Mexico’s Electoral Tribunal on Thursday upheld the results of the country’s recent presidential election, after finding that there was no evidence that the winning candidate, Enrique Pena Nieto violated election regulations. Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the left wing Partido de la Revolucion Democratica (PRD) announced in July that he was challenging [...]
The former secretary for the political party of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was referred to a criminal court for corruption charges on Wednesday. Safwat El-Sherif is accused of abusing his office and illegally obtaining $49.2 million. He has also been accused of using his position to obtain several pieces of real estate at dramatically [...]
US Attorney General Eric Holder announced Thursday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) would close its investigation into the CIA’s alleged torture and abuse of detainees, with no criminal charges to be brought as a result of the three-year inquiry. In June 2011 Holder accepted the recommendation of Assistant US Attorney (AUSA) John Durham to [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the District of Delaware on Thursday struck down the Delaware Chancery Court procedure allowing for closed-door arbitrations for large business disputes. In a 26-page decision Judge Mary McLaughlin held that the Chancery Court’s rule allowing parties to opt for confidential, expedited arbitration , with one of the [...]
An independent UN human rights expert on Thursday condemned Israel’s dismissal of a civil suit brought by the family of an American peace activist. UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Richard Falk criticized the Israeli judge’s ruling, calling it a “victory for Israeli impunity.” The lawsuit arose from an incident in which American [...]
Amnesty International (AI) on Wednesday urged authorities in the former Yugoslavia to investigate the enforced disappearances of 14,000 people who are still unaccounted for since the civil war in the 1990s. The report comes as the mandate for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is coming to an end. AI claims that [...]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay urged Gambian authorities Thursday to enact an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty . The statement is a response to the execution of nine prisoners on Sunday following a 27-year moratorium on the practice. In addition to those executions, President Yahya Jammeh announced that [...]
A three-judge panel in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday unanimously rejected a Texas law requiring voters to present photo identification to election officials before casting their ballots. The judges concluded that the law is “the most stringent in the country,” and would “almost certainly have a retrogressive effect,” namely [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia on Wednesday issued a temporary injunction blocking same-gender classes at a West Virginia middle school. The order follows a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of a mother of three daughters studying at Van Devender Middle [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Lawrence Frolik of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law says that Pennsylvania’s new voter identification law is an unconstitutional violation of citizens’ fundamental right to vote, and that the disenfranchisement of voters is not justified by the relatively few instances of voter fraud that the law may prevent…
