PARIS (AP) — Police in the restive French Pacific territory of New Caledonia rounded up 11 people Wednesday, including an independence leader, who are suspected of having a role in the deadly violence that wracked the archipelago where Indigenous Kanak people have long sought to break free from France.
The detentions were part of an ongoing police investigation launched May 17, just days after unrest first erupted, into a wave of armed clashes, looting, blazes and other violence that turned parts of the capital, Nouméa, and its suburbs into no-go zones.
New Caledonia’s prosecutor, Yves Dupas, said in a statement that the police round-up started in the early morning, with others detained later in the day, including some who reported to police stations of their own accord.
He said those taken in custody include Christian Tein, a leader of a pro-independence group that French officials alleged played a leading role in weeks of violence that erupted in May over contested voting reforms for New Caledonia. Dupas did not identify the 10 other people detained.
The revolt prompted France to declare a state of emergency on the archipelago and rush in reinforcements for police forces that were rapidly overwhelmed. The violence led to nine deaths, including two gendarmes, and widespread destruction of shops, businesses and homes.
The prosecutor said Wednesday's detentions were part of a police investigation into a broad array of suspected crimes, including complicity in homicide and attempted homicide, armed robbery, arson, and membership of a group created to prepare violent acts. The possible charges allow investigators to hold detainees for questioning for up to 96 hours, he said. After that, an investigating magistrate would have to decide whether police have gathered sufficient evidence to warrant formal charges.
With France now plunged into frenzied campaigning for snap parliamentary elections, French President Emmanuel Macron has suspended the reforms that would have altered voting rights in New Caledonia.
With unrest now ebbing, the French Pacific territory this week shortened its overnight curfew by two hours, pushing back its start from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. It also reopened the international airport that was closed to commercial flights for more than a month.
FILE - Police wait for the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron at the central police station in Noumea, New Caledonia, Thursday, May 23, 2024. Police in the restive French Pacific territory of New Caledonia on Wednesday June 19, 2024 rounded up eight people, including an independence leader, suspected of having had a guiding role in deadly violence that wracked the archipelago where Indigenous Kanak people have long sought to break free from France. (Ludovic Marin/Pool Photo via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday stripped the Securities and Exchange Commission of a major tool in fighting securities fraud in a decision that also could have far-reaching effects on other regulatory agencies.
The justices ruled in a 6-3 vote that people accused of fraud by the SEC, which regulates securities markets, have the right to a jury trial in federal court. The in-house proceedings the SEC has used in some civil fraud complaints violate the Constitution, the court said.
“A defendant facing a fraud suit has the right to be tried by a jury of his peers before a neutral adjudicator,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court's conservative majority.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who read from her dissent in the courtroom, said that “litigants who seek to dismantle the administrative state” would rejoice in the decision.
Federal agencies that oversee safety in mines and other workplaces are among many that can only impose civil penalties in in-house, administrative proceedings, Sotomayor wrote, joined by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan.
“For those and countless other agencies, all the majority can say is tough luck; get a new statute from Congress,” she wrote.
The case is among several this term in which conservative and business interests are urging the nine-member court to constrict federal regulators. The court’s six conservatives already have reined them in, including in a decision last year that sharply limited environmental regulators’ ability to police water pollution in wetlands.
The SEC was awarded more than $5 billion in civil penalties in the 2023 government spending year that ended Sept. 30, the agency said in a news release. It was unclear how much of that money came through in-house proceedings or lawsuits in federal court.
The agency had already reduced the number of cases it brings in administrative proceedings pending the Supreme Court's resolution of the case.
The high court rejected arguments advanced by President Joe Biden's Democratic administration that relied on a 50-year-old decision in which the court ruled that in-house proceedings did not violate the Constitution’s right to a jury trial in civil lawsuits.
The justices ruled in the case of Houston hedge fund manager George R. Jarkesy. The SEC appealed to the Supreme Court after a divided panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out stiff financial penalties against Jarkesy and his Patriot28 investment adviser.
The appeals court found that the SEC’s case against Jarkesy, resulting in a $300,000 civil fine and the repayment of $680,000 in allegedly ill-gotten gains, should have been heard in a federal court instead of before one of the SEC’s administrative law judges.
Jarkesy’s lawyers noted that the SEC wins almost all the cases it brings in front of the administrative law judges but only about 60% of cases tried in federal court.
The appeals court also said Congress unconstitutionally granted the SEC “unfettered authority” to decide whether the case should be tried in a court of law or handled within the executive branch agency. And it said laws shielding the commission’s administrative law judges from being fired by the president are unconstitutional.
Those issues got virtually no attention during arguments in November, and the court chose to resolve the case only on the right to a jury trial.
Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.
The Supreme Court building is seen on Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
A Supreme Court police officer talks with a demonstrator at a barricade outside the Supreme Court on Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Law enforcement officers stand behind barricades outside the Supreme Court on Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Broadcast media equipment is set up outside the Supreme Court on Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
The Supreme Court strips the SEC of a critical enforcement tool in fraud cases
The Supreme Court strips the SEC of a critical enforcement tool in fraud cases
People walk past the Supreme Court on Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
