, il pareggio è promesso per il 2016 (Sarkozy) o<br />
per il 2017 (Hollande). Ma i programmi economici dei<br />
due candidati si basano su u<strong>na</strong> previsione di crescita<br />
del 2 per cento, considerata dagli economisti troppo<br />
ottimista. Hollande, stamani, si è rifiutato di accettare<br />
le previsioni, molto pessimiste per tutta la zo<strong>na</strong> euro,<br />
del Fondo monetario inter<strong>na</strong>zio<strong>na</strong>le. Ha detto di non<br />
voler prendere nuove misure di rigore per non creare<br />
le condizioni di u<strong>na</strong> recessione. Ha la bacchetta<br />
magica, gli è stato chiesto? "Cos'è la bacchetta<br />
magica? Si chiama un voto dei francesi che mi<br />
consentirebbe di trasci<strong>na</strong>re l'Europa". I mercati, per il<br />
momento, sono piuttosto tranquilli sui titoli francesi.<br />
L'arrivo di un derivato sul debito transalpino, introdotto<br />
lunedì sull'Eurex tedesco, ha suscitato polemiche nel<br />
mondo politico, ma gli scambi sono stati molto limitati.<br />
Segno che per i mercati è ancora presto per dare un<br />
giudizio. Ma i dati parlano da soli: due terzi del debito<br />
francese sono in mano a investitori esteri (primi fra tutti<br />
i tedeschi) e l'ex ministro delle Fi<strong>na</strong>nze, Thierry Breton,<br />
sostiene che dal 2013 al 2020 la Francia sarà il primo<br />
emittente di titoli di Stato, davanti a Italia e Germania.<br />
Ce n'è abbastanza per scrutare con attenzione come<br />
reagiranno i mercati dopo il 6 maggio, chiunque vinca<br />
la corsa all'Eliseo.<br />
244
La perdita dell"olfatto<br />
QUANDO il fascismo stava per finire, nel novembre<br />
1944, un gior<strong>na</strong>lista americano che conosceva bene<br />
l'Italia, Herbert Matthews, scrisse un articolo molto<br />
scomodo, sul mensile Mercurio diretto da Alba De<br />
Céspedes. S'intitolava "Non lo avete ucciso", e ci<br />
ritraeva, noi italiani e i nostri nuovi politici, incapaci di<br />
uccidere la bestia da cui in massa eravamo stati<br />
sedotti. U<strong>na</strong> vera epurazione era impossibile,<br />
soprattutto delle menti, dei costumi. Troppo vasti i<br />
consensi dati al tiranno, i trasformismi dell'ultima ora.<br />
Matthews racconta un episodio significativo di quegli<br />
anni. Quando il governo militare alleato volle epurare<br />
l'Università di Roma, u<strong>na</strong> delegazione del Comitato di<br />
liberazione <strong>na</strong>zio<strong>na</strong>le (Cln) chiese che la<br />
riorganizzazione fosse compiuta da due membri di<br />
ciascun partito: "In altre parole, u<strong>na</strong> politica di partito<br />
doveva essere introdotta nel dominio dell'alta cultura: il<br />
che, mi sembra, è fascismo bello e buono". Il<br />
gior<strong>na</strong>lista conclude che la lotta al fascismo doveva<br />
durare tutta la vita: "È un mostro col capo d'idra, dai<br />
molti aspetti, ma con un unico corpo. Non crediate di<br />
averlo ucciso". L'idra è tra noi, anche oggi. Nasce allo<br />
stesso modo, è il frutto amaro e terribile di mali che<br />
tendono a ripetersi eguali a se stessi e non vengono<br />
curati: come se non si volesse curarli, come se si<br />
preferisse sempre di nuovo <strong>na</strong>sconderli, lasciarli<br />
imputridire, poi dimenticarli. È uno dei lati più scuri<br />
dell'Italia, questo barcollare imbambolato lungo un<br />
baratro, dentro il quale non si guarda perché guardarlo<br />
significa conoscere e capire quel che racchiude: la<br />
politica che non vuol rigenerarsi; i partiti che non<br />
apprendono dai propri errori e si trasformano in<br />
cerchie chiuse, a null'altro interessate se non alla<br />
perpetuazione del proprio potere; la carenza<br />
spaventosa di u<strong>na</strong> classe dirigente meno<br />
irresponsabile, meno immemore di quel che è<br />
accaduto in Italia in più di mezzo secolo. E tuttavia<br />
distinguere si può, si deve: altrimenti prepariamoci alle<br />
esequie della politica. Ci sono uomini e partiti che si<br />
sono opposti e s'oppongono alla degenerazione, e ce<br />
ne sono che coscientemente hanno scommesso sul<br />
degrado. C'è la Costituzione, che protegge la politica e<br />
chi ne ha vocazione: compresi i partiti, che al caos<br />
oppongono l'organizzazione. Il molle non è<br />
equiparabile al colluso con la mafia, il mediocre non è<br />
un crimi<strong>na</strong>le. La politica è oggi invisa, ma a lei spetta<br />
ricominciare la Storia. I movimenti antipolitici<br />
denunciano u<strong>na</strong> malattia che senz'altro corrode dal di<br />
dentro la democrazia, ma non hanno la forza e<br />
neanche il desiderio di gover<strong>na</strong>re. Chi voglia<br />
gover<strong>na</strong>re non può che rinobilitarla, la politica. Se<br />
questo non avviene, se i partiti si limitano a denunciare<br />
l'antipolitica, avranno mancato per indolenza e<br />
La Repubblica/ - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Constitución)<br />
autoconservazione l'appuntamento con la verità. Non<br />
avranno compreso in tempo l'essenziale: sono le loro<br />
malattie a suscitare i pifferai-taumaturghi (l'ultimo è<br />
stato Berlusconi). Il paese rischia di morire di<br />
demagogia, dice Bersani, ma questa morte è un<br />
remake: vale la pe<strong>na</strong> rifletterci sopra. Guardiamola<br />
allora, questa politica sempre tentata dai remake. Non<br />
è solo questione di corruzione fi<strong>na</strong>nziaria, o del de<strong>na</strong>ro<br />
pubblico dato perché i partiti non siano prede di lobby<br />
e che tuttavia è solo in piccola parte speso per opere<br />
indispensabili (il resto andrebbe restituito ai cittadini:<br />
questo è depurarsi). La corruzione è più antica, ha<br />
radici nelle menti e in memorie striminzite. Matthews<br />
denuncia lottizzazioni partitiche già nel '44. Un'altra<br />
cosa che smaschera è il ruolo della mafia nella<br />
Liberazione. Anche quest'idra è tra noi. È lunga, la lista<br />
dei mali via via occultati, e spesso scordati.<br />
L'Anti-Stato che presto cominciò a crearsi accanto a<br />
quello ufficiale, e divenne il marchio comune a tante<br />
eversioni: mafiose, brigatiste, della politica quando si<br />
fa sommersa. Un Anti-Stato raramente ammesso,<br />
combattuto debolmente. E le stragi, a Portella della<br />
Ginestra nel '47 e a partire dal '69: restate impunite,<br />
anonime. L'ultima infamia risale alla sentenza<br />
sull'eccidio di Brescia del '74, sabato scorso: tutti<br />
assolti. È un conforto che Monti abbia deciso che<br />
spetta allo Stato e non alle vittime pagare 38 anni di<br />
inchieste e processi: l'ammissione di responsabilità gli<br />
fa onore. Poi la P2: u<strong>na</strong> "trasversale sacca di<br />
resistenza alla democrazia", secondo Ti<strong>na</strong> Anselmi.<br />
Berlusconi, tessera 1816 della Loggia, entrò in politica<br />
per attuare il controllo dell'informazione e della<br />
magistratura previsto nel Piano di Ri<strong>na</strong>scita<br />
democratica di Gelli. Le mazzette a politici e gior<strong>na</strong>listi<br />
si chiamano, nel Piano, "sollecitazioni". È corruzione<br />
anche la sordità a quel che i cittadini invocano da<br />
decenni, nei referendum. Nel '91 votarono contro u<strong>na</strong><br />
legge elettorale che consentiva ai partiti di piazzare<br />
nelle liste i propri preferiti. Nel '93 chiesero<br />
l'abbandono del sistema proporzio<strong>na</strong>le, che in Italia<br />
aveva dilatato la partitocrazia. Il 90.3 per cento votò<br />
nel '93 contro il fi<strong>na</strong>nziamento pubblico dei partiti. I<br />
referendum sono stati sprezzati, con sfacciataggine. Il<br />
fi<strong>na</strong>nziamento è ripreso sostituendo il vocabolo: ora si<br />
dice rimborso. Da noi si cambia così: migliorando i<br />
sinonimi, non le leggi e i costumi. Ma soprattutto, sono<br />
spesso svilite le battaglie dell'Italia migliore (antimafia,<br />
anticorruzione). Bisog<strong>na</strong> cadere ammazzati come<br />
Ambrosoli, Dalla Chiesa, Falcone, Borsellino, per non<br />
finire nel niente. Le commemorazioni stesse sono<br />
subdole forme di oblio. Si celebra Ambrosoli, non la<br />
sua lotta contro Sindo<strong>na</strong>, mafia, P2. Disse di lui<br />
Andreotti, legato a Sindo<strong>na</strong>: "È u<strong>na</strong> perso<strong>na</strong> che se<br />
245
l'andava cercando". Fu ascoltato in silenzio, e non<br />
possiamo stupirci se l'ex democristiano Scajola, nel<br />
2002, dirà parole quasi identiche su Marco Biagi, reo<br />
d'aver chiesto la scorta prima d'essere ucciso: "Era un<br />
rompicoglioni che voleva il rinnovo del contratto di<br />
consulenza". Ci sono cose che, u<strong>na</strong> volta dette, ti<br />
tolgono il diritto di rappresentare l'Italia. Viene infine la<br />
dimenticanza pura, che dissolve come in un acido<br />
persone italiane eccelse. Ti<strong>na</strong> Anselmi è un esempio.<br />
Gli italiani sanno qualcosa della straordi<strong>na</strong>ria don<strong>na</strong><br />
che guidò la commissione parlamentare sulla P2? È<br />
come fosse già morta, ed è commovente che alcuni<br />
amici la ricordino. Tra essi An<strong>na</strong> Vinci, autrice di un<br />
libro di Chiarelettere sulla P2. Con Giuseppe Amari, la<br />
scrittrice ha appe<strong>na</strong> pubblicato Le notti della<br />
democrazia, in cui la te<strong>na</strong>cia di Ti<strong>na</strong> è parago<strong>na</strong>ta a<br />
quella di Aung San Suu Kyi. Altro esempio: Federico<br />
Caffè, fautore solitario di un'economia alter<strong>na</strong>tiva ai<br />
trionfi liberisti, di rado nomi<strong>na</strong>to. Un mattino, il 15-4-87,<br />
si tolse di mezzo, scomparve come il fisico Majora<strong>na</strong><br />
nel '38. Anosognosia è la condizione di chi soffre un<br />
male ma ne nega l'esistenza: è la patologia delle<br />
nostre teste senza memoria. La letteratura è spesso<br />
La Repubblica/ - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Constitución)<br />
