Prominent Zimbabwean rights activist Jestina Mukoko and eight others have sued the government for abduction, wrongful arrest, and torture, their lawyer said Thursday. The suit comes after Zimbabwe's Supreme Court on Monday dismissed charges of conspiring against President Robert Mugabe , an allegation that Mukoko has vehemently denied. Mukoko's lawyer said she and the other [...]
An Argentine judge on Thursday charged former president and current senator Carlos Menem for allegedly covering up evidence related to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Menem, born in Argentina to Syrian immigrants, is accused of covering up the alleged involvement of Syrian-Argentine businessman Alberto Kanoore Edul. Judge Ariel Lijo [...]
Judge Tena Callahan of the 302nd Family District Court in Texas ruled Thursday that her Dallas family court has jurisdiction to hear the divorce proceedings of a Texas same-sex couple who were married in Massachusetts in 2006. In her ruling, Callahan also said that the Texas ban on same-sex marriage violates the equal protection clause [...]
Gino Raymond : "The recommendation that charges against Jacques Chirac be dropped should come as no surprise. In theory, the judge responsible for the final decision, Xavière Simeoni, is not obliged to abide by the finding of the prosecuting authorities, but to do otherwise would be an extraordinary surprise. In purely pragmatic terms, prosecuting Chirac [...]
US President Barack Obama on Thursday signed an executive order making it illegal for federal employees or government contractors to use text messaging while driving. The order encompasses employee use of government owned or leased cars, as well as privately owned cars used for government business. The order also bans use of government-issued devices for [...]
JURIST Contributing Editor Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says that to really deliver on his recent declaration at the UN that "international law is not an empty promise, and that Treaties will be enforced," President Obama should have pledged aggressive action to withdraw erroneous US reservations, understandings, and declarations and to [...]
Federal Leadership on Reducing Text Messaging While Driving, White House, October 1, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on the executive orders signed by President Obama.
Judge Royce Lambeth of the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday released a 191-page opinion expressing frustration with the inability of victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism to receive their court-ordered judgments. In the opinion, Lambeth discussed the more than 1,000 plaintiffs who have received awards totaling over $9 billion, and the lack [...]
The Criminal Chamber of the Peruvian Supreme Court on Wednesday sentenced former president Alberto Fujimori to six years in prison for multiple counts of illegal wiretapping and bribery. Fujimori is to serve his sentence concurrently with the sentences from his three other convictions. In the fourth and final trial pending against him, former Fujimori was [...]
Georgia violated international law when it shelled the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali in August 2008, according to a report released Wednesday by a European Union-backed commission. The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia (IIFFMCG) concluded that "it is not possible to accept" that the armed response by Georgian forces to the [...]
