Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza on Thursday announced that the government will release prisoners in order to address the overcrowding in national prisons. At the end of May the number of prisoners was around 10,000 detained in 11 prisons that had a total capacity of only 3,500, according to a human rights group. The pardon, announced [...]
The US Supreme Court on Thursday ruled 5-4 that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) does not violate the constitution. The case centered on the “individual mandate” provision of the act, which requires every person, with some exceptions for religious and other reasons, to purchase some form of health insurance by January 1, [...]
The New Hampshire legislature on Wednesday passed a bill that bans “partial-birth” abortions , overriding last Friday’s veto by Governor John Lynch . The House of Representatives voted 240-118 and the Senate 18-5 to override the governor’s veto. The bill would require a physician to determine whether the mother is endangered by any physical conditions [...]
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Thursday convicted Serb nationalist politician and war crimes suspect Vojislav Seselj of contempt of court and sentenced him to two years in prison. Seselj had been accused of contempt of court for refusing to comply with a court order to remove confidential information from his [...]
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Thursday denied a motion by former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to dismiss 10 charges against him, while acquitting him on one charge of genocide for lack of evidence. In a statement, the court said that: “the evidence , even if taken at its highest, [...]
A judge in Rome, Italy, dropped a fraud charge against former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi on Wednesday after finding that the statute of limitations had expired. Last week Italian prosecutors had asked to sentence Berlusconi to three years and eight months in prison on the fraud charges. Berlusconi resigned as prime minister last November. He [...]
Prominent Bahraini rights activist Nabeel Rajab was released on Wednesday after spending three weeks in prison. Rajab was arrested on June 6 for posting critical comments about Bahrain’s government on his social media page. Prior to this last arrest, Rajab was arrested and released on bail weeks later for posting messages on his Twitter account [...]
The Chicago City Council on Wednesday voted to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Under the new ordinance, police officers may issue tickets to individuals found to be in possession of 10 grams of marijuana or less. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel earlier this month expressed his support for the ordinance, which he said [...]
The Constitutional Court of Romania on Wednesday rejected a law that would have changed the country’s electoral system, deeming it unconstitutional. The proposed system, which is based on first-past-the-post voting, would have replaced the mixed majority and proportional system currently in place. It was planned to be implemented for the upcoming November elections. The ruling [...]
The Canada Military Police Complaints Commission (MPCC) on Wednesday announced that it would make recommendations to improve military police investigations based on its four-year investigation into allegations of misconduct in handling Afghan detainees. The MPCC investigation was launched in response to a complaint filed in 2008 by several Canadian rights groups. The complaint alleged that [...]