più precisa dei cronisti. Nel numero citato di Mercurio è<br />
evocato il racconto che Moravia scrisse nel '44:<br />
L'Epidemia. U<strong>na</strong> malattia stra<strong>na</strong> affligge il villaggio: gli<br />
abitanti cominciano a puzzare orribilmente, ma in<br />
assenza di cura l'odorato si corrompe e il puzzo vien<br />
presentato come profumo. Quindici anni dopo, Ionesco<br />
proporrà lo stesso apologo nei Rinoceronti. La malattia<br />
svanisce non perché sa<strong>na</strong>ta, ma perché negata:<br />
"Possiamo additare u<strong>na</strong> particolarità di quella <strong>na</strong>zione<br />
come un effetto indubbio della pandemia: gli individui<br />
di quella <strong>na</strong>zione, tutti senza distinzione, mancano di<br />
olfatto". Non fanno più "differenza tra le immondizie e il<br />
resto". Ecco cosa urge: ritrovare l'olfatto, anche se "è<br />
davvero un vantaggio" vivere senza. Altrimenti<br />
dovremo ammettere che preferiamo la melma e i<br />
pifferai che secerne, alla "bellezza del fresco profumo<br />
di libertà che fa rifiutare il puzzo del compromesso<br />
morale, dell'indifferenza, della contiguità, e quindi della<br />
complicità". Il profumo che Borsellino si augurò e ci<br />
augurò il 23 giugno '92, a Palermo, pochi giorni prima<br />
d'essere assassi<strong>na</strong>to.<br />
246
La Repubblica/ - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Constitución)<br />
Nel Veneto tradito da Bossi "Ora Maroni<br />
deve trattare con noi"<br />
TREVISO - Ogni maledetto venerdì in un"azienda del<br />
trevigiano o del vicentino o del bellunese, u<strong>na</strong> delle<br />
aree più ricche d"Europa, un imprenditore aspetta che<br />
escano gli operai e la segretaria, chiude il libro<br />
contabile e apre il cassetto con la pistola o scende nel<br />
capannone e si impicca. Perché non ha più la forza di<br />
andare in piazza, al bar, a messa, di incrociare lo<br />
sguardo dell"operaio amico o del cog<strong>na</strong>to impiegato<br />
senza stipendio da mesi.Dall"inizio della crisi gli<br />
imprenditori e gli artigiani suicidi in Veneto sono<br />
cinquantadue, dodici dall"inizio dell"anno. Quasi<br />
sempre a fine settima<strong>na</strong> e fine mese, dopo l"estremo<br />
tentativo di rimettere in moto gli affari, l"ultimo sollecito<br />
di pagamento ricevuto o inviato, l"ultima inutile visita in<br />
banca. "Nelle assemblee ormai ci guardiamo intorno,<br />
chi sarà il prossimo?" dice uno dei presenti l"altro<br />
giorno a Vigonza, vicino a Padova, alla fondazione di<br />
"Speranzaallavoro", l"associazione dei familiari degli<br />
imprenditori suicidi, guidata da due giovani orfane,<br />
Laura Tamiozzo e Flavia Schiavon. In questo clima si<br />
può immagi<strong>na</strong>re come il laborioso Nord Est possa<br />
accogliere il bollettino quotidiano della padanopoli di<br />
via Bellerio, i lingotti d"oro di Francesco Belsito, i<br />
diamanti di Rosi Mauro, i rotoli di euro dei figli di Bossi,<br />
gli appartamenti di famiglia. Perfino il bossiano più<br />
ortodosso, Gian Paolo Gobbo, segretario regio<strong>na</strong>le<br />
della Lega ("Il mio imam in Veneto" dice il Se<strong>na</strong>tur)<br />
allarga le braccia e ammette: "Avanti così<br />
e la Lega implode, muore. Ci mandano a casa tutti".<br />
Sul ponte di Caorle, u<strong>na</strong> specie di dazebao dei<br />
malumori locali, dove negli anni Ottanta avevo letto il<br />
primo slogan proto leghista ("Roma ne ciucia el<br />
sangue"), oggi campeggia un definitivo: "LEGA<br />
LADRONA". Quella scritta l"ha vista anche Bepi Covre,<br />
leghista eretico ma della prima ora, ex sindaco di<br />
Oderzo e fondatore con Cacciari e l"indimenticato<br />
Giorgio Lago del movimento dei sindaci anni Novanta,<br />
silurato in tandem da Bossi e D"Alema. Vado a trovarlo<br />
nella sua fabbrica, mobili e ferramenta. "Come va?<br />
Resisto. Non ho fatto un"ora di cassa integrazione.<br />
L"export tira da matti, ma il mercato interno è roba<br />
triste. Ci facciamo uno spritz?". Al secondo spritz<br />
affiora tutta l"amarezza: "Noi leghisti di antica data alla<br />
diversità ci credevamo davvero. Siamo <strong>na</strong>ti quando i<br />
vecchi partiti morivano di corruzione e ora vedere<br />
questi sce<strong>na</strong>ri squallidi, la corte, le badanti, i<br />
profittatori, ogni giorno è u<strong>na</strong> coltellata. Certo, la puzza<br />
di bruciato si sentiva da un po", c"era insofferenza<br />
nella base per quel coprire in tutto e per tutto<br />
Berlusconi. Quando è scoppiato lo scandalo dei festini<br />
io che ho u<strong>na</strong> figlia dell"età di Ruby ho scritto u<strong>na</strong><br />
lettera aperta su un gior<strong>na</strong>le e parecchie chiuse ai<br />
dirigenti. Ma nessuno si aspettava di scoprire tanto<br />
marcio intorno a Bossi. La Lega è stata nobile con lui<br />
quando ha avuto il colpo, l"ha aspettato, sostenuto. In<br />
qualsiasi altro partito avrebbero affilato i coltelli per la<br />
successione. E lui li ripaga così. Come andrà a finire?<br />
Chissà. Un pezzo di Lega terrà nei territori, qui in<br />
Veneto gli amministratori sono a posto, le città ben<br />
condotte, il consenso è radicato. Ma a livello <strong>na</strong>zio<strong>na</strong>le<br />
il fallimento del progetto è sotto gli occhi di tutti.<br />
Bisog<strong>na</strong> ricominciare, ma stavolta le decisioni non<br />
possono essere prese tutte fra Varese e Bergamo. La<br />
nuova Lega di Maroni dovrà trattare coi veneti, a<br />
cominciare da Zaia e Tosi, e mi pare lo stia già<br />
facendo". Nelle pieghe dello scontento riemergono<br />
antiche ferite e l"eter<strong>na</strong> vocazione autonomista del<br />
Veneto, prima regione leghista nei voti e ultima a<br />
contare nelle decisioni. "Colonizzati due volte, anzi tre,<br />
da Roma, Milano e Varese" dicono i vecchi "lighisti".<br />
Quelli che ricordano la Liga Veneta, la "madre di tutte<br />
le leghe", fondata nel 1980 e la prima a portare eletti in<br />
Parlamento. L"annessione dei fratelli maggiori veneti è<br />
stato il primo machiavellico capolavoro dell"ascesa di<br />
Umberto Bossi ed è u<strong>na</strong> storia che spiega bene il<br />
trionfo del virtuale nella seconda repubblica. Il<br />
vantaggio paradossale di Bossi è stato infatti il totale<br />
sradicamento della sua idea di patria immagi<strong>na</strong>ria. La<br />
Padania è un falso mito senza storia e la Serenissima<br />
ne ha troppa. I padani non sono mai esistiti, mentre i<br />
veneti sono un popolo da tremila anni e da allora si<br />
lamentano dei vicini. I lombardi sono dialetti e il veneto<br />
è u<strong>na</strong> lingua da prima dell"italiano. Il sole padano è<br />
paccottiglia pseudo celtica e il Leone alato è uno dei<br />
grandi simboli della civiltà europea. Ma proprio perché<br />
se l"era inventata lui, Bossi s"è messo in tasca la<br />
Padania e se l"è venduta e rivenduta a piacere sul<br />
mercato politico, mentre i fratelli veneti<br />
s"accoltellavano sull"eredità della Serenissima.A<br />
Gianfranco Miglio che gli consigliava il "divide et<br />
impera" in Veneto alla vigilia del primo congresso<br />
federale, a Pieve Emanuele nel 1991, Bossi che<br />
conosceva i suoi rissosi polli rispose: "Non c"è<br />
bisogno, ci pensano da soli". Per avere un"idea del<br />
grado di conflittualità inter<strong>na</strong> agli autonomisti veneti,<br />
vale la pe<strong>na</strong> di ricordare la loro più famosa impresa,<br />
l"occupazione del campanile di San Marco da parte dei<br />
"Serenissimi" nella notte fra l"8 e il 9 maggio 1997.<br />
Un"immagine finita sulle prime pagine di tutto il mondo.<br />
Ma pochi conoscono i retrosce<strong>na</strong>, <strong>na</strong>rrati da<br />
247
Francesco Jori, allievo di Lago, nella bellissima<br />
inchiesta "Dalla Liga alla Lega". L"operazione San<br />
Marco parte come u<strong>na</strong> spedizione militare in grande<br />
stile, con decine di militanti e diversi "tanki", mezzi di<br />
trasporto paramilitari. Soltanto che alla fine si<br />
presentano in otto, con un trattore mascherato da<br />
panzer. Il capo, l""ambasciatore serenissimo" che<br />
avrebbe dovuto leggere la dichiarazione<br />
d"indipendenza dal campanile di San Marco, si dilegua<br />
la notte stessa, rincorso dalle chiamate disperate degli<br />
altri. All"alba vengono arrestati tutti. Durante i processi<br />
litigano fra di loro e con gli avvocati, un paio si pentono<br />
e in cinque patteggiano. All"uscita dal carcere<br />
smettono di frequentarsi.Naturalmente Franco<br />
Rocchetta e Marile<strong>na</strong> Marin, la coppia leader per un<br />
decennio, papà e mamma della Liga veneta, buttati<br />
fuori da Bossi nel "94 ("ma ce n"eravamo andati noi da<br />
sei mesi") hanno un"altra versione e me la raccontano<br />
in u<strong>na</strong> trattoria di Conegliano, davanti a prosecco e<br />
baccalà d"ordi<strong>na</strong>nza. "Voi gior<strong>na</strong>listi avete spiegato la<br />
fine della Liga con le solite baruffe chiozzotte, ma sono<br />
balle" spiega Rocchetta "La verità è che Bossi, con alle<br />
spalle le teorie di Miglio, vate della Lombardia come<br />
Prussia del Nord, ha tramato fin dal principio per<br />
prendersi l"egemonia del movimento. E se l"è preso<br />
manovrando i soldi del partito, esattamente come<br />
aveva fatto prima Craxi nel Psi. La Lega Lombarda era<br />
appe<strong>na</strong> <strong>na</strong>ta e già intascava duecento milioni di<br />
tangenti Enimont. Poi hanno dato la colpa al "pirla"<br />
Patelli, come ora cercano di fare con Belsito. Ma uno<br />
che dà la cassa di partito a uno come Belsito, perché<br />
La Repubblica/ - Cro<strong>na</strong>ca, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Constitución)<br />
lo fa? Non mi stupisce neppure la debolezza di Bossi<br />
nei confronti dell"amica Rosi Mauro. E" lo stesso tipo<br />
di debolezza che lo portò a nomi<strong>na</strong>re la ragazzotta, in<br />
