Category: News Feeds

Tobacco is the second biggest earner of foreign exchange after gold, and last year generated $747 million in exports mainly to China and Europe, according to central bank data.

Industry regulator Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) said production was expected around 230 million kilogrammes after rain cut the area planted by 12% and fewer growers planted the crop compared to last year.

Farmers, who produced an all time high of 259 million kgs of tobacco last year, sell their crop to tobacco merchants, who process the crop for export.

“The crop before us was generally grown under grim weather conditions characterised by late rains and long dry spells,” Pat Devenish, the TIMB chairman said at a ceremony to mark the beginning of the tobacco selling season in Harare.

After a drought last year, poor rains this season and the coronavirus outbreak, humanitarian aid groups say Zimbabwe faces a catastrophe, as more than half the population require food aid.

To prevent the spread of the coronavirus, TIMB has banned informal traders from selling goods at auction floors.

Farmers will not be allowed to sleep outside the auction floors while waiting to sell the crop as has happened in the past.

Devenish said farmers would be allowed to retain half their earnings in dollars and the remainder in local currency. (Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

Post published in: Agriculture

UK Home Office efforts to deport an HIV-positive Zimbabwean man because of his lengthy criminal record have been blocked after the supreme court ruled removing him would breach his human rights.

Sending the 33-year-old man, identified only as AM, back to Zimbabwe would deny him access to life-saving treatment with the anti-retroviral medication Eviplera, the court unanimously accepted. The drug is not available there.

The case has been sent back to the lower courts for reconsideration.

AM was born in Zimbabwe in 1987 and came to the UK in 2000. He and his mother, who had already been living in Britain, were granted indefinite leave to remain in 2004.

In the following years, he accumulated convictions for battery, assault, receiving stolen goods and twice for possession of a blade in public. In 2006, the Home Office first made an order to deport him. He has since married and had a son.

Three years later, he was convicted of further serious offences including possession of a firearm and heroin with intent to supply. He was jailed for nine years.

In 2012 his lawyers challenged the Home Office deportation order, submitting evidence that he had first been diagnosed with HIV in 2003 but that he had not become seriously ill until later.

The first anti-retroviral drug produced severe side effects. When he was switched to Eviplera his blood count increased and he recovered.

Opening the judgment, Lord Wilson said: “This appeal requires the court again to consider one of the most controversial questions which the law of human rights can generate.

“It relates to the ability of the UK to deport a foreign citizen who, while lawfully resident here, has committed a string of serious crimes. The reaction of many British citizens is likely to be: ‘We don’t want this man here.’ His response is: ‘But I need to remain here.’.”

AM originally appealed against removal on the grounds that it would breach article 8 of the European convention on human rights, which guarantees the right to private and family life.

A recent test case against Belgium at the European court of human Rights in Strasbourg established the principle that under article 3 of the convention, which outlaws torture and inhuman treatment, those with serious ill health cannot forcibly be removed to another country if they would suffer there a substantial reduction in life expectancy.

The appeal court was bound by legal precedent and could not permit the claim to switch from article 8 to article 3. The supreme court, however, can do so.

Delivering judgment, Wilson said: “This is not one of those highly exceptional situations in which we should decline to follow a decision of the Strasbourg court.

“We therefore allow the appeal and remit the appellant’s proposed claim under article 3 for consideration by an immigration tribunal, which will no doubt seek to conduct a full inquiry into (among other things) the adequacy of the medical treatment likely to be available to the appellant in Zimbabwe.”

The present Parliamentary recess began on 18th March, when both Houses resolved to adjourn until Tuesday 5th May after the President’s announcement of special measures to be taken against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The extended National Lockdown is due to expire at midnight on Sunday 3rd May.  But the Government has already announced that the opening of the second school term, due in normal times on 5th May, has been indefinitely postponed.  So a further extension seems on the cards, albeit it with further modifications in the interests of the economy. This means that it may be unlikely that Parliament will resume its sittings on May 5th.

Committee on Standing Rules and Orders [CSRO] to Decide on Way Forward

Parliament’s Committee on Standing Rules and Orders [CSRO] will meet tomorrow, Thursday 30th April, to determine how to handle the fact that, strictly speaking, the recess should end with sittings of both Houses next Tuesday afternoon.

Section 181 of the Constitution makes the CSRO the most important Parliamentary committee.  Under this section the CSRO has the power to consider and decide “all matters concerning Parliament”.  It is chaired by the Speaker of the National Assembly or, in the absence of the Speaker, the President of the Senate.  Its 25 members include several Ministers ex officio and its other members must be appointed or selected so that the CSRO reflects as nearly as possible the political and gender composition of the combined Houses of Parliament.  It follows that it is dominated by the governing party, but other parties have a voice.  The quorum is 13.    [Comment: presumably MPs presently in Harare will be contacted first to save too much travel between provinces, and when they meet social distancing will be observed].

What will the CSRO decide?

