- Court in the act - 27th August 2025
- Information overload again - 26th August 2025
- Going nuclear - 25th August 2025
In 42 years as a journalist (when he was trained to use simple and clear language, avoiding jargon), political stories have always been central for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, but they are often about how a leading politician, or party organisation, falls foul of the law, with this now put centre stage by the latest courtroom drama involving Donald Trump.
It happens all the time.
I remember very clearly waiting outside a police station in Wales where a leading politician was about to be charged with criminal damage after ripping down an opponent’s election posters, leading, of course, to a court appearance.
Courts all over the world are busier than ever.
The International Criminal Court (ICC), which prosecutes people for the vilest offences, such as crimes against humanity, is investigating a dozen conflicts and has issued arrest warrants for 30 big-time defendants who are still at large. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), which settles disputes between countries, is ordering mighty armies to stop fighting.
There are any number of these (alleged) criminal wrongdoings today, with courtroom scenes played out all the time particularly involving President Donald Trump.
The latest is about whether he did or didn’t violate a 147-year-old law when he deployed the National Guard (NG) to quell protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles (LA) – against the wishes of the Democratic Governor there.
In June, as hundreds of people gathered in LA to protest against a string of immigration raids that targeted workplaces and left dozens of people detained or deported, President Trump deployed 4,000 NG members, in the face of objections from the Governor and local officials, who said the deployment would only cause further chaos.
He invoked a rarely-used law that allows the President to order at a Federal level the use of the NG during times of actual or threatened rebellion or invasion, or when regular forces can’t enforce US laws.
The Governer, Gavin Newsom. filed a lawsuit against President Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, saying they violated the Posse Comitatus Act and the 10th Amendment.
President Trump also announced he was sending the NG into Washington DC, and taking over the city’s police force, but this was legally questionable as well.
He evoked his authority under the 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act, the first time a President has used it to federalise the police, claiming that the city was awash in crime and homelessness.
He declared a “public safety emergency” deploying 800 NG troops to bolster hundreds of federal law enforcement officers who had been deployed earlier.
Yet violent crime in the city is at a 30-year low, and the Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the move had “no basis in law”.
President Trump said he would place the city’s police department under direct federal control, however the act he used was instituted by Richard Nixon to allow residents of Washington DC – which is the only US city that is not in any of the 50 states – to elect a city council and a mayor.
President Trump used a caveat that allows the president to take control of the city’s police force if “special conditions of an emergency nature exist”.
But he is facing stiff opposition.
Washington DC officials are suing the Trump administration over what they call a “baseless power grab” saying that “by illegally declaring a takeover…the (Trump) administration is abusing its temporary, limited authority under the law”.
President Trump’s decision to send other states’ NG units to Washington in 2020 was extremely tenuous from a legal perspective, proclaimed Mark Nevitt, a law professor at Emory University (EU).
Meanwhile Mr Newsom’s lawyers have also argued the President illegally made an “unprecedented power grab” – and violated the constitution – by overruling local authorities to send in the military.
The President and Mr Hegseth “have overstepped the bounds of law and are intent on going as far as they can to use the military in unprecedented, unlawful ways”, Mr Newsom’s lawyers have stated in a complaint.
Yet Mr Trump’s lawyers have hit back saying the act, which prevents the use of the military for enforcing laws, doesn’t provide a mechanism for a CIVIL lawsuit.
This is not the only example either of politicians actions being the subject of court procedures today.
In Italy the right wing Government there reacted furiously to a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), that means it must rethink its policy of sending migrants to Albania for processing.
The ECJ said that European Union (EU) states could fast-track migrant returns to SAFE countries of origin, but that the definition of ‘safe’ must be subject to judicial review, and all citizens of the country must be ‘safe’.
The Italian Government, meanwhile, countered by saying that the ECJ had further reduced “the already limited scope” of EU countries’ autonomy.
In Wales individual alleged actions by politicians in falling foul of the law do occasionally happen, but judges ruling against controversial moves by the Welsh Government (WG) is virtually non-existent, because Welsh law has been so wrapped up with that of England.
This, however, could change.
Wales has operated within a joint legal jurisdiction with England for nearly 500 years.
For centuries, this has worked with relative ease but as the law of Wales and England has increasingly diverged over the 26 years of devolution, there have been growing calls for there to be recognition of a body of Welsh law, or for a separate distinct Welsh legal jurisdiction.
Yet that divergence took place long ago in Scotland, although even here, it seems, politicians overstepped the mark about what they were legally entitled to do.
In November 2022 the UK Supreme Court kiboshed Nicola Sturgeon’s ridiculous attempt to hold a second independence referendum, because (in the minds of voters) she didn’t like the result of the first one.
The court made clear that the law did not allow Holyrood to legislate for an independence referendum without Westminster’s agreement, and it meant there would be no indyref2 on 19 October 2023, as she had planned.
In this context it may have been unwise for the Scottish National Party’s (SNP’s) sister organisation, Plaid Cymru (Plaid) to become so close.
Worrying details about the leadership election when Ms Sturgeon stood down would have been enough to sink most parties, and as Sky News described it: “The contest has been bitter and fractious with the candidates, two of whom are serving cabinet ministers, trashing and attacking their own government’s record”.
The winner was the Scottish health secretary Humza Yousaf , but he didn’t set alight the cause of independence, and was described in The Times as a “lightweight”, and a “complete chancer”.
Mr Yousaf failed at the polls and has now been replaced, but Plaid sucked up to him, and in a statement on their website declared: “Plaid Cymru and the SNP have today renewed their ‘shared political project’ on securing independence for their respective nations.
“A joint statement by Plaid Cymru Leader Rhun ap Iorwerth and SNP Leader and First Minister Humza Yousaf reaffirmed the two parties’ alliance and commitment to forging ‘fairer and more prosperous nations through independence’”.
Forging stronger links with the law may be more sensible for politicians, especially given with what we are seeing in courts around the world!
The memories of Phil’s, remarkable decades long award-winning career in journalism (during which he witnessed many extraordinary cases of senior politicians trying to defend the indefensible) as he was gripped by the rare and incurable neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in another major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Tomorrow – how disturbing news that a Strictly Come Dancing star is facing a rape allegation, and that the BBC have called in the police to investigate the programme after claims that two contestants used cocaine, highlight the string of extraordinary scandals to have engulfed the giant corporation, and once again shines the spotlight on their REFUSAL to answer The Eye’s questions about them.