seguito show girl, Irene Pivetti alla terza carica dello<br />
Stato". Marile<strong>na</strong> Marin rincara la dose: "Nel "94<br />
Berlusconi, che ha i suoi lati comici, ci chiese che<br />
cos"era questo famoso federalismo e di fargli avere<br />
u<strong>na</strong> memoria sulla faccenda. Malafede? Non credo. A<br />
lui interessava scampare ai processi e salvare le tv,<br />
per il resto era disposto a tutto, al federalismo, alla<br />
riforma fiscale, perfino al ritorno della Serenissima. In<br />
ogni caso, noi gli portammo il dossier, Bossi mai".<br />
Conclusione di Rocchetta: "A Bossi del federalismo<br />
non è mai fregato niente. E" stato al governo dieci anni<br />
e le uniche riforme federaliste le ha fatte l"Ulivo con i<br />
decreti Bassanini e la riforma del titolo V della<br />
Costituzione, soltanto che sono troppo stupidi per<br />
rivendicarla e anzi se ne vergog<strong>na</strong>no. Bossi ha<br />
replicato con la devolution, che è u<strong>na</strong> solenne<br />
pagliacciata".Papà e mamma Liga avranno i loro<br />
rancori da mettere in conto, ma nel grande Nord Est i<br />
tamburi della rivolta autonomista hanno ricominciato a<br />
battere da Vero<strong>na</strong> a Belluno. Se le elezioni di<br />
primavera andranno come si prevede, un crollo della<br />
Lega romanizzata in Lombardia e la tenuta della Lega<br />
dei sindaci in Veneto, anche grazie alle liste civiche<br />
che Bossi aveva proibito, Roberto Maroni dovrà<br />
tor<strong>na</strong>re nella culla del leghismo a firmare un nuovo<br />
patto fra lombardi e veneti.<br />
248
Le Figaro/ - économie, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Cour pé<strong>na</strong>le inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>le)<br />
Le procureur de la CPI en Libye<br />
Le procureur de la Cour pé<strong>na</strong>le inter<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>le (CPI)<br />
Luis Moreno-Ocampo est arrivé aujourd'hui en Libye<br />
pour se pencher sur le dossier de Seif al-Islam<br />
Kadhafi, fils du dirigeant défunt que Tripoli refuse de<br />
livrer.<br />
A La Haye, la CPI a indiqué dans un communiqué que<br />
la visite de M. Ocampo qui va séjourner en Libye<br />
jusqu'à samedi, vise à réclamer la coopération de<br />
Tripoli dans cette affaire, sans autre précision. Il s'agit<br />
de la deuxième visite de M. Ocampo en Libye après<br />
celle effectuée en novembre 2011.<br />
Seif Al-Islam, 39 ans, arrêté le 19 novembre dans le<br />
sud libyen, est visé par un mandat d'arrêt de la CPI,<br />
notamment pour crimes contre l'humanité commis lors<br />
de la répression de la révolte populaire l'an dernier, qui<br />
s'est transformée en guerre civile.<br />
Le gouvernement libyen a fait appel le 10 avril d'une<br />
décision de la CPI lui demandant de lui livrer<br />
"immédiatement" le fils de Mouammar Kadhafi.<br />
Il a annoncé par ailleurs son intention de déposer le 30<br />
avril un document contestant la compétence de la CPI<br />
pour juger Seif Al-Islam, qu'il souhaite poursuivre<br />
lui-même.<br />
249
Le Monde/ - Article, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Conseil Constitutionnel)<br />
Le harcèlement sexuel examiné par le<br />
Conseil constitutionnel<br />
Le Monde.fr avec AFP | 18.04.2012 à 11h44 • Mis à<br />
jour le 18.04.2012 à 11h49 Le délit de harcèlement<br />
sexuel, bientôt rayé du code pé<strong>na</strong>l ? C'est en tout cas<br />
ce que réclame Gérard Ducray, ancien député adjoint<br />
au maire de Villefranche-sur-Saône (Rhône),<br />
condamné en appel mars 2011 pour harcèlement<br />
sexuel sur trois employées de la municipalité. L'élu a<br />
déposé une question prioritaire de constitution<strong>na</strong>lité<br />
(QPC) qui a été examinée mardi 17 avril par les<br />
Sages. En cause : la définition pé<strong>na</strong>le du "harcèlement<br />
sexuel", motif pour lequel l'homme s'estime<br />
injustement condamné. L'ancien élu du Rhône<br />
considère que l'article concerné du code pé<strong>na</strong>l,<br />
laissant au juge une trop large marge d'appréciation<br />
des éléments constitutifs du délit, est contraire au<br />
principe d'"égalité des délits et des peines", a plaidé<br />
son avocate, Me Claire Waquet. Cet article stipule que<br />
"le fait de harceler autrui dans le but d'obtenir des<br />
faveurs de <strong>na</strong>ture sexuelle est puni d'an an<br />
d'emprisonnement et de 15 000 euros d'amende". Le<br />
harcèlement sexuel existe dans le code pé<strong>na</strong>l depuis<br />
1992, mais sa définition a été modifiée en 2002,<br />
supprimant notamment sa limitation au domaine des<br />
relations de travail. UNE DÉFINITION TROP FLOUE<br />
"Dans l'affaire qui nous occupe, il s'agit de trois<br />
femmes à qui il a été fait des avances un peu lourdes ;<br />
à chaque fois, elles ont dit non et [M. Ducray] n'a pas<br />
réitéré. Ça peut aller très loin", a estimé l'avocate, pour<br />
qui le texte "autorise tous les débordements, toutes les<br />
interprétations". Il doit par conséquent être<br />
immédiatement abrogé, a-t-elle conclu. L'Association<br />
européenne contre les violences faites aux femmes au<br />
travail (AVFT), interve<strong>na</strong>nt dans la procédure, a<br />
également demandé l'abrogation du texte, mais de<br />
manière différée, afin de laisser au législateur le temps<br />
d'en adopter un nouveau. Selon elle, une abrogation<br />
immédiate entraînerait un dangereux vide juridique.<br />
Rappelant avoir toujours milité pour "une définition<br />
rénovée" du harcèlement sexuel, l'association souligne<br />
qu'elle fait "une a<strong>na</strong>lyse radicalement opposée à celle<br />
de Gérard Ducray". Lui, "avance le risque de<br />
répression par les tribu<strong>na</strong>ux de la 'drague admissible'",<br />
alors qu'elle affirme constater, "au contraire, des<br />
classements sans suite quasi systématiques et des<br />
renvois devant le tribu<strong>na</strong>l correctionnel pour<br />
harcèlement d'agissements qui auraient pu être<br />
qualifiés d'agressions sexuelles, voire de viols". Les<br />
Sages, saisis du problème par le biais d'une QPC,<br />
rendront leur décision le 4 mai.<br />
250
Los Angeles Times/ - Politics, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
LAUSD considers lowering the bar for<br />
graduation<br />
The district could face a flood of dropouts if it doesn't<br />
ease its policy that all students pass college-prep<br />
classes. By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times April<br />
18, 2012 Eight years ago, the Los Angeles Board of<br />
Education adopted an ambitious plan to have all<br />
students take college-prep classes to raise academic<br />
standards in the <strong>na</strong>tion's second-largest school district.<br />
Now, that plan is about to take effect: Beginning this<br />
fall, incoming freshmen will have to pass those classes<br />
to graduate. On Tuesday, district officials backtracked,<br />
offering details of a proposal to reduce overall<br />
graduation requirements and allow students to pass<br />
those classes with a D grade. They must change<br />
course, Los Angeles Unified School District officials<br />
said, or they would open the doors to scores of<br />
dropouts and others who can't pass the more rigorous<br />
requirements. The new plan, which still must be<br />
approved by the board, would allow students to<br />
graduate with 25% fewer credits. "If we don't do<br />
something, we have to be prepared to be pushing out<br />
kids as dropouts," said Deputy Supt. Jaime Aquino at a<br />
school-board committee meeting Tuesday. "We face a<br />
massive dropout rate in four years." Currently, a<br />
student must earn 230 credits to graduate. Under the<br />
proposal, that requirement would be reduced to 170<br />
credits, the minimum set by the California Department<br />
of Education. Among the requirements to be dropped<br />
are: health/life skills, technology and electives that<br />
cover a broad range of subjects, including calculus and<br />
jour<strong>na</strong>lism. "I know of no other school district in<br />
California that is reducing graduation requirements by<br />
60 units and calling it an improvement," said former<br />
senior district official Sharon Robinson, who now is an<br />
advisor to school board member Marguerite<br />
Poindexter LaMotte. LaMotte added that she isn't<br />
convinced the district can carry out the policy<br />
successfully. Former school board member David<br />
Tokofsky, who supported the origi<strong>na</strong>l plan, also was<br />
bothered by the reduced credit requirement. He said<br />
that officials instead should focus on getting younger<br />
students prepared to succeed in high school. Students<br />
who pass all their classes typically would earn a<br />
minimum 180 credits by the end of their junior year.<br />
Under the staff proposal, students also could pass the<br />
college-prep classes with a D even though California's<br />
public university systems require a C or better for<br />
admission. Former school board member Marlene<br />
Canter, who also supported the more rigorous<br />
requirements, said, "It doesn't make sense," to push<br />
for a college-prep curriculum but not the grades<br />
necessary for the courses to count. District officials<br />
said they hope to raise the bar — mandating that<br />
students earn at least a C — for the class of 2017. The<br />
expectation is that even D students benefit from more<br />
difficult classes, even if they don't qualify for a<br />
four-year college. "These courses are the markers of a<br />
more rigorous curriculum," said USC education<br />
professor Guilbert Hentschke. Since most students<br />
don't attend a four-year university, a college-prep<br />
curriculum also "should have a giant effect on success<br />
in a two-year community college," Hentschke said. Of<br />
those who started as freshmen in the class that<br />
graduated four years later in 2011, only 15% were<br />
