A Brazil Supreme Court justice on Tuesday ordered investigations into eight cabinet ministers and dozens of lawmakers who are allegedly linked to the country’s so-called “car wash” bribery scheme. The list of those under investigation consists of high-ranking officials in key political positions. Citizens in Brazil have erupted in protest due to the alleged political [...]
Human Rights Watch issued a report on Tuesday saying California’s bail system pressures the poor into pleading guilty in order to be released from jail. The group said tens of thousands of Californians have been held for days to months without a conviction . It also said California’s median bail rates are five times that [...]
European Union vice president Frans Timmermans announced on Wednesday that a legal assessment will be launched “as soon as possible” regarding Hungary’s recently enacted Higher Education Law. Opponents argue the law is meant to close the Central European University (CEU), and may violate European Union free movement of services and freedom of establishment requirements. A [...]
The state of Hawaii, in a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s travel ban, requested on Tuesday that the entire Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sit for review of the case. Hawaii is requesting the en banc hearing for the appeal, arguing that this is a “question of exceptional importance.” The state also referred to a [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Professor Monte Mills of the University of Montana’s Alexander Blewett III School of Law discusses the Dakota Accesss and Keystone XL’s joint impact on tribal treaty rights … On March 23, Thomas A. Shannon, Jr. , the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, determined that issuing a permit to authorize the [...]
Amnesty International (AI) released its annual report on global use of the death penalty Tuesday, saying China continues to use the punishment more than any other country. The group says the exact number of executions committed in China in 2016 cannot be known for certain because China labels information related to executions as a state [...]
The Constitutional Court of Hungary repealed a village ban on the construction of mosques as well as headscarves like burkas and chadors worn by Muslim women on Wednesday. The village of Asotthalom, located on the Serbian boarder, implemented implemented the law in November. The village also outlawed muezzins, men who call Muslims to prayer from [...]
US Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday announced his office has mandated immigration enforcement as a priority. In order to limit the number of undocumented immigrants in the country, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a memo to all federal prosecutors instructing them to prosecute harboring and reentry cases as felonies instead of misdemeanors for [...]
Legislators in Maryland on Monday withdrew a bill proposing to make Maryland a so-called “sanctuary state.” The purpose of the bill was to “prohibiting a specified government agent from taking specified actions for immigration enforcement purposes.” The bill would have prevented law enforcement from “stopping, arresting, searching, or detaining an individual for purposes of investigating [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist James M. Grijalva discusses the recent controversy concerning the Dakota Access Pipeline… As spring emerged on the northern plains in late March, news broke of unrelated but congenerous developments in the long running sagas of two oil pipelines proposed for the Midwestern United States. The Energy Transfer partnership completed construction of the [...]
