The Chinese National People's Congress (NPC) on Monday opened consideration of election reforms designed to afford equal representation to residents of rural and urban administrative areas. China's current electoral law provides more congressional representatives to residents of urban districts than residents of rural ones. The draft amendment aims to eliminate the disparity in representation. Vice [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday granted certiorari in three cases. In Snyder v. Phelps , the court will take up the controversial issue of picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in combat. Reverend Fred Phelps and members of the Westboro Baptist Church have been traveling around the country picketing military funerals in recent years, [...]
Vietnamese human rights lawyer and activist Le Thi Cong Nhan was released from prison on Saturday after serving a three-year sentence for allegedly spreading propaganda against the state. Although she has been released from jail, she will now serve an additional three years of house arrest. Nhan was convicted and imprisoned in 2007 for allegedly [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled 7-2 in Bloate v. United States that time granted to prepare pretrial motions is not automatically excludable under the Speedy Trial Act . The court held that such time may be excluded only when a district court grants a continuance. The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth [...]
The Malaysian Federal Court ruled Monday that the 1998 removal of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim as deputy prime minister was constitutional. Anwar had challenged his removal on the grounds that the removal was unconstitutional because then-prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who fired Anwar alleging that he had notified the king, lacked the authority to [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled in Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz v. United States that attorneys are considered debt relief agencies under the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) when they provide qualifying services. The court also held that the BAPCPA, which requires certain disclosures in advertisements, does not violate attorneys' First [...]
An Italian appeals court on Friday upheld the convictions of 15 police officers, prison guards, and medical staff found guilty of abusing anti-globalization protesters taken into custody during the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa . The court also reversed the acquittals of 29 others. Amnesty International (AI) noted that "the lack of the crime of [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Amos Guiora of the University of Utah College of Law says that the McCain-Lieberman military detention bill recently introduced in the Senate is yet another unfortunate instance of US national security legislation being driven by panic instead of principle….. The "Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act of 2010," introduced last Thursday [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a full-page advertisement in the New York Times on Sunday, imploring President Barack Obama to fulfill his pledge to try suspected 9/11 terrorists in federal courts. The ad, which features a series of pictures that morph Obama's picture to one of former president George W. Bush, extols the [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on Friday denied a motion to dismiss a torture suit brought against former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld by two American citizens captured while working in Iraq. Judge Wayne Andersen dismissed two other counts but allowed the count alleging the plaintiffs were subject [...]