eligible for admission to the University of California and<br />
California State University systems. Even among<br />
graduating seniors, close to half failed to complete<br />
what's called the "A through G" curriculum, the<br />
college-prep classes. If those students suddenly were<br />
u<strong>na</strong>ble to earn a diploma, the graduation rate would<br />
plummet, officials said. Reducing the required credits<br />
means that students will be able to retake college-prep<br />
classes or get extra help for them during the regular<br />
school day, said Gerardo Loera, the district's executive<br />
director of curriculum and instruction. "We're not<br />
considering this as an ideal solution," Loera said. "It's a<br />
creative solution with the amount of resources we<br />
have." The school board approved the more rigorous,<br />
phased-in graduation requirements in June 2005. At<br />
the time, community and school activists pushed hard<br />
for the changes, saying that poor and minority students<br />
lacked equal access to college-prep classes. Today,<br />
they say they are disappointed with the pace of<br />
progress, but still support the initiative. The goal<br />
remains to get students to a grade of C in college-prep<br />
classes — and to give them the support they need to<br />
get there, said Maria Brenes, the executive director of<br />
InnerCity Struggle, a local nonprofit that helped lobby<br />
for the changes. "Almost always these policies are<br />
done for really good motives," said Gary Orfield, who<br />
directs the Civil Rights Project at UCLA. "It would be<br />
great to mandate that everyone would get an A. My<br />
belief is that just passing a rule that says you will<br />
achieve such and such does not change the world. If<br />
it's done without adequate thought and support, it<br />
increases the obstacles for students already facing<br />
tremendous obstacles and risks denying them crucial<br />
high school credentials." Some college-track students<br />
at Los Angeles High School said recently that they<br />
have no problem with more difficult requirements.<br />
"Most students don't have a problem getting through<br />
251
this," said senior Erik Segura. "They just start slacking<br />
off and getting lazy." Junior Rosario Lopez said she<br />
understands how factors outside of school can<br />
undermine a student's efforts. For a long time, she<br />
lacked a place to study — and sometimes even a<br />
consistent place to live — because of her family's<br />
economic struggles. And one relative insisted that she<br />
Los Angeles Times/ - Politics, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
should do housework rather than homework. Though<br />
most of her grades are A's and Bs, she worries that<br />
she might need another shot at passing Algebra 2. But<br />
she also supports aiming high. "If the students know<br />
they can just pass with a D," she said, "then they're not<br />
going to take the initiative to get a higher grade."<br />
252
Los Angeles Times/ - Politics, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
State Se<strong>na</strong>te panel backs bill to deregulate<br />
Internet phone service<br />
Proponents say the bill would lock the state's hands-off<br />
policy into law, but critics say it would strip the PUC of<br />
its power to require phone firms to provide basic<br />
land-line service to any consumer. By Marc Lifsher,<br />
Los Angeles Times April 18, 2012 SACRAMENTO —<br />
An industry-backed bill that would preempt state<br />
agencies from regulating Internet-e<strong>na</strong>bled voice and<br />
data transmissions won u<strong>na</strong>nimous approval from a<br />
state Se<strong>na</strong>te committee in its first legislative hearing.<br />
Amid protests from consumer advocates, the bill's<br />
author, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), tried to<br />
downplay the significance of the measure, which<br />
proponents said would simply lock the state's current<br />
hands-off policy into law. Such a reiteration of existing<br />
practices would give Silicon Valley businesses "the<br />
certainty" to continue developing innovative,<br />
Internet-powered products and programs, Padilla<br />
argued at a hearing Tuesday of the Se<strong>na</strong>te Energy,<br />
Utilities and Telecommunications Committee. The bill<br />
"maintains the environment that has taken us to where<br />
we are today and ensures it will continue tomorrow,"<br />
said Robert Callahan, a lobbyist for TechAmerica, a<br />
Silicon Valley telecommunications and technology<br />
trade group. But opponents, mainly consumer<br />
advocates for the poor, elderly and minorities,<br />
countered that Padilla's bill, SB 1161, would strip the<br />
California Public Utilities Commission of its last vestige<br />
of power to require telephone companies to provide<br />
universal, basic land-line service to any consumer.<br />
Those same rules also mandate that subsidized<br />
connections be available for qualifying low-income<br />
residents and that special equipment be given to<br />
people with hearing disabilities. "We see this as a<br />
withering away and the elimi<strong>na</strong>tion of PUC regulation<br />
over telecommunication," said Richard Holober,<br />
executive director of the Consumer Federation of<br />
California. "We think that would be bad public policy."<br />
Residential land-line phone service was almost<br />
completely deregulated in 2006, but the PUC retained<br />
limited authority over service quality and availability.<br />
The door, however, was always left open for the<br />
agency to re-regulate the industry, should that be<br />
needed in the future. The proposed law would<br />
elimi<strong>na</strong>te that option. The bill is being pushed by AT&T<br />
Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., which own<br />
networks connecting about 11 million land lines<br />
statewide, as well as major tech companies such as<br />
Cisco Systems Inc. that make communications<br />
hardware and software. AT&T was the fifth-largest<br />
contributor to Padilla's campaign coffers with $23,900<br />
from 2007 through 2010, according to nonpartisan<br />
political data firm Map- Light.org. In all, Padilla<br />
received $69,644 from telecom services and<br />
equipment interests during that period. Padilla, the<br />
committee's chairman, bristled at charges that he was<br />
in league with telecommunications, cable TV and<br />
Internet companies to jettison California's minimal<br />
remaining oversight of basic phone service. He<br />
promised to amend his bill as it makes its way through<br />
the Legislature to "make it abundantly clear" that it<br />
does not elimi<strong>na</strong>te any existing regulation of<br />
conventio<strong>na</strong>l phone service through land-line<br />
connections. Padilla's pledge clearly swayed<br />
committee members who expressed skepticism about<br />
the need for the bill, which passed on an 11-0 vote. "I<br />
don't want to vote for diminishing any existing<br />
consumer protections," such as universal service, said<br />
Sen. Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego) toward the end of<br />
more than two hours of testimony and deliberation. But<br />
Padilla's stab at compromise didn't win any applause<br />
from the bill's strongest critics. Voice over Internet<br />
Protocol technology is so inexpensive and ubiquitous<br />
that it is expected to replace the current copper wire<br />
lines in the near future, they said. Copper networks<br />
already depend on VOIP to complete most calls, and<br />
the technology is at the heart of all cable phone and<br />
fiber-optic and long-distance service. "As more people<br />
use voice over Internet, fewer people will have<br />
[consumer] protections," said Mark Toney, executive<br />
director of the Utility Reform Network, a San Francisco<br />
consumer group. People who live in isolated<br />
communities with VOIP phones won't have the legal<br />
right to get subsidized, low-cost service, he said. State<br />
policymakers should provide more, not less, oversight<br />
of the communications industry if they don't want to<br />
repeat the mistakes that they and their federal<br />
counterparts made when they deregulated the energy<br />
and the home mortgage industries, said Samuel Kang,<br />
ma<strong>na</strong>ging attorney for the Greenlining Institute, a civil<br />
rights organization in Berkeley. "Why are we now<br />
trying to take authority out of the hands of the PUC<br />
and outsource that accountability to Washington,<br />
D.C.?" he said. The PUC has so far taken no public<br />
position on the Padilla bill. marc.lifsher@latimes.com<br />
253
Von Daniela Kuhr<br />
Der Grund der Absage<br />
Mehr Frauen, mehr Ältere, mehr Migranten -<br />
Unternehmen predigen gern Vielfalt beim Perso<strong>na</strong>l.<br />
Die Realität sieht anders aus. Es gibt kaum eine<br />
Handhabe für Bewerber, die sich diskriminiert fühlen.<br />
Das könnten die EU-Richter jetzt ändern.<br />
Wenn eine gut ausgebildete Frau sich erfolglos auf<br />
eine Stelle<strong>na</strong>nzeige bewirbt, kann die Absage viele<br />
Gründe haben: Vielleicht waren die anderen Bewerber<br />
qualifizierter? Vielleicht waren sie sympathischer?<br />
Flexibler? Oder vielleicht auch einfach nur Männer?<br />
Womöglich wollte der Arbeitgeber schlicht keine Frau<br />
für den Job. Dann könnte die erfolglose Bewerberin<br />
zwar Schadenersatz verlangen, denn sie wäre wegen<br />
ihres Geschlechts diskriminiert worden. Das Problem<br />
ist nur: Der Arbeitgeber wäre wohl kaum so dumm, ihr<br />
diesen Grund mitzuteilen. Sie stünde also vor der<br />
großen Frage: Wie soll sie die Diskriminierung<br />
belegen?<br />
Eine Antwort darauf könnte an diesem Donnerstag der<br />
Europäische Gerichtshof (EuGH) geben. Dort ist ein<br />
Verfahren anhängig, das in der Wirtschaft bereits mit<br />
