Ten US state attorneys general have petitioned the Supreme Court of California to postpone implementation of its May 15 decision legalizing same-sex marriages until after state elections in November. California is slated to allow all same-sex couples, regardless of state citizenship, to wed in California, but each of the 10 petitioning states bans recognition of [...]
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Friday defended the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in the face of a resolution by the Icelandic parliament calling for the prison's closure. At a news conference in Reykjavik with Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladottir, Iceland´s Minister for Foreign Affairs , Gísladottir said she had given Rice a copy of [...]
Patrick Kar-wai Poon : "The lawyers who can't pass their annual registration will not be able to practise as lawyers at least in the coming year. Article 13 of the PRC Law on Lawyers stipulates, "a person who has not acquired a lawyer's practicing certificate shall not be engaged in legal service practices in the [...]
The United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled Friday that a major provision in the 2006 reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) is constitutional. The court's decision in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Gonzales upheld the validity of Section 5 of the VRA, requiring states or towns with [...]
The Beijing Judicial Bureau has refused to renew the licenses of a number of Chinese human rights lawyers before a Saturday deadline, a China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group official said Friday. The bureau originally denied renewals to 500 lawyers, but eventually agreed to renew some licenses after the lawyers released a letter of complaint [...]
Connecticut filed a lawsuit against pharmaceutical distribution giant McKesson Corp. in US District Court for the District of Massachusetts Thursday, accusing the company of violating federal anti-racketeering laws by inflating drug prices for state-funded health care. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal alleged that McKesson and drug-price publisher First DataBank conspired to increase the difference between [...]
US Department of Defense prosecutors brought new charges against three detainees being held at the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay on Thursday. Jabran al-Qathani, Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi, and Algerian Sufyian Barhoumi are each charged with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism based on their alleged involvement with an al Qaeda bomb-making group in [...]
Merck v. Ernst, Texas Fourteenth Court of Appeals, May 29, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
The Supreme Court of Brazil Thursday ruled 6-5 that a 2005 law allowing embryonic stem cell research is constitutional, rejecting a challenge by the country's attorney general that it infringed on the "constitutional right to life." Thursday's decision drew condemnation from the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops , while Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) President Cezar [...]
An opposition party in Japan has introduced a bill in Japan's House of Representatives that would provide compensation for Korean and Taiwanese nationals convicted of war crimes committed while working for the Japanese military occupying their territories during World War II. Under the plan proposed by the Democratic Party of Japan , war criminals and [...]
