Administration lawyers argue Hobby Lobby ruling on birth control doesn’t apply to religious groups

FILE: May 22, 2013: Customers are seen at a Hobby Lobby store in Denver. (AP)

The Obama administration says faith-based nonprofits should comply with ObamaCare’s birth-control mandate because they have more leeway than the corporations that won a Supreme Court ruling on the issue last year.

Government attorneys made the argument on Thursday to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, after pro-life ministry Priests for Life asked the court to reconsider a ruling it made last fall that requires religious nonprofits to object in writing to regulations that require employer health care plans to insure contraceptives, as reported by The Washington Times.

The group says the court’s decision contradicted the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, which stated closely held corporations did not have to insure contraceptives that conflicted with their owners’ beliefs, particularly morning-after pills that some equate with abortion.

The justices cited the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which requires the government to achieve its aims in the least restrictive way.

But the administration says nonprofits should not expect the Hobby Lobby case to bail them out, considering “the linchpin” of the high court’s ruling was the “opt-out alternative afforded to organizations such as the plaintiffs in this case.”

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Administration lawyers argue Hobby Lobby ruling on birth control doesn’t apply to religious groups

Guyana ruling party ready for general election

Guyana president, Donald Ramotar (Credit: caricom.org)

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Friday June 27, 2014, CMC – President Donald Ramotar Wednesday signalled that his People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) is prepared for a general election if the opposition goes ahead with its threat to move a motion of no-confidence in his administration.

The PPP/C does not hold a majority in the 65-member national assembly with the opposition parties – A Partnership for National unity (APNU) and the Alliance for Change (AFC) – holding one seat majority.

AFC Vice Chairman Moses Nagamootoo told the privately-owned Stabroek Newspaper that a no-confidence vote by the opposition could come before the Parliament soon.

He said one of the reasons for considering a no-confidence motion was the fact that government has already spent GUY$4.5 billion (one Guyana dollar =US$0.004 cents) of the GUY$37.4 billion which had been cut from the GUY$220 billion budget for the fiscal year 2014-15.

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But as he addressed the Annual General Meeting of the Private Sector Commission (PSC), Ramotar said that his administration was not afraid of facing the electorate. The last election was held here on November 28, 2011.

“We do not take threats. If the opposition wants to pass a no-confidence bill, let them pass it and we will be ready to deal with the consequences of that,” he said, adding “when I say I am going to do it, I am going to do it. I wouldn’t even say it.”

In his address, President Ramotar also responded to a call for a date to be named for the long overdue local government elections.

United States Ambassador to Guyana Brent Hardt has dismissed government’s latest excuse for not holding local government elections saying it was time Guyanese directly elect their representatives at the local level.

“To my mind, it’s a constitutional requirement, it’s a legislative requirement and there is at this point no obstacle to the holding of local government elections so I would just urge government to set a date, move forward as soon as possible and give people that ability to have effective local governance and start to transform the country,” he told the Guyana-based Demerara Waves Online News.

But President Ramotar, in an apparent reference to United States practice of listening to the phone calls of people worldwide, said such actions were undermining democracy.

“What undermines democracy is when you listen to everybody’s telephone calls and read their emails and ban them from having collective bargaining in their own country in different parts of North America and Europe,” he told the business community.

Ramotar said that while he was eager for local government elections there were some uncertainties in the body politic reiterating that the lack of local government elections meant that his administration was undermining democracy.

The last Local Government elections were held on August 8, 1994 with the ruling PPP-C winning 80 percent of the Councils.

But for various reasons, the Local Government elections planned for 1997 did not materialise and the National Assembly deferred the 1997 elections to one year later. Since then, numerous obstacles have impeded Local Government elections even though the government in 2004 had named the month of October as the month for the polls.

In January 2013, a joint statement issued by the United States Ambassador D Brent Hardt, the United Kingdom High Commissioner Andrew Ayre, his Canadian counterpart David Devine and Robert Kopecky, the European Union diplomat here, recalled that during the 2011 national elections “one issue on which all political parties were in full agreement was the need to hold local government elections.”

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Guyana ruling party ready for general election

WICB supports new ICC ruling

Wednesday, January 29, 2014 | 9:51 AM    

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CMC) –The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) is projecting a one hundred percent increase in revenue over the next eight years if new principles giving more control over cricket’s future to England, India and Australia are voted in.

 The WICB has issued a statement backing the principles put forward on day one of the ICC executive Board meeting in Dubai and said it had engaged in “extensive discussions” before making its decision.