großer Nervosität beobachtet wird. Einige Arbeitgeber<br />
befürchten sogar, <strong>na</strong>ch dem Richterspruch nicht länger<br />
frei entscheiden zu können, wen sie einstellen wollen<br />
und wen nicht. Vom "Ende der Privatautonomie" ist die<br />
Rede. Dabei ist der Auslöser der Aufregung eigentlich<br />
gar nicht so furchteinflößend. Es ist in diesem Fall eine<br />
"Sie": Gali<strong>na</strong> Meister, Jahrgang 1961, gebürtige<br />
Russin.<br />
Meister verfügt über einen russischen Abschluss als<br />
Systemtechnik-Ingenieurin, der mit einem deutschen<br />
Fachhochschul-Diplom zu vergleichen und offiziell<br />
anerkannt ist. Im Oktober 2006 bewarb sie sich auf die<br />
Stelle<strong>na</strong>nzeige eines Unternehmens, das "eine/n<br />
erfahrene/n Softwareentwickler/in" suchte. Wenige<br />
Tage später erhielt Meister eine Absage - ohne nähere<br />
Angabe der Gründe. Kurz da<strong>na</strong>ch jedoch<br />
veröffentlichte das Unternehmen erneut eine<br />
Stelle<strong>na</strong>nzeige mit gleichem Inhalt im Internet. Meister<br />
bewarb sich wieder - und wurde wieder nicht zum<br />
Vorstellungsgespräch eingeladen. Auch diesmal<br />
enthielt die Absage keine Begründung. Da Meister sich<br />
sicher war, für die Stelle besonders gut geeignet zu<br />
sein, fragte sie <strong>na</strong>ch, ob ein anderer Bewerber<br />
eingestellt worden sei und welche Qualifikation er<br />
habe. Eine Antwort erhielt sie nicht.<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung/ - Politik, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Europäischen Gerichtshof )<br />
Die Ingenieurin fühlte sich diskriminiert - wegen ihres<br />
Geschlechts, ihrer Herkunft und ihres Alters. Und<br />
deshalb klagte sie <strong>na</strong>ch dem Allgemeinen<br />
Gleichbehandlungsgesetz, das im Fall von<br />
Be<strong>na</strong>chteiligungen einen Anspruch auf Schadenersatz<br />
vorsieht. Voraussetzung ist aber, dass der Betroffene<br />
Indizien vortragen kann, die eine Diskriminierung<br />
vermuten lassen. Gelingt ihm das, muss der<br />
Arbeitgeber <strong>na</strong>chweisen, dass keine Diskriminierung<br />
stattgefunden hat.<br />
Doch Meister scheiterte bereits an der ersten Hürde.<br />
Weder das Arbeits- noch das Landesarbeitsgericht<br />
vermochten Hinweise zu erkennen, die eine<br />
Diskriminierung <strong>na</strong>helegen. Dass die gebürtige Russin<br />
trotz ihrer Qualifikation nicht zum<br />
Vorstellungsgespräch eingeladen worden war,<br />
genügte <strong>na</strong>ch Ansicht der Richter jedenfalls nicht.<br />
Auch müsse der Arbeitgeber ihr nicht mitteilen, wen er<br />
stattdessen eingestellt habe und warum.<br />
Der Fall landete beim Bundesarbeitsgericht; das<br />
wiederum legte ihn dem EuGH in Luxemburg vor. Der<br />
dortige Generalanwalt Paolo Mengozzi hat Mitte<br />
Januar verkündet, wie das höchste EU-Gericht seiner<br />
Meinung <strong>na</strong>ch entscheiden sollte. Und ebendieser<br />
Schlussantrag ist es, der die Wirtschaft so alarmiert<br />
hat.<br />
Dabei hatte Mengozzi zunächst etwas durchaus<br />
Beruhigendes gesagt: Er stellte fest, dass das Gesetz<br />
tatsächlich keinen Auskunftsanspruch vorsieht. Doch<br />
dabei wollte er es nicht bewenden lassen. Denn das<br />
hätte zur Folge, dass Bewerber "vollständig vom guten<br />
Willen des Arbeitgebers abhängig" wären. Dieser<br />
könne durch seine Weigerung, die gewünschten<br />
Informationen herauszugeben, "seine Entscheidungen<br />
mit ziemlicher Wahrscheinlichkeit u<strong>na</strong>ngreifbar<br />
machen".<br />
Deshalb schlug Mengozzi einen Kompromiss vor: Hat<br />
sich ein Bewerber auf eine Anzeige beworben und<br />
besaß er <strong>na</strong>chweislich die verlangte Qualifikation,<br />
dann hat er zwar kein Recht darauf zu erfahren,<br />
warum ein anderer zum Zug kam. Fragt er aber<br />
dennoch <strong>na</strong>ch und erhält keine Antwort, kann dieses<br />
Schweigen unter Umständen ein Indiz dafür sein, dass<br />
er tatsächlich diskriminiert wurde. Der Arbeitgeber<br />
müsste dann also beweisen, dass es nicht so war dass er vielmehr andere Gründe für die Ablehnung<br />
hatte als das Geschlecht, das Alter oder die Herkunft.<br />
Gelingt ihm das nicht, müsste er Schadensersatz<br />
zahlen.<br />
254
In den meisten Fällen folgen die EuGH-Richter dem<br />
Vorschlag des Generalanwalts. Sollten sie es diesmal<br />
wieder tun, würden Bewerbungsprozesse in Zukunft<br />
"extrem zeit- und perso<strong>na</strong>lintensiv", meint Stefan<br />
Kursawe, Partner bei der Anwaltskanzlei Heisse<br />
Kursawe Eversheds. "Denn Arbeitgeber wären<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung/ - Politik, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Europäischen Gerichtshof )<br />
gezwungen, jeden passenden Bewerber zum<br />
Vorstellungsgespräch einzuladen, auch wenn sie sich<br />
vielleicht schon längst für einen anderen Kandidaten<br />
entschieden haben." Er ist überzeugt: "Damit wäre<br />
auch Bewerbern kein Gefallen getan."<br />
255
Von Marti<strong>na</strong> Scherf<br />
Süddeutsche Zeitung/ - Politik, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Verfassungsgericht)<br />
Wie die katholische Kirche eine<br />
Professorin verhinderte<br />
Sie bewarb sich auf den Lehrstuhl für Praktische<br />
Philosophie an der Universität Erlangen und wurde<br />
abgelehnt. Ulla Wessels glaubt, den Grund zu kennen:<br />
Sie ist keine Katholikin. Jetzt zieht sie vor das<br />
Bundesverfassungsgericht. Und sie ist nicht die<br />
einzige, die sich gegen den Pakt zwischen Kirche und<br />
Staat zur Wehr setzt.<br />
Diese Frau will es wissen. Sie will endlich Klarheit in<br />
ein undurchsichtiges Verfahren bringen und geht dafür<br />
durch alle Instanzen. Vor fünf Jahren hat sich Ulla<br />
Wessels auf den Lehrstuhl für Praktische Philosophie<br />
an der Universität Erlangen beworben und wurde<br />
abgelehnt - weil sie keine Katholikin ist, meint sie.<br />
Denn die Stelle gehört zu einem Konkordatslehrstuhl:<br />
Der wird vom Staat fi<strong>na</strong>nziert, über seine Besetzung<br />
bestimmt aber letztlich der Bischof. 21 solcher wohlgemerkt nicht-theologischer - Lehrstühle gibt es<br />
noch in Bayern, in Philosophie, Pädagogik und<br />
Gesellschaftswissenschaften. Und weil die Philosophin<br />
dies im 21. Jahrhundert für einen "Skandal" hält, zieht<br />
sie nun vor das Bundesverfassungsgericht.<br />
Ulla Wessels lehrt an der Universität des Saarlandes in<br />
Saarbrücken. Ihre Dissertation hat sie über den<br />
Paragraphen 218, der den Schwangerschaftsabbruch<br />
regelt, geschrieben. Sie ist Mitglied der<br />
Giordano-Bruno-Stiftung für Humanismus und<br />
Aufklärung und konzentriert sich in ihrer Forschung auf<br />
die Ethik und praktische Vernunft.<br />
Dass sie mit diesem Steckbrief das "nihil obstat", also<br />
die Zustimmung des Bamberger Bischofs, erhalten<br />
würde, war unwahrscheinlich. Doch mit ihr haben sich<br />
damals viele weitere nicht-katholische Philosophen auf<br />
die Stelle beworben. Einige haben ebenso wie die<br />
Saarbrückerin gegen die Ablehnung geklagt.<br />
Zwar hatte die Universität zunächst rein fachliche<br />
Gründe ins Feld geführt. Doch dann tauchte ein Brief<br />
an mehrere Bewerber auf, in dem nicht nur <strong>na</strong>ch der<br />
Liste der bisherigen Publikationen, sondern auch <strong>na</strong>ch<br />
der Konfession gefragt wurde. Daraufhin hatte das<br />
Verwaltungsgericht Ansbach das<br />
Bewerbungsverfahren gestoppt. Eine<br />
Wiederzulassung der Klage lehnten die Richter<br />
dennoch ab - ein solcher Formfehler passiere beim<br />
nächsten Mal nicht mehr.<br />
Für Ulla Wessels und ihren Anwalt Rainer Roth ist das<br />
undurchsichtige Verfahren ein klarer Fall fürs<br />
Verfassungsgericht in Karlsruhe: Die bayerische<br />
Vergabepraxis von Konkordatslehrstühlen verstoße<br />
gegen Artikel 33 des Grundgesetzes.<br />
Darin heißt es: "Der Genuss bürgerlicher und<br />
staatsbürgerlicher Rechte, die Zulassung zu<br />
öffentlichen Ämtern sowie die im öffentlichen Dienste<br />
erworbenen Rechte sind u<strong>na</strong>bhängig von dem<br />
religiösen Bekenntnis. Niemandem darf aus seiner<br />
Zugehörigkeit oder Nichtzugehörigkeit zu einem<br />
Bekenntnis oder einer Weltanschauung ein Nachteil<br />
erwachsen."<br />
256
The Economic Times/ - News, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Aarushi murder case: Non-bailable<br />
warrant against Nupur Talwar extended<br />
till April 30<br />
GHAZIABAD: The non-bailable warrant against dentist<br />
Nupur Talwar in the double murder case of her<br />
tee<strong>na</strong>ged daughter, Aarushi and their domestic help,<br />
Hemraj, was today extended by special CBI court here<br />
till April 30. The CBI told the court that it would not<br />
arrest Nupur till the pendency of her special leave<br />
petition before the Supreme Court but sought the<br />
extension of the warrant as an instrument to take<br />
action against her in case she does not get relief from<br />
the apex court. The CBI said since the deadline of<br />
warrant was ending today they needed fresh orders<br />
from the court. Special Magistrate Priti Singh observed<br />
warrant could not executed by the CBI since to special<br />
leave petition was pending in the Supreme Court. The<br />
court fixed the next date of hearing on April 30 when it<br />
would decide the fate of the warrant. The agency also<br />
filed its compliance report before court in which it said<br />
that searches were conducted at six places to arrest<br />
Nupur but she went into hiding. It also claimed that she<br />
knew that the court has issued a NBW against her but<br />
despite that she kept evading arrest. The special CBI<br />
court had issued the warrant against Nupur, mother of<br />
14-year old Aarushi, as she was not appearing before<br />
the court, despite orders. Talwars only daughter<br />
Aarushi was found dead at the family's Noida<br />
residence on the intervening night of May 15 and 16,<br />