Section 146 of the Constitution leaves it to each House of Parliament to determine the time and duration of its own sittings and its period of recess – as long as no more than 180 days is allowed to elapse between the sittings of a particular House.

Both Houses decided on 18th April that they would sit again on Tuesday 5th May.   So meetings of some sort seem mandatory.  But what sort of meeting would be satisfactory?

Virtual meetings?

As we understand the position, although Parliament has taken initial steps towards being paperless, existing resources do not permit the “virtual” or online meetings resorted to by some legislatures in other countries..

Reduced numbers?

Available space in both National Assembly and Senate chambers does not permit physical distancing if full attendance is desired.  Full attendance would also require travel by MPs from constituencies distant from Harare.  But full – or even normal – attendance may not be necessary, depending on what the CSRO decides on what, if any, business any sittings should tackle.

Staff in Parliament have suggested that reduced attendance may be the way to go – as long as it is representative of political and gender composition of the House concerned.  The Senate quorum is 26.  The National Assembly quorum is 70.  Quorate sittings that are sufficiently representative should be achievable, even in the limited space available in the two chambers.  The party whips in consultation with each other should be able to organise attendance in sufficient numbers to enable representative sittings of both Houses to take place either at Parliament or at another, more spacious, venue. The CRSO may even decide that in the present exceptional circumstance rules on quorums could be suspended provided both parties agree.  [Note: the quorums are not specified in the Constitution, they are set by Parliament’s Standing Orders, which also provide for their suspension.]

Nature of business?

MPs are probably bursting to put questions to Ministers about the Government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its plans for the way ahead.  But the CSRO’s decision on the business to be conducted next Tuesday is likely to prove the last word.  It may be that the only business conducted will be to decide that Parliament adjourns again to a future date.

Veritas makes every effort to ensure reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied.

Post published in: Featured

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily Trivia Question of the Day feature.

How long did John Marshall serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?

Hint: Marshall was the fourth Chief, and he served in that position the longest.

See the answer on the next page.

Here in America, the major coronavirus lockdowns have been in place for well over a month. If you want to keep yourself from going all Jack Nicholson in The Shining, there are only two ways to escape: mentally or physically.

Fortunately, I live in a state in which the middle of nowhere is only a short drive away and the governor has explicitly exempted hiking, hunting, and fishing from the list of prohibited activities. So, we packed a picnic lunch, loaded the teenager and the dog into the car, and squished through a delightfully filthy hike on a remote stretch of riverside mud. We hardly encountered another soul.

It’s the drive that’s always a bit of a challenge though. You walk a fine line with a teen in the car. If you do things exactly right, you can just barely manage to find the sweet spot between being trapped in a tiny glass box with a sullen nightmare and having to listen to the same five pop songs in a never-ending loop.

We were covered on the way there: there was some kind of Blackfeet Tribe cultural audiobook she had to listen to for school. When we reached the end of that on the way home though, after a few minutes of talking, we were veering dangerously close to a bunch of candy-coated pop beats invading my old-man ears.

But then, like an oasis shimmering on the horizon as you trudge through the desert, somehow Jim Jefferies’ gun control routine came up in our conversation. I glanced away from the road for an instant, just long enough to silently confirm with my girlfriend that we’d reached that special moment in a young woman’s life: when she is ready to be introduced to the comedy of Jim Jefferies.

Jim got through his gun control routine to wild laughter from all vehicle occupants. We watched his Freedumb special on Netflix when we got home. A few days later, I walked by the closed door of our teen’s room to hear the purr of Jim’s Australian accent emanating therefrom. She was watching Jim Jefferies on her own. I felt a swell of pride.

The girlfriend and I had been to a Jim Jefferies show about a year prior in which he berated an audience member near the front as a bad parent for bringing her teenager to his show, to the general amusement of all assembled. That could be us now!

Before the coronavirus pandemic ruined everything that brings us joy in life, I’d been planning to see Jim Jefferies perform on May 1 with my girlfriend (sans dependent) on the way to Chicago. That obviously isn’t happening anymore. But I kind of like how things came full circle for us with Jim during the coronavirus lockdown. Not only have we been watching Jim Jefferies as a family, we’ve gotten endless hours of additional entertainment and bonding time reminiscing about his routines and shouting portions of key jokes at one another (“Thanks, Jonathan!”). Now, when things reopen, we can all go see a Jim Jefferies show together.

So, if you’re looking for a way to connect with your teen during what are hopefully the final days of this lockdown, and if you’d like to escape into laughter from the shit that is the world right now, turn on some Jim Jefferies stand-up. Should you feel bad about enjoying Jim’s many vulgar rants, just paper over your shame with the veneer of respectability Jim’s achieved. Heck, his gun control routine has supposedly even been tapped as a teaching aid at some top-tier law schools.

