A federal judge on Monday dismissed a habeas corpus challenge brought by Afghan national Haji Wazir detained at Bagram Air Base without charges since 2002. Judge John Bates of the US District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed Wazir's petition, finding that Section 7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 , outlining habeas [...]
The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced Tuesday that it would delay the mandatory installation of controversial "Green Dam" Internet content filtering software. The software would block websites containing content such as pornography, drugs, homosexuality, or violence, and was scheduled to be installed on all computers sold in the country after July [...]
Bill Piper and Ethan Nadelmann : "US Attorney General Eric Holder's recent call for eliminating the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity and reforming mandatory minimum sentencing is a welcome development that reflects the growing momentum for sentencing reform on this issue. This momentum began last year when then-Senator Joe Biden, running in the Democratic presidential primaries [...]
An opposition politician in Niger on Tuesday accused President Mamadou Tandja of committing a coup d'etat by annulling the West African country's Constitutional Court on Monday. Bazoum Mohamed of the Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism (PNDS) said that Tandja did not have the right to assume emergency powers , disband the court , or [...]
The German Constitutional Court ruled Tuesday that the European Union (EU) reform treaty, also known as the Lisbon Treaty , is compatible with the German Basic Law , but requires parliamentary reforms before it can be ratified. German President Horst Kohler had withheld his signature after the measure was passed by the German parliament and [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Andrew J. Puglia Levy, an attorney in Washington D.C. who served in the US Department of Homeland Security from 2006-2009, most recently as deputy general counsel, says the risks of bringing some Guantanamo detainees to the United States are significant because the Obama Administration's legal options for holding them here are limited [...]
Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) said Monday that they would attempt to charge Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with genocide. The announcement came after the ICC ruled last week to permit prosecutors to appeal the decision not to issue genocide charges against al-Bashir. More evidence will need to be proffered in order for the [...]
The US Supreme Court closed its 2008 term Monday without deciding whether to hear the case of the remaining 13 Chinese Uighur Muslims at Guantanamo Bay . The Court did not provide a reason for delaying its decision. Court watchers believe the Court's decision may have been based on their desire to avoid interference with [...]
The US Supreme Court issued a second set of orders Monday, granting certiorari in one additional case. On its final day of the term, the Court agreed to hear Briscoe v. Virginia , in which it will consider whether, if a state allows a prosecutor to introduce a certificate of a forensic laboratory analysis, without [...]
Wazir, et al. v. Gates, et al., US District Court for the District of Columbia, June 29, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on legal issues surrounding Bagram Air Base.
