The United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) on Friday reopened its courthouse in Kosovo's northern city of Mitrovica. The courts were closed after being taken over by Serbian protesters in March as part of an ethnic conflict with Kosovar Albanians. The mission has said that only vital criminal court functions will be immediately [...]
Jessica Knight : "The Senate Judiciary Committee recently held a hearing on restoring the rule of law to its rightful, central place in our system of government. It focused on the U.S. Constitution as the cornerstone document that supports all other laws, and the need for Congress to actively push back against the Executive branch [...]
Investigators from the Russian Prosecutor General's Office have completed their investigation into the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya , Russian news agencies reported Thursday. Three men, Sergey Khadzhikurbanov, and brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, all from Chechnya , were arrested last August in connection with the inquiry into Politkovskaya's murder. The main suspect, Rustam Makhmudov, [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Thursday overturned the convictions of Yemeni cleric Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad and assistant, Mohammed Zayed , also from Yemen, because of evidentiary errors that were prejudicial to the extent that they deprived the defendants of a fair trial. Al-Moayad and Zayed had been convicted in [...]
The Iraqi Presidency Council on Friday signed a provincial elections bill allowing for voting in most of the country early next year. The final version did not include a controversial clause that Staffan de Mistura , the UN special representative to Iraq, had urged Iraqi lawmakers to reintroduce . That clause, which would guarantee legislative [...]
Carrie L. Davis : "It's been an eventful week for Ohio voters. Absentee voting began on Tuesday, September 30th. The deadline for registration is Monday, October 6th. And during this one week, courts across the state have ruled on numerous cases relating to voters' access to absentee ballots. Importantly, every single court has ruled to [...]
The US House of Representatives on Friday passed a $700 billion financial rescue bill that President Bush quickly signed into law . The House approved the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 by a vote of 263-171 four days after it defeated an earlier version of the bill. The final bill authorizes the Department of [...]
Nine US states and the Canadian province of Manitoba sued the US Environmental Protection Agency Thursday, alleging that an agency regulation allows the discharge of polluted water in violation of the Clean Water Act . In a complaint filed in US District Court for the Southern District of New York , the state attorneys general [...]
United States v. Al-Moayad & Zayed, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, October 2, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
Sir Ian Blair resigned Thursday from his position as Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police Service ("Met") , effective December 1, 2008. Blair cited a strained relationship with the newly-elected mayor of London, Boris Johnson , and the mayor's decision for new leadership at the Met as the leading factors in his decision to resign. In [...]