Jim Jefferies has three specials available on Netflix at the moment (I’d start with Bare), or you can peruse several options available on Amazon for a few bucks each. You’re not going to get a better value for your lockdown entertainment dollar than that. And this is the one and only warning you’ll get from me about Jim Jefferies: if you’re offended by naughty language or just about anything else, don’t bother, you won’t like his material. Let’s just say that the next time our household teen does something foolish and gets in trouble, she’s got a get out of jail free card coming from me if her response is, “If you’re a dumb ****, and your wife or your husband is a dumb ****, guess what your f**king kids are.”

Jonathan Wolf is a litigation associate at a midsize, full-service Minnesota firm. He also teaches as an adjunct writing professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, has written for a wide variety of publications, and makes it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.

With the continuing cascade of bad news, for our profession and for everybody else in whatever profession or line of business, it’s hard to find anything positive right now. However, the ceaseless reports of Biglaw firms downsizing, rightsizing, furloughing, or just call it what it is, laying off, calls to mind, and not in a good way, what happened a decade or so ago. The Great Recession was in full flower and law school graduates took it in the shorts in ways big and small.

At least the 2010 graduates were able to take their bar exams on schedule, the concept of social distancing (and other COVID-19 terms) not even a gleam in anyone’s eyes a decade ago. Now, bar associations must figure out what to do about the July bar. Postpone it? Let the graduates have “diploma privilege” while apprenticing?

The Supreme Court of California has ordered that there will be no July 2020 bar exam. Instead, the July bar will be on September 9-10 and will take place online with remote and/or electronic proctoring. You can Google “online exam proctoring.” Lots of vendors provide it.

Before that exam, the First Year Law Students’ Examination, aka the “Baby Bar,” will be in June, also to take place online with remote and/or electronic proctoring. The court’s order says that the “State Bar shall use the experience in administering this exam to ensure a smooth online administration of the September 2020 California Bar Examination.” (My editorial comment: “Fingers crossed.”)

“Normally” (is that an oxymoron these days?) there is a second Baby Bar exam in October, but the court has ordered that postponed to November 2020 “… to maximize grading resources for the September 2020 California Bar Examination.”

The goal, said the court, is to have the State Bar “undertake every effort possible to speed the grading and final results of the exam” so that the bar takers will know whether they have passed or failed no later than December 31, 2020.

What about the Multistate? The court ordered the State Bar to work with the National Conference of Bar Examiners “to facilitate the online administration … or some variation thereof.”

A lot to digest, and none of it will make the 2020 graduates happy. The State Bar must submit a plan for how this is all going to work by May 11. If circumstances change, said the court, then these timetables for both exams might change.

The court made it clear that these adjustments to the bar exams “recognize and will advance the manifest public interest in maintaining access to justice through competent and qualified legal services.” I take that to mean no diploma privilege, no practicing law without that license.

What about the ongoing studies about the California bar examination and the cut score? The court said those studies continue.

One concern I have that I think is shared by anyone who has ever sat for a bar exam, regardless of jurisdiction. Snafus seem to be an inevitable part of bar exams; the snafus can be big, they can be small, but they happen.

A few years back, I wrote about snafus on my bar exam, which I took many years before many, if not all, of you saw the light of day. Readers piled on with their own miseries about their bar exams.

2020 graduates, you have my sympathies for your experiences yet to come. You don’t get to have a graduation, your finals will be online, and then the bar itself will be online. Celebrations, if any, will be muted and small. Hopefully, you’ll get your results by year end, assuming you’ve passed, then what kind of jobs will there be? (Calling “Debbie Downer.”)

Perhaps you could move to Utah, which is allowing law school graduates to skip the bar exam. Other states (New Jersey, Georgia, and Arizona) are extending supervised practice rules. Skip moving to California.No pass to practice here.

Does anyone other than dinosaurs or those who listen to oldies music remember this song that was extremely popular in 1966? While it’s about summer love and whether it lasts until fall, I can analogize to the postponement of the California Bar Exam until September. (Work with me here.)

Will your knowledge last until September? 2020 bar takers are going to need to retain all that information for a longer period to pass the bar. (I remember the relief that I felt when I did a brain dump after the bar exam ended the last week of July.) Now, graduates will have to continue to memorize, write practice essays, and practice MBE questions and the like while waiting longer to take the exam. Couple that with the anxiety level that is inherent in any bar exam situation. Add to that the waiting time for results. Add to that a very uncertain job market.

All of us who have shared bar exam horror stories over the years will be considered whiners and crybabies after this year. As I mentioned in a previous column, logistics are necessarily going to play a huge part in getting the court system back up and running. Logistics will also play a big role in getting the bar exam off the ground and administered successfully.

Through no fault of their own, 2020 law school graduates are going to be a test case for whether bar exams can be administered successfully online. There’s no way to sugarcoat what is to come. It’s a daunting prospect. Yes, it’s discouraging, but practicing law can be discouraging, so consider this a “practice exam.” Yeah, right.

Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.