2008. The next day, the body of their servant Hemraj<br />
was found on the terrace of the house. Nupur's<br />
husband Dr Rajesh Talwar was present in the court<br />
but she did appear before it.<br />
257
The Economic Times/ - News, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Apex court rejects plea on election<br />
symbols<br />
The Supreme Court Wednesday upheld the Election<br />
Commission's order setting criteria for the allocation of<br />
election symbols to the registered and recognised<br />
political parties. Justice Altamas Kabir and Justice S.S.<br />
Nijaar, constituting a bench of the apex court, in their<br />
majority judgment rejected the plea of a number of<br />
registered but unrecognised political parties for<br />
allocation of permanent poll symbol. These parties had<br />
challenged the validity of the commission's symbol<br />
order, by which, based on certain criteria, election<br />
symbols are allotted to recognise political parties.<br />
Justice J. Chelameswar, in a separate judgment, held<br />
that the symbol order for the allocation of the election<br />
symbol was violative of Article 14, granting equality<br />
before law, and had no ratio<strong>na</strong>l nexus to the objective<br />
to be achieved. Under the Election Commission<br />
symbol order, any state level political party must have<br />
at least two elected members in the state assembly,<br />
one member in parliament or certain percentage of<br />
votes to attain the status of a "recognised" party and to<br />
get an election symbol.<br />
258
The Economic Times/ - News, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Mamata Banerjee <strong>na</strong>med among world's<br />
most influential people<br />
NEW YORK: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata<br />
Banerjee has been <strong>na</strong>med among the 100 most<br />
influential people in the world by the prestigious Time<br />
magazine in its 2012 list which also includes US<br />
President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary<br />
Clinton and billio<strong>na</strong>ire investor Warren Buffet. Apart<br />
from Banerjee, advocate Anjali Gopalan, who works<br />
for the rights of gays and the transgendered in India, is<br />
the only other Indian in the list released by the<br />
magazine today. The 2012 list is topped by American<br />
basketball sensation Jeremy Lin. In recent days,<br />
Banerjee's government has been criticised for choice<br />
of newspapers for state and state-aided libraries and a<br />
professor's arrest over circulation of a cartoon<br />
featuring the chief minister. Time said Banerjee, 57,<br />
spent years struggling on the margins but ultimately<br />
she proved to be the "consummate politician." "Though<br />
much of Indian society remains hidebound in<br />
patriarchy and tradition, strong women still prevail in<br />
the <strong>na</strong>tion's political life. Mamata Banerjee rose to the<br />
fore last year when she and a movement she built from<br />
the grassroots wrested control of her home state of<br />
West Bengal, ending three and a half decades of<br />
sclerotic communist rule," Time said. Referred to by<br />
her supporters as 'Didi', Banerjee was labelled by<br />
critics as a "mercurial oddball and a shrieking street<br />
fighter". Through successive elections, she steadily<br />
expanded her power base while chipping away at<br />
those of her opponents, Time said adding that her<br />
lower-middle-class background was no obstacle in a<br />
country "notorious for its dy<strong>na</strong>sties". "She out-Marxed<br />
the Marxists. And as chief minister of her home state,<br />
she has emerged as a populist woman of action -strident<br />
and divisive but poised to play an even greater<br />
role in the world's largest democracy," the magazine<br />
said. On Gopalan, 54, Time said through her work at<br />
the Naz Foundation, she has done more than anyone<br />
else to advance the rights of gays and the<br />
transgendered in India, successfully petitioning the<br />
courts to get rid of a British-era law against sodomy.<br />
"Gopalan has brought about a revolution in the status<br />
of sexual minorities in India -- and has done so<br />
joyously, dancing," it said. The list comprising people<br />
"who inspire us, entertain us, challenge us and change<br />
our world," includes Pakistan's first Oscar winner<br />
filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, Facebook COO<br />
Sheryl Sandberg and Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar<br />
Chaudhry. In his commentary on Chaudhry for Time,<br />
former Pakistani cricketer and politician Imran Khan<br />
said he has become the first head of Pakistan's<br />
Supreme Court to attempt to bring the powerful to<br />
justice, taking on the Prime Minister and the President<br />
in an effort to hold them to account. "It's not just the<br />
politicians either. Chaudhry, 63, is also seeking to take<br />
Pakistan's intelligence agencies to task for their<br />
human-rights abuses," Khan said in the magazine.<br />
259
The Economic Times/ - Politics/Nation, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
CBI seeks fresh warrant to arrest Nupur<br />
Talwar<br />
GHAZIABAD: The Central Bureau of Investigation on<br />
Wednesday submitted before the local CBI court here<br />
to issue a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against dentist<br />
Nupur Talwar in the case of murder of her daughter<br />
Aarushi. The CBI pleaded that since the non-bailable<br />
warrant issued earlier had expired on Wednesday, a<br />
fresh NBW was needed to arrest her. Counsel for<br />
Talwar opposed the CBI plea on the ground that her<br />
bail application was pending before the Supreme<br />
Court, and the agency was restrained from arresting<br />
her. After hearing the arguments from both sides, the<br />
court is expected to deliver the order.<br />
260
The New York Times/ - Politics, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Romney Warns Gun Lobby of a Second<br />
Obama Term<br />
By TRIP GABRIEL ST. LOUIS — As he works to<br />
energize the conservative base ahead of the general<br />
election, Mitt Romney came to the annual gathering of<br />
the Natio<strong>na</strong>l Rifle Association on Friday seeking<br />
support from a powerful group that has not always<br />
embraced him. His backing while Massachusetts<br />
governor of key laws opposed by the <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l gun<br />
lobby – an assault weapons ban and a waiting period<br />
to buy firearms – has engendered skepticism, if not<br />
hostility, among many gun owners. But in the speech<br />
he delivered here, Mr. Romney breezed past those<br />
issues to touch a more fundamental nerve: the gun<br />
lobby’s fear that a second term for President Obama<br />
would give him another Supreme Court appointee.<br />
The 4.3-million-member gun group fears that a remade<br />
court could lead to restrictions on firearms. “In his first<br />
term,” Mr. Romney’s said, “we’ve seen the president<br />
try to browbeat the Supreme Court. In a second term,<br />
he would remake it. Our freedoms would be in the<br />
hands of an Obama court, not just for four years, but<br />
for the next 40. That must not happen.’’ Before Mr.<br />
Romney spoke, a spokesman for the gun lobby,<br />
Andrew Arula<strong>na</strong>ndam, said it was looking for exactly<br />
this kind of statement. Mr. Arula<strong>na</strong>ndam said that the<br />
biggest fear of N.R.A. members was that an altered<br />
Supreme Court might reverse two 5-to-4 rulings since<br />
2008 interpreting the Second Amendment as<br />
guaranteeing a fundamental right to individuals to bear<br />
arms. The most recent ruling, the McDo<strong>na</strong>ld case in<br />
2010, is seen as opening the way for challenges to<br />
local laws restricting gun ownership. Another goal for<br />
Mr. Romney here is to close some of the cultural gap<br />
with gun owners. He was lampooned during his 2008<br />
run for the Republican nomi<strong>na</strong>tion for exaggerating his<br />
hunting career, at one point, when pressed, saying that<br />
the game he had experience with were rodents and<br />
rabbits, “small varmints, if you will.’’ More recently, Mr.<br />
Romney revealed that he owned a couple of firearms,<br />
and in a debate in January he described a hunting trip<br />
to Monta<strong>na</strong>. His guide on that outing was a respected<br />
sportsman, Rob Keck, who in an interview described<br />
taking Mr. Romney for two days of hunting elk and for<br />
one shooting pheasants on a private ranch. “He<br />
admittedly didn’t grow up hunting,’’ Mr. Keck said, “but<br />
let me tell you, he accounted for a number of birds on<br />
that day.’’ So it was probably no surprise that Mr.<br />
Romney has been accompanied here by Mr. Keck, the<br />
director of conservation for Bass Pro Shops. It remains<br />
to be seen whether hunters who view gun rights as a<br />
top issue will enthusiastically support Mr. Romney in<br />
November. David Ross, a longtime N.R.A. member<br />
from Reading, Pa., who has been a grass-roots<br />
organizer for conservative candidates in his<br />
battleground state, was skeptical. “Romney needs to<br />
get people like me passio<strong>na</strong>te enough for his<br />
campaign to win in November, and I think that’s going<br />
to be heavy lifting,’’ said Mr. Ross, who was attending<br />
the convention with his son, Clinton, an Army reservist.<br />
“He was for an assault weapons ban when he was<br />
Massachusetts governor. What changed? And how do<br />
we know he’s not going to change back? This is the<br />
chameleonlike thinking that is my biggest fear.’’<br />
261
Ann Romney is a good mom. She’s also a good pol.<br />
And though her people skills are far superior to Mitt’s,<br />
it turns out that Ann is just as capable as her husband<br />
