Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) announced Saturday that the US House of Representatives will postpone hearings on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) , a day after the bill’s main sponsor Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) agreed to remove the highly contested Domain Name System (DNS) blocking provision of the bill. That section would have required Internet [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Lauren Mack, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law Class of 2012, is the Copyright Chair for the Cardozo Intellectual Property Law Society. She argues that two proposed pieces of legislation that seek to curb Internet piracy through the use of DNS filtering violate the First Amendment… With two controversial bills intended to [...]
The Moldovan Constitutional Court on Thursday threw out the results of the recent presidential election and canceled the run off vote planned for January 15. The court ruled that many parliamentary deputies violated the secrecy of the voting procedure by showing their ballots to TV cameras to show their support of parliamentary speaker and acting [...]
Myanmar released over 130 political prisoners Friday following announcement by the Burma State Media of a presidential pardon that will free a total of 651 prisoners. Among those released were Hitay Kywe and U Gambira, leaders of a 2007 revolt, Min Ko Naing, student leader of a 1988 protest, and former prime minister Khin Nyunt. [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Leila Sayed-Taha, DePaul University College of Law Class of 2012, currently works as a translator for Ace Languages Centre, where she aids asylum seekers at the Immigration Advisory Service. Here she discusses the ongoing issue of immunity as troops withdrawal and private contractors remain, and she examines the circumstances in which Iraqi [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has defended the use of recess appointments by President Barack Obama . Obama used recess appointments to install Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and appoint three other individuals to the National Labor Relations Board . The Recess Appointment Clause gives the president the “power [...]
The Warsaw Provincial Court handed down a two-year suspended sentence to former interior minister Gen. Czeslaw Kiszczak Thursday. The court found Kiszczak guilty in absentia in relation to the implementation of martial law in 1981. Martial law was declared on December 13, 1981, by Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski , who was declared too sick to stand [...]
The Canadian government has given notice that the same-sex marriages performed in Canada between non-Canadian couples are invalid. This means that couples who came to Canada since 2004 to get married are not legally wed. The reversal is policy came to light when a lesbian couple who were wed in Toronto filed for divorce. They [...]
The Israeli Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a law that prevents Palestinians who marry Israelis from obtaining Israeli citizenship. The court upheld the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law in a 6-5 ruling, approving the original version from 2003 along with its amended versions from 2005 and 2007 . With its ruling the court again [...]
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Thursday urged Nigerian leaders from all sectors of society to make a concerted effort to stop the recent violence against civilians unleashed by the Islamic militant group known as Boko Haram . Only a day after the group’s leader promised further attacks against Nigerian citizens, [...]
