A Turkish court on Saturday ordered the release of three Kurdish lawmakers charged with having links to militants after ordering the release of two others on Friday. A judge in Diyarbakir ruled that the detainment of Selma Irmakand and Faysal Sariyildiz, Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party members of parliament, and independent member Kemal Aktas violated [...]
The Supreme Court of Nepal rejected legislation on Saturday that proposed amnesty for those responsible for serious rights abuses during the country’s civil war. A Maoist-led government proposed the legislation last year as part of a planned Truth and Reconciliation Commission aimed at healing the wounds from the civil war. Justices Kalyan Shrestha, Girish Chandra [...]
The US government filed a motion Friday asking the US Supreme Court to remove the stay on the contraception mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that was put in place by Justice Sonia Sotomayor earlier this week. The government argues that the motion for an emergency injunction filed by Little Sisters [...]
The California Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that an immigrant in the country illegally may be admitted to the state bar. The court admitted Sergio Garcia based on a new California statute which grants the court discretion to admit any individual “who is not lawfully present in the United States” that fulfills all the requirements [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Linda Schlueter of Trinity Legal Center discusses the recent dismissal of certiorari in Cline v. Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice…
A leader in Bangladesh’s main Islamist party was charged on Tuesday in connection with war crimes during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War with Pakistan. Abdus Subhan, who was arrested last September, was formally charged after Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICTB) conducted an investigation. However, human rights groups say that the tribunal, which was set up [...]
Former civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart was released from prison on Tuesday after a federal judge ordered the “compassionate release.” Judge John Koeltl granted the motion after it was filed Tuesday, finding that Stewart’s terminal health condition qualified her for “compassionate release.” Stewart was released from Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, and [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Western District of New York on Tuesday upheld New York’s strict gun law as constitutional but struck down a provision prohibiting gun owners to load more than seven rounds into a magazine. The New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act , known as the SAFE [...]
The Utah Attorney General filed an application for stay with the US Supreme Court on Tuesday to block same-sex marriages pending the state’s appeal of a US district judge’s December 20 decision striking down the state’s ban. Three similar applications to the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit have been rejected . The [...]
Indian President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday signed into law a landmark anti-graft bill passed by parliament in December. The new law creates a corruption ombudsman with extensive power to prosecute politicians and civil servants to create a “bribe-free India.” The bill was approved by parliament with support from both the ruling Congress and the opposition [...]
