Phys.org has reported this morning that:
A Luxembourg court on Thursday overturned–on human rights grounds–the verdict against a "LuxLeaks" whistleblower who was convicted of leaking thousands of documents that revealed tax breaks for multinational firms.
Luxembourg's highest court rejected the conviction against former PricewaterhouseCoopers employee Antoine Deltour, who in March had received a reduced six-month suspended jail sentence with a 1,500-euro fine.
The LuxLeaks scandal erupted in 2014 and sparked a major global push against generous deals handed to multinationals, which grew even stronger with new revelations such as the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers Leaks.
"Today is a victory," Deltour said as he left the courtroom.
The court "has clearly indicated towards a favourable outcome here in Luxembourg," he added.
The sentence against Deltour's colleague Raphael Halet, who received a 1,000-euro fine after an appeal, was however upheld as the court said that he did not fit the whistleblower definition.
The blockbuster leak revealed the huge tax breaks that tiny EU nation Luxembourg offered international firms including Apple, IKEA and Pepsi, at a time when Jean-Claude Juncker, now head of the European Commission, was prime minister.
The tiny EU country's highest appeal court said Deltour was wrongly accused as he should have been fully recognised as a whistleblower as defined by the European Court of Human Rights.
I am absolutely delighted.
Justice has been done.
Whistleblowing tax abuse is in the public interest. Long may it remain so.
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I suppose ECHR is something else the Brexiteers wish to escape from. (?)
Yes, they definitely do. Few of them, even now, know the difference between the ECJ and the ECHR: but yes, they definitely do wish to ‘escape’.
All of them are careful not to speak of the ECHR’s origins: the European Convention on Human Rights, and its associated Court, are the child of Winston Churchill and of British diplomatic efforts to build postwar European institutions for a better world with ‘Never Again’ built into real foundations.
Churchill stated, clearly, that every nation who participated in the ECHR must willingly surrender a certain amount of sovereignty in pursuit of the greater good.
Keep that in mind, when hardline Brexiteers put on that sonorous Churchillian tone to speak of sovereignty: their Minister for Exiting the European Union is an admirer and biographer of Winston Churchill, and knows that everything that he and they have said about the ECHR for Brexit is a lie.
It is interesting, too, to look at Theresa May, here: she was a ‘Remain’ campaigner before the referendum – presumably on economic grounds and probably in conversation with the Party donors – but she hated, loathed, and utterly detested the ECHR and its repeated rebukes to her authoritarian administration as Home Secretary.
This mattered, in events following the Referendum: she was easily persuaded to the hardline Brexit camp, despite the damage she knew that it would do.
There is a certain type of politician who must never get the job of ‘Interior Minister’ in any country; and especially not, in a certain type of country. Theresa May is exactly that politician; and Britain has become that kind of country, fuelled by the toxic, racist nationalism of UKIP and the hard right, aided by May’s vindictive authoritiarianism in her powers as Home Secretary.
Churchill knew that checks were needed against that, even in his beloved Britain, and feared it – and he was a leader who pushed back against his fears, and took action to root out their causes. Lesser politicians are driven by their fears or worse, exploit and cultivate the fears of the electorate; Churchill knew them, all too well, and saw first-hand where that will take us if we cannot stop them – firmly, pervasively in effective institutions; and early, so that they never grow into the systematic misuse of their powers.
Thus, the ECHR: a lasting work for a better world, built after the very worst that Europe can do, by a deeply flawed leader who was, himself, complicit in it. But Churchill, and Europe, had the will to be better than their past.
Small wonder that the Leavers hate it.
Nile
Good post. I’ve had arguments with a lot osf people about ‘brexit’. Will we be financially worse off? Probably yes, but that isn’t real the point.
Will the UK reintroduce capital punishment?
Will the UK ban all immigration &
Will the UK decide thatGypsy/Traveler communities should be rounded up into camps, so that they can best be concentrated in one place.
Basically, we had a choice on civilisation & we overwhelmingly voted ‘No’ we don’t want civilisation.