An Italian court on Tuesday sentenced David Mills , a British barrister and former lawyer to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi , to four-and-a-half years in prison for accepting a $600,000 bribe to give false testimony at two trials in 1997 and 1998 involving Berlusconi broadcasting company Mediaset . The verdict was announced in an [...]
A judge in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday rejected two motions challenging the court's ability to hear the case filed on behalf of five indicted Blackwater USA guards involved in the September 2007 killings of 17 Iraqi civilians . Lawyers for the defendants asserted that the proceedings should be [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld Tuesday a New York City law that requires chain restaurants to post caloric content information on their menus and menu boards in an effort to address obesity rates. The court ruled that New York City Health Code Section 81.50 is not preempted by the Nutrition [...]
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday signed into law the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) , intended to stimulate and grow the US economy in the current recession. Along with a number of tax incentives, renewable energy funding provisions, and infrastructure project funding, the law creates a new accountability and transparency regime [...]
A lawyer for one of the men accused in the killing of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya alleged in his closing statements Tuesday that the prosecution's main pieces of evidence are flawed and have been fabricated. Defense lawyer Murad Musayev pointed out that phone records released by the telephone operator Megafon show evidence of manipulation. Musayev's [...]
JURIST Special Guest Columnist Gail Davidson, Executive Director of Lawyers Rights Watch Canada, says that Canada and the US are duty-bound to act immediately to ensure that Canadian Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr is released and repatriated, his rights are protected and violations of his rights are investigated and remedied, where appropriate, by criminal proceedings [...]
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday charged four executives from Research In Motion (RIM) , the company that makes BlackBerry, with stock options backdating and reached a settlement agreement. The four RIM executives, co-CEOs James Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, CFO Dennis Kavelman, and VP of Finance Angelo Loberto, are accused of backdating [...]
A military judge ruled that a US Army sergeant may testify for the prosecution against Sgt. Michael Leahy Jr., who is charged in connection with the killing of four Iraqi prisoners, as court-martial proceedings began Tuesday. Staff Sgt. Jess Cunningham will be allowed to testify , despite defense counsel's objection that its limited time to [...]
Italian authorities Monday began dismantling illegal immigrant camps around Rome heavily populated by members of the Roma minority ("gypsies") following the alleged weekend rape of a 14-year old girl by East European immigrants which led to public outcry and vigilante reprisals. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni meanwhile proposed an emergency decree which would authorize local bodies [...]
Gabor Rona : "For some rule-of-law fans the toasting is over and it's already the morning after. The new administration's recent decision to continue the Bush line that torture victims' claims should be dismissed in order to preserve unspecified "state secrets" was a shocker. But that's small change compared to what's on the horizon. President [...]