of turning an advantage into a disadvantage. After the<br />
liberal strategist Hilary Rosen clumsily mocked Mitt<br />
Romney for relying on Ann to tell him what issues<br />
women care about when “his wife has actually never<br />
worked a day in her life,” Ann smashed that lob back.<br />
Blasting out her first tweet, she said: “I made a choice<br />
to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was<br />
hard work.” Shaken Democrats dived for cover and<br />
threw Rosen under the campaign bus. The media,<br />
worried about being perceived as favoring President<br />
Obama, jumped in on the side of the maligned Ann.<br />
She pressed her advantage, scolding Rosen on Fox<br />
News. “She should have come to my house when<br />
those five boys were causing so much trouble,” Ann<br />
said. She alluded to her brave battles against breast<br />
cancer and multiple sclerosis: “Look, I know what it’s<br />
like to struggle.” But at a fund-raiser at a private home<br />
in Palm Beach, Fla., on Sunday, the night before her<br />
63rd birthday, Ann made it clear that she wasn’t really<br />
aggrieved. She was feigning aggrievement to milk the<br />
moment. “It was my early birthday present for<br />
someone to be critical of me as a mother, and that was<br />
really a defining moment, and I loved it,” a gleeful Ann<br />
told the backyard full of Florida fat cats, sounding “like<br />
a political tactician,” as Garrett Haake, the NBC<br />
reporter on the scene, put it. It’s important when you<br />
act the martyr not to overplay your hand. If you admit<br />
out loud to a bunch of people — including Haake, who<br />
was on the sidewalk enterprisingly eavesdropping —<br />
that you’re just pretending to be offended, you risk<br />
looking phony, like your husband. (It also doesn’t fly to<br />
tell Diane Sawyer that your dog “loved” 12 hours in a<br />
crate on top of the car or that it’s “our turn” to be in the<br />
White House.) The candidate, meanwhile, continued to<br />
look phony by presenting a completely different side of<br />
himself to the wealthy Palm Beach donors who came<br />
in fancy cars to eat s<strong>na</strong>pper and hear a s<strong>na</strong>ppier Mitt.<br />
Rather than making bland pronouncements or parsing<br />
patriotic songs, as he usually does, Mitt gave a more<br />
specific vision of a Romney White House, including the<br />
possible elimi<strong>na</strong>tion of the Department of Housing and<br />
Urban Development, which his dad once led, and<br />
Phony Mommy Wars<br />
The New York Times/ - Politics, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
vivisecting the Department of Education. He also<br />
talked about ways he might close tax loopholes for the<br />
affluent — another matter he hasn’t been too detailed<br />
about — to pay for his cuts in tax rates. Mitt offered a<br />
different view of the value of working parents in<br />
January when he talked about how he changed<br />
welfare rules as governor of Massachusetts: “I said, for<br />
instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age,<br />
you need to go to work. And people said, well, that’s<br />
heartless. And I said, no, no, I’m willing to spend more<br />
giving day care to allow those parents to go back to<br />
work. It will cost the state more providing that day care,<br />
but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.”<br />
So the dignity of work only applies to poor moms? This<br />
latest kerfuffle is piffle, but it is another instance of<br />
Republicans dragging women back to the past to<br />
re-litigate issues they thought were long settled. Just<br />
as women had assumed their contraception rights<br />
were safe, they had considered the tiresome debate<br />
about working moms versus stay-at-home moms over.<br />
My mom stayed home to raise five kids, and she is my<br />
feminist role model. For the most part, nobody’s<br />
casting aspersions on anybody else’s choices, which<br />
are often driven by economics. Women have so many<br />
choices that they’re overwhelmed by the stress of so<br />
many choices. The real issue is whether Mitt, a tycoon<br />
who has been swathed in an old-fashioned cocoon,<br />
understands the plight of working mothers and the<br />
rights of 21st-century women. When the Romneys got<br />
married and moved to Boston in 1971 so Mitt could<br />
attend Harvard, they set up house in a suburb,<br />
befriended other young Mormon couples and kept to<br />
their cloistered, conservative, privileged, traditio<strong>na</strong>l,<br />
white, heterosexual circle. Campuses were roiling with<br />
change — feminism, civil rights, antiwar<br />
demonstrations — but the Romneys were not part of<br />
that. They were throwbacks. “The parental roles were<br />
clear,” Michael Kranish and Scott Helman write in “The<br />
Real Romney.” “Mitt would have the career, and Ann<br />
would run the house.” We will see if these affluent,<br />
soon-to-be owners of a car elevator in La Jolla and<br />
members of the horsey set can relate to the economic<br />
problems of regular people. Given how secretive and<br />
shape-shifting Mitt Romney is, we’ll probably have to<br />
keep eavesdropping to find out.<br />
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The New York Times/ - Politics, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Abiding by the Fair Sentencing Act<br />
The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 addressed a gross<br />
inequity in federal sentences by reducing the disparity<br />
in punishment for a crime involving crack versus<br />
powdered cocaine. Previously, under a 1986 law, 50<br />
grams of crack (the weight of a candy bar) led to a<br />
mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years — the same<br />
sentence that applied to 5,000 grams of powdered<br />
cocaine (enough to fill a brief case). A street dealer of<br />
crack cocaine often got a longer sentence than the<br />
major trafficker who sold the powdered cocaine made<br />
into crack. The new law cut the 100 to 1 ratio to 18 to 1<br />
— not equalizing the pe<strong>na</strong>lties as it should have but<br />
markedly reducing the difference. In two cases the<br />
Supreme Court heard on Tuesday, the issue is<br />
whether the sentencing law should apply to people<br />
who were convicted of cocaine crimes, but not yet<br />
sentenced, before it went into effect. The Justice<br />
Department initially argued that the new rule should<br />
apply only to crimes committed after the law was<br />
signed. To its credit, it changed its stance in July 2011,<br />
saying that since the goal of the law was to “rectify a<br />
discredited policy,” the rule should apply to all<br />
defendants sentenced after the law’s passage. This is<br />
clearly the right way to read the law, given the<br />
legislative history and the text, including the<br />
“emergency authority” for the United States<br />
Sentencing Commission to quickly put out guidelines.<br />
A rule of leniency requires that any ambiguity in a<br />
crimi<strong>na</strong>l statute be resolved in favor of defendants —<br />
especially when the old sentencing rules resulted in<br />
huge racial disparities, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor<br />
pointed out. The majority of crack users are white and<br />
Hispanic, but, as the sentencing commission reported,<br />
in 2010 blacks made up more than three-fourths of<br />
those sentenced under federal crack cocaine laws.<br />
Most were low-level offenders. The high number of<br />
black defendants and the disparity in treatment of<br />
crack versus powdered cocaine led federal sentences<br />
for blacks to jump to almost 50 percent higher than for<br />
whites in 1990. Congress, the Obama administration<br />
and many federal judges agree that there is a need to<br />
correct a grossly unfair and unjustifiable sentencing<br />
scheme. The justices should allow the 2010 law to<br />
apply to all defendants sentenced after its e<strong>na</strong>ctment.<br />
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USA Today/ - News, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Lin, Tebow included on Time 100 list<br />
Often you are judged by the company you keep. That<br />
should make the athletes on the Time 100 list pretty<br />
heady. Not only are they in good company with<br />
presidents, actors and Supreme Court justices but<br />
their tributes are written by some impressive people.<br />
Jeremy Lin gets U.S. Secretary of Education Arne<br />
Duncan. Tim Tebow gets Jeremy Lin.<br />
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USA Today/ - News, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Tell us: What happens with Kentucky?<br />
Kentucky coach John Calipari is now an empty-nester.<br />
But his arms and the door to the Wildcat home is wide<br />
open. CAMPUS RIVALRY: Five Kentucky players<br />
moving to the pros NBA: Mock draft full of Wildcat<br />
players The good new for Calipari is that Anthony<br />
Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Marquis Teague,<br />
Terrence Jones and Doron Lamb are leaving home<br />
with job offers. "This is a players-first program,"<br />
Calipari said about the five players from his NCAA title<br />
team moving on. "During the season, it's about the<br />
team. ... When the season is over, it's about moments<br />
like this." Guys we hardly knew ye. Now we have to<br />
find out if <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l recruits Nerlens Noel, Alex<br />
Poythress, Archie Goodwin and Willie Cauley can fill<br />
your Nikes. And of course the over 90% of rebounds<br />
and scoring that departing players (including seniors<br />
Darius Miller and Eloy Vargas) provided. The future if<br />
promised to no one but it appears that Kentucky fans<br />
have something to build on. What happens to the<br />
Wildcat program now? While we wait on the rebuild,<br />
here is some good work by some good people that we<br />