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WICB supports new ICC ruling

INDECOM challenging court ruling on release of Digicel call data

News

BY PAUL HENRY Co-ordinator — Crime/Court Desk henryp@jamaicaobserver.comFriday, August 23, 2013

THE Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) is now challenging a ruling by the Supreme Court that it has no authority to compel telecoms giant Digicel to provide it with call data.Justice Ingrid Mangatal made the ruling last June on a case brought by the investigative body, which is trying to obtain telephone numbers and call data of the police officers allegedly involved in a conspiracy linked to the 2009 shooting death of entertainer Robert ‘Kentucky Kid’ Hill at his home at Ivy Green Mews near Cross Roads.Mangatal had ruled that:* Digicel is restricted from providing subscriber information regarding the use of its services by third parties to INDECOM pursuant to subsection 47 (1) of the Telecommunications Act;* Digicel is not compellable under section 21 (1) of the INDECOM Act to provide customer/subscriber information and/or traffic data to INDECOM; and* Digicel is not compellable under section 21 (4) of the INDECOM Act to provide to provide customer/subscriber information and/or traffic data to INDECOM.Mangatal had stated in her ruling: “If Parliament had intended INDECOM to be able to compulsorily obtain from Digicel or any other telecoms provider information — which by section 47(1) of the Telecoms Act the provider is required by statute to keep secret, and in respect of the disclosure of which the Interception of Communications Act provides for limited circumstances — then they would have legislated for the same type of provision in the INDECOM Act as exists in the Contractor General’s Act.”INDECOM has appealed the decision on several grounds, including that “the learned judge erred in stating that on a correct construction of section 21 of the INDECOM Act, INDECOM didn’t have the authority to require Digicel to produce secret or confidential information”.The commission is asking the court to set aside Mangatal’s ruling.It is seeking the following declarations:* that Digicel is mandated to provide subscriber or traffic data to INDECOM by virtue of the INDECOM ACT;* that Digicel is compellable to provide subscriber or traffic data to INDECOM by virtue of section 47(2) (b) of the Telecoms Act; and* that the commissioner of INDECOM or any INDECOM investigator may be given subscriber or traffic data by Digicel, having regard to section 47 (2) (b) (i) of the Telecoms Act.– Paul Henry

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INDECOM challenging court ruling on release of Digicel call data

Anger at Chile mine collapse ruling

1 August 2013 Last updated at 17:40 ET The miners say they have not been paid any reparation for their 70-day ordeal An investigation into the 2010 accident in Chile that left 33 miners trapped underground for more than two months has failed to find anyone responsible.

The case was closed after a prosecutor said there was not enough evidence to press charges against either the owners of the mine or regulators.

One of the miners said it was a “disgrace for justice” while a former minister called it “unbelievable”.

The miners’ rescue in a special capsule was followed live around the world.

‘Deep hole’

“This is a disgrace to Chile’s justice system,” one of the survivors, Mario Sepulveda, told Associated Press news agency,

“It is impossible that in an accident of this magnitude no-one is held responsible. Today, I want to dig a deep hole and bury myself again, only this time, I don’t want anybody to find me, he said.

One of Mr Sepulveda’s colleagues said he got in touch with their lawyers as soon as he heard about the decision.

“[They] told us to be calm. We have another lawsuit, for negligence,” Luis Urzua told AFP,

Former mining minister Laurence Golborne, who was in charge of the rescue operations, expressed disbelief at the decision.

He told Chilean radio Cooperativa that regulators had ordered the owners of the century-old mine to build an emergency exit, but they did not comply.

Mr Golborne said that if the measure had been implemented the miners “would not have spent 70 days trapped”.

Senator Isabel Allende, daughter of the late President Salvador Allende, said the decision was “painful”.

Rescuers worked day and night to drill an escape route for the 33

“It’s hard to accept that the prosecution considers there is no-one responsible”, Ms Allende told EFE.

But defence lawyer Catherine Lathrop praised the decision.

“We have always maintained that it was a regrettable accident. Just that, an accident, and neither was it possible to establish any responsibility of my clients in this case,” she said.

The collapse of the San Jose mine, near the town of Copiapo, left the 33 miners completely isolated for two weeks at a depth of about 700m.

They shared emergency rations to survive until rescue workers built a small shaft which was used to send supplies to the group.

In 2012, on the second anniversary of the collapse, many of the miners attended the inauguration of a monument at the mine.

Chilean billionaire Leonardo Farkas gave each of the miners a gift of $10,000 (£6,600) after the rescue.

The miners hope that a lawsuit filed a year after the collapse accusing the National Service of Geology and Mining of having not inspected working conditions and mine safety can bring each of them reparations of $500,000 (£330,000).

The owners of the mine have been told to reimburse the government a quarter of the rescue operation which cost around $22m .

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Anger at Chile mine collapse ruling