The Russian lower house of Parliament, the State Duma , will consider a controversial bill introduced by lawmakers on Thursday that bans the spread of “homosexual propaganda” to minors. The bill calls for fines of up to 500,000 rubles (USD $16,500) for promoting the homosexual lifestyle and appears to be aimed at media outlets which [...]
Mali leaders announced on Thursday that they have drafted a new constitution following last week’s military coup . In a statement read on Mali state television, it was announced that the new constitution will allow citizens to demonstrate or go on strike and that it will provide immunity to the leaders of the military coup. [...]
An Oklahoma County judge struck down on Wednesday a state law requiring doctors to perform an ultrasound and describe a woman’s fetus to her before she undergoes an abortion . The Court held that the 2010 Ultrasound Act is unconstitutional and unenforceable under the Oklahoma Constitution. The court ultimately amended a temporary injunction issued in [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Rafael Lomenso is a LL.M. Candidate at the Católica Global School of Law, a Lisbon-based faculty of the Catholic University of Portugal. In the second entry of a four-part series on the realities and priorities of Portuguese sovereign debt management, Lomenso argues that Portugal is well suited for an extensive voluntary restructuring [...]
The US Supreme Court on Wednesday heard the final day of arguments on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in the case of United States Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida . In the morning the court heard arguments on the issue of whether the “individual mandate” can [...]
WE STILL NEED YOUR HELP. Our spring fund drive ends on March 31 – that’s only THREE days! Our annual goal is $30,000, so if we can raise another $1,100 during this drive, we’ll be 25% funded. . .another $3,600 and we’ll be 33% funded. Help make it happen! As previously mentioned, due to general [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) revealed Tuesday that it received documents confirming that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) used a “Mosque Outreach” program to gather intelligence on Muslim-American citizens . Using a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the ACLU discovered that the FBI had been using the program to record conversations, observe [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Wednesday in Vartelas v. Holder that the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) , a law designed to deny re-entry to immigrants who have committed certain crimes, cannot be applied retroactively to lawful immigrants if the date of his/her conviction occurred before the IIRIRA passed. The IIRIRA [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Wednesday in Setser v. United States on whether a federal district court, in sentencing a defendant for a federal offense, has authority to order that the federal sentence be consecutive to an anticipated state sentence that has not yet been imposed. Petitioner Setser was indicted in a Texas court [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled 5-3 Wednesday in Federal Aviation Administration v. Cooper that the phrase “actual damages” as found in the Privacy Act of 1974 is sufficiently ambiguous to prevent the authorization of lawsuits against the government for claims of mental and emotional distress. Respondent Cooper, a pilot, was convicted and fined for failing [...]
