The German Federal Court of Justice on Friday ruled that removing a patient from life support is not a criminal offense if the terminal individual had previously given consent. The landmark ruling legalized the right to die and overturned the nine-month sentence of a lawyer who was convicted last year for advising a client to [...]
A Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Thursday sentenced five Americans to 10 years in prison for plotting attacks on Pakistan. Waqar Hussain Khan, Ahmed Minni, Ramy Zamzam, Aman Yemer and Umar Farooq, all students from the Washington, DC metro area, were convicted of criminal conspiracy and funding a banned terrorist organization and will carry out the [...]
The US House of Representatives on Thursday voted 219 to 206 to approve legislation aimed at decreasing the ability of corporations and other special interest groups to influence elections. The bill, known as the Disclose Act, was developed in response to the January US Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission , [...]
Gabon police arrested Rwandan doctor Jean-Chrysostome Ndindabahizi on charges of conspiracy to commit genocide, crimes against humanity and murder in connection to the 1994 Rwandan genocide , according to Rwandan National Public Prosecution Authority spokesperson Augustin Nkusi on Thursday. Witnesses say Ndindabahizi was working as a doctor at Butare University Hospital in 1994 and participated [...]
A federal judge on Thursday denied a request to delay the corruption trial of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich in order for his defense lawyers to review a decision by US Supreme Court limiting the scope of the federal honest services fraud statute . Blagojevich is currently facing several honest services fraud charges for allegedly [...]
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday ruled 4-3 that the European Convention on Human Rights does not mandate that member states recognize same-sex marriages . The applicants, an Austrian same-sex couple, argued that their country’s prohibition on same-sex marriage violated their rights under the Article 8 right to private and family life, [...]
Sri Lankan External Affairs Minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris said Thursday that members of a recently-appointed UN panel will not be permitted to enter the country to investigate allegations of human rights abuses during the last months of the Sri Lankan civil war . The government rejected the appointment of the panel earlier this week. Peiris [...]
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Wednesday formally apologized to the families of the victims of the 1985 Air India bombing for the government’s failure to prevent the attack. The apology comes one week after the Air India Commission , led by former Canadian Supreme Court justice John Major , released a report outlining the [...]
The US Supreme Court on Thursday ruled 8-0 in Morrison v. National Australia Bank that the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 (SEA) does not provide a cause of action to foreign plaintiffs suing for misconduct occurring on foreign stock exchanges. The court held that, as a general rule, unless a statute specifically states that [...]
The US Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in Skilling v. United States that the "honest services" doctrine is not unconstitutionally vague under a limited construction of the statute and that the district court adequately "detected and diffused" juror prejudice in the pre-trial publicity of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling . The court subsequently reversed and [...]
