JURIST Guest Columnist David Bernstein of George Mason University School of Law, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, argues that striking down the individual mandate of the health care reform legislation does not implicate a resurgence of the notorious 1905 Supreme Court decision in Lochner v. New York…

Utah Governor Gary Herbert on Tuesday signed into law a bill that extends the waiting period for a woman seeking an abortion from 24 hours to 72 hours. The Utah waiting period law closely mirrors a South Dakota law passed last year that imposes a 72-hour waiting period for women who wish to obtain an [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Tuesday in Coleman v. Court of Appeals of Maryland on the abrogation of states’ Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity by the self-care leave provision of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) . Petitioner Daniel Coleman was terminated from his job and filed suit under Title VII and the FMLA [...]

A Russian court in the Siberian province of Tomsk on Wednesday rejected a call to ban a translation of the Hindu holy book the Bhagavad Gita. Prosecutors in the case argued that a preface accompanying a 1968 translation of the text written by the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKC) , commonly [...]

Dane County Circuit Court Judge Richard Neiss refused Tuesday to halt his ruling that Wisconsin’s voter identification law is unconstitutional. Neiss had previously ruled the law was unconstitutional and the attorney general requested the law be enforced while they await appeal of his decision. The law requires a voter to display photo ID when entering [...]

Lawmakers in Suriname on Wednesday proposed a bill that would amend the country’s current amnesty law and extend amnesty to alleged offenses committed in defense of the state. The proposed amendment would effectively end the trial of President Desi Bouterse who is accused of capturing and killing opponents of his regime during the “December Murders” [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled Monday that victims of the $7 million Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Allen Stanford may pursue a class action lawsuit. Stanford was convicted of defrauding victims in America and in Latin America. Monday’s decision overturned a lower court decision that found the lawsuits violated the Securities [...]

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Tuesday expressed concern over reports of excessive force used by Bahraini security forces against citizen protesters. The alleged disproportionate use of force has involved birdshot pellets, rubber bullets and tear gas canisters being shot into crowds, resulting in a number of reported citizen deaths, particularly [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in the cases of Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs on whether the imposition of a life-without-parole sentence on a 14-year-old child convicted of homicide violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment. The court has also been asked to decide whether [...]

Violence and rights abuses continue in Myanmar’s northern state of Kachin, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Tuesday. HRW claims that a significant number of civilians are subject to abuses due to the conflict between Myanmar’s armed forces and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) . The report showed through interviews that Myanmar’s army attacked Kachin villages, [...]