might have missed while sleeping or marking the<br />
calendar with the NFL games we just can't miss. You<br />
can tell Jamie Moyer's age by the rings around his<br />
trunk. Here are the top 500 NFL draft prospects. Here<br />
are some betting lines for Week 1 of the NFL. Here is<br />
an early look at the documentary on the Miami Marlins.<br />
Gordon Hayward almost threw down over the Delonte<br />
West wet-willie. Antonio Romo will try to qualify for the<br />
U.S. Open. Proctor & Gamble hopes you'll cry over its<br />
Olympic video. Chris Paul gets booed at Dodger<br />
game. Who said Michael Jordan isn't used to losing?<br />
Supreme Court justice takes swing at the Mets in<br />
opinion. Ozzie Guillen is back and not everyone is<br />
happy. Larry Brown is returning to coaching.<br />
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USA Today/ - News, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
Latest celeb feuds: Why are these stars<br />
fighting?<br />
You can always count on death, taxes and celebrity<br />
feuds. Surely it's not the case that celebs are more<br />
belligerent than the rest of us, but it does seem like<br />
there's more sniping than ever. Possibly it's thanks to<br />
the proliferation of reality TV and social media like<br />
Twitter and Facebook, where people can duke it out<br />
with ease and the rest of us can listen in. Then again,<br />
there's always that movie/TV show/album/whatever for<br />
celebrities to flog. Here are some of the latest firefights<br />
to break out: The combatants Axl Rose vs. Guns N'<br />
Roses The feud The longtime estrangement of Axl<br />
Rose from his origi<strong>na</strong>l Guns N' Roses bandmates was<br />
reinvigorated last week when Rose refused to be<br />
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because<br />
he didn't want to appear on the same stage and play<br />
with the old band. Awkward! Rose has been ticked off<br />
at the guys, especially guitarist Slash, for years. Why?<br />
Lost in the mists of time and controlled substances.<br />
But the induction happened anyway and the band<br />
played on. The fallout Intense. Before the ceremony,<br />
Rose wrote an open letter to the fans and the Hall to<br />
clarify that by refusing to be included, "my camp" did<br />
not mean to offend, attack or condemn anyone.<br />
"Though unfortu<strong>na</strong>tely I'm sure there will be those who<br />
take offense (God knows how long I'll have to contend<br />
with the fallout)," he wrote. The combatants Do<strong>na</strong>ld<br />
Trump vs. Rosie O'Donnell The feud These two have<br />
lobbed verbal gre<strong>na</strong>des at each other for years;<br />
nowadays they tweet 140-character insults. The latest<br />
flare-up was in March when Trump crowed after Oprah<br />
canceled O'Donnell's talk show on the OWN network.<br />
"Rosie fails at everything," he sniffed to Fox and<br />
Friends. When the show debuted last year, he tweeted<br />
it was "a complete and total disaster," and called<br />
O'Donnell a "true loser." O'Donnell called him "an ass."<br />
The fallout Moderately intense. These two exchange<br />
harsh words routinely, like they're ordering pizza, but<br />
does it really matter? They're kind of over anyway.<br />
Besides, Trump is never not promoting something â<br />
his show Celebrity Apprentice The combatants<br />
Gwyneth Paltrow vs. The New York Times The feud Is<br />
there such a thing as a polite food fight? In a story<br />
about ghostwriters on celebrity cookbooks, the Times<br />
reported that ghostwriter Julia Turshen is writing a<br />
second cookbook with Paltrow after their collaboration<br />
on My Father's Daughter. Ahem, not so fast, tweeted<br />
Paltrow. "Love @nytimes dining section but this weeks<br />
facts need checking. No ghost writer on my cookbook,<br />
I wrote every word myself," she tweeted. Rachael Ray,<br />
likewise mentioned in the article, also was steamed,<br />
according to the paper's ombudsman, Arthur Brisbane,<br />
who fielded unhappy calls from both women. Later,<br />
Paltrow called into Ray's show to complain some<br />
more. "Normally I don't respond to gossip but this is my<br />
professio<strong>na</strong>l life and I'm writing more cookbooks," she<br />
said, adding "I wrote my book and it's all mine." The<br />
fallout Mild. This is hardly even a feud. Paltrow is so<br />
well-mannered she ma<strong>na</strong>ges to praise the Gray Lady<br />
while correcting it. It's not a good idea to be on the bad<br />
side of the world's most important paper, especially the<br />
next time you have a movie or cookbook to promote.<br />
The paper retracted nothing, even though Brisbane<br />
called the article "misleading." In a polite follow-up<br />
piece, the Times explained that Paltrow and other<br />
celebs <strong>na</strong>med in the story have acknowledged working<br />
with collaborators, but object to the use of the word<br />
"ghostwriter" because it suggests that they don't do<br />
their own cooking. And as any perusal of Paltrow's<br />
Goop blog shows, she loves to cook. The combatants<br />
Lindsay Lohan vs. Pitbull The feud Lohan's always<br />
getting into scrapes. This time she's suing the rapper<br />
Pitbull for using her <strong>na</strong>me in his song Give Me<br />
Everything, which includes the lyric: "I got it locked up<br />
like Lindsay Lohan." She's claiming a violation of New<br />
York civil rights laws, is worried that the song is a<br />
reference to her stint in jail and will cause "irreparable<br />
harm" to her reputation. He says he was actually<br />
complimenting her. "If you play at the park, if you're<br />
from the neighborhood, if you got it locked up, it means<br />
you run that area." The fallout Moderate. Anytime<br />
you've got lawyers involved it can get <strong>na</strong>sty and<br />
expensive. But La Lohan's rep is not exactly glowing<br />
these days, and that's mostly down to her. Lohan's<br />
trying a comeback, so maybe any publicity is good<br />
publicity. Pitbull says he's not into dissing her or<br />
anyone else. "Rapping is always about double<br />
meanings and metaphors." He says she should get a<br />
sense of humor. And maybe read the First<br />
Amendment. The combatants Kim Kardashian vs. Jon<br />
Hamm The feud Mad Man swoon Jon Hamm told Elle<br />
that "stupidity is certainly celebrated" in our<br />
celebrity-obsessed culture, and Kardashian and her ilk<br />
are Exhibit A. How "careless," Kardashian tweeted in<br />
response. Hamm wouldn't back down when E! News<br />
asked him but he did say that he meant to comment on<br />
the pervasiveness of idiocy, not attack her perso<strong>na</strong>lly.<br />
"But she took offense to it and that is her right." The<br />
fallout Moderate. Hamm isn't really known for sparring<br />
with other celebs, but he speaks his mind and even a<br />
thoughtful comment on the state of the culture can be<br />
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used as ammunition. Still, his madly popular show<br />
hardly needs more promotion. Kardashian, on the<br />
other hand, bounces from one feud to another, getting<br />
into it in recent years with Daniel Craig and Halle<br />
Berry. All of which keeps her and her family and their<br />
ubiquitous reality shows ever more ubiquitous. The<br />
combatants Madon<strong>na</strong> vs. Elton John The feud They<br />
jousted after the Golden Globes in January, when<br />
Madon<strong>na</strong> won Best Origi<strong>na</strong>l Song, for Masterpiece<br />
from her movie W.E., The fallout Mild. Elton is a<br />
quarrelsome fellow. Remember the obscenity-laden<br />
spat with Lily Allen in 2008? He can be prickly but it<br />
never seems to hurt his career or his philanthropic<br />
endeavors. And if Madon<strong>na</strong> went postal every time<br />
someone criticized her ⦠well, she wouldn't be<br />
Madon<strong>na</strong>. She's been exchanging tit-for-tat tweets with<br />
CNN's Piers Morgan ever since he banned her from<br />
his talk show in a promotio<strong>na</strong>l stunt of his own, and<br />
she came under fire from some musicians for seeming<br />
to joke about drug use on her latest record, MDNA,<br />
similar to MDMA or ecstasy. But if feuding helps bring<br />
attention to her movie or her record, she's not going to<br />
complain. The combatants Keith Olbermann vs. Al<br />
Gore, Current TV The feud Cranky Olbermann is a<br />
frequent feuder. His latest dust-up is with former veep<br />
USA Today/ - News, Qua, 18 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)<br />
Al Gore and his Current TV network, which fired<br />
Olbermann last week just months after hiring and<br />
hailing him as the savior of the little-watched news<br />
network. Current TV execs say he's out for alleged<br />
breach of contract and for generally being a pain to<br />
deal with. Olbermann, in his customary state of<br />
outrage, has sued (as he has in past noisy departures<br />
from MSNBC and ESPN). He issued a statement and<br />
took to Twitter to denounce Current TV as a "failure,"<br />
and to accuse Gore and other execs of lacking ethics<br />
and lying to get out of a contract. The fallout Moderate.<br />
Olbermann is the only one barking. Gore released an<br />
initial statement saying Olbermann lacked the<br />
network's values of respect and loyalty but has said<br />
little since. Meanwhile, Mr. O is set to sit down<br />
Tuesday with David Letterman (another guy who<br />
knows cranky) to tell more about his woes. It's<br />
probably not the end for him â somehow he always<br />
gets another job. Not clear how feud helps Current,<br />
which replaced Olbermann with Eliot Spitzer, the<br />
former N.Y. governor who resigned after a prostitution<br />
scandal. All this would be an embarrassing tiff among<br />
liberals for conservatives to rejoice in â except no one<br />
is watching anyway.<br />
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