House speaker backs down on bid to sack chaplain
Brazil’s highest court voted yesterday to restrict a legal protection afforded federal lawmakers that critics say has resulted in impunity, as the country grapples with massive official corruption.
The protection known as ‘‘privileged standing’’ allows tens of thousands of politicians to have cases against them tried in higher courts than a normal citizen would. It can result in cases against politicians moving very slowly because they frequently shift venues as defendants switch jobs.
But the problem is particularly acute for federal lawmakers, whose cases are tried by Brazil’s top court. The Supreme Federal Tribunal’s docket is so overloaded that critics say politicians tried there rarely face the consequences of their crimes. The top court decided yesterday that the privileged standing should only apply to crimes allegedly committed while the lawmaker is in office and that are related to the exercise of that office. That should greatly reduce the number of cases against lawmakers that stall at the top court.
Seven of the court’s 11 justices voted for the restriction, while the other four voted for a narrower one. The court also set a deadline — the moment when the charges are formalised — after which cases would no longer change venue. That should also reduce the amount of time it takes a case to reach a conclusion.
Justice Luis Roberto Barroso strongly advocated for the restrictions, calling privileged standing a ‘‘disaster’’ for Brazil. But Justice Gilmar Mendes warned that the limitation would not be a panacea for what ails Brazil’s justice system.
Still, experts say the limitations could result in much swifter justice for senators and deputies.
It should also be a major boost to Brazil’s watershed Operation Car Wash probe, in which prosecutors have alleged that Brazil’s government was effectively run like a cartel for years. -AP A four-year search of the depths of the Indian Ocean has failed to find Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. But the unprecedented sonar hunt for the missing airliner might be close to solving 19th century mysteries — the locations of two sailing ships that vanished with cargos of coal.
Maritime historians on Thursday published a short list of the possible identities of two shipwrecks found during the initial 710,000-square kilometre three-year search for the Boeing 777 that was lost in 2014 with 238 people aboard.
The wrecks, found in 2015, are 36km apart and 2300km southwest of Australia in debris fields scattered with coal more than 3.7km below the ocean’s surface.
The searchers had a closer look with underwater drones that took photographs of both sites and retrieved a coal sample from one. Analysis showed the coal was probably from Britain, a Western Australian Museum report said.
The museum’s examination of the images of the scattered remnants of a wooden ship discovered on May 19, 2015, found it was possibly the brig W. Gordon or the barque Magdala, according to incomplete records of ships lost in that period.
W. Gordon was on a voyage from Scotland to Australia when it disappeared in 1877 with 10 crew aboard. Magdala was lost in 1882 while sailing from Wales to Indonesia.
The report found the splintered wreck was most likely sunk by an explosion. Coal cargoes in the era exploded through sparking of methane gas accumulating below deck or the spontaneous combustion of overheated coal.
An iron wreck found on December 19, 2015, was most likely the barque West Ridge, which vanished while sailing from England to India with 28 sailors in 1883, the report said. A coal sample from that wreck suggested the cargo was British.
There was no evidence of what caused the disaster, but the wreck’s location east of the trade route from Europe to Asia suggested it might have been heading to the closest port in Australia for help.
The museum’s curator of maritime archaeology, Ross Anderson, said the new data about the two sinkings was a significant byproduct of the search for Flight 370, which was flying from Malaysia to China when communications with it were lost.
But Anderson doubted that the identities of the two deepest wrecks found in the Indian Ocean would ever be confirmed without a wealthy private benefactor because of their depth and remoteness.
‘‘If it was a shipwreck that we could dive on ... we’d be looking for any artefacts like ceramics or bottles or anything that could confirm providence,’’ Anderson said.
‘‘These are the deepest wrecks so far located in the Indian Ocean, they’re some of the most remote shipwrecks in the world, so we try to maximise any information,’’ he added.
The initial underwater sonar probe scoured remote seabed at depths of up to 6000m before Malaysia, China and Australia agreed to end the state-funded search for Flight 370 last year.
The wrecks of two trawlers sunk the late 20th century were also discovered, but the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which supervised the search, did not ask the museum to research them.
Ocean Infinity, a US. technology company conducting a new search, said this week it had covered nearly 80,000 square kilometres since January without finding any sign of the plane’s wreckage.
In January, the Malaysian government pledged to pay Texas-based Ocean Infinity up to US$70 million if it could find the wreckage or black boxes of the aircraft within 90 days. AP The embattled chaplain of the US House of Representatives has won his job back just hours after sending a scalding letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan that accused a top Ryan staff aide of telling him ‘‘something like ‘maybe it’s time that we had a Chaplain that wasn’t a Catholic’.’’
Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, forced Reverend Pat Conroy to tender his resignation last month, sparking a firestorm. Ryan has said he was dissatisfied with Conroy’s pastoral care to lawmakers.
But in a statement yesterday, Ryan – himself a Catholic – reversed course.
‘‘It is my job as speaker to do what is best for this body, and I know that this body is not well served by a protracted fight over such an important position,’’ Ryan said.
Ryan’s statement came soon after Conroy delivered a two-page letter that said he has never ‘‘heard a complaint about my ministry’’ as House chaplain. Instead, Conroy says top Ryan aide Jonathan Burks told him the speaker wanted his resignation, and cited a prayer last year that was potentially critical of the GOP tax bill.
‘‘I inquired as to whether or not it was ‘for cause,’ and Mr Burks mentioned something dismissively like ‘maybe it’s time that we had a Chaplain that wasn’t a Catholic,’’’ Conroy wrote to Ryan in a letter that was also sent to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Ryan did not directly address Conroy’s explosive charge, saying, ‘‘To be clear, that decision was based on my duty to ensure that the House has the kind of pastoral services that it deserves.’’
Burks, in a statement released by Ryan’s office, said ‘‘I strongly disagree a with Father Conroy’s recollection of our conversation.’’
Conroy also wrote that Burks mentioned a November prayer regarding the GOP tax bill that upset many Republicans.
Then, Conroy prayed for lawmakers to make sure that ‘‘there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all Americans.’’
Conroy told The New York Times last week that shortly afterward Ryan warned Conroy to ‘‘stay out of politics.’’ Conroy also invited a Muslim cleric last year to give the opening prayer, a move that Democrats say may have upset GOP conservatives.
Conroy’s resignation sparked an uproar last week when it became known that he was asked to quit. Catholic lawmakers such as Reps. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., and Peter King, R-N.Y., were particularly upset, especially after a Republican lawmaker, Mark Walker, R-N.C., was quoted in The Hill as saying Conroy’s replacement should have a family – which would rule out Catholic priests – to better serve the needs of lawmakers.
Ryan’s retreat came quickly. Congress is on vacation this week but Ryan said he would meet with Conroy early next week ‘‘so that we can move forward for the good of the whole House.’’
The chaplain is elected by the full House and Democrats said Ryan does not have the power to fire him.
In an appearance in Milwaukee last week, Ryan said: ‘‘This was not about politics or prayers, it was about pastoral services.
‘‘And a number of our members felt like the pastoral services were not being adequately served, or offered.’’
But Conroy fired back, saying, ‘‘this is not the reason that Mr Burks gave when asking for my ‘resignation.’’’ -AP