A New York state appeals court on Friday unanimously ruled that the state must legally recognize valid out-of-state same-sex marriages . Patricia Martinez filed the lawsuit in Rochester, NY against her employer Monroe Community College (MCC) after it denied her request to extend health benefits to her spouse Lisa Golden. The couple was married in [...]
Mohammed Jawad Charge Sheet, US Department of Defense, January 31, 2008 . Read the full text of the charges . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women Friday called for Saudi Arabia to abolish laws that give men complete guardianship over women. Under current Saudi law, women have few or no rights as regards marriage, divorce, child custody, and property ownership. The committee also urged Saudi Arabia to outlaw polygamy, which it [...]
Suspended South Africa police commissioner and former INTERPOL president Jackie Selebi was provisionally charged Friday in a South African regional court with three counts of corruption and one count of defeating the ends of justice. A spokesperson for South Africa's National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) told BBC News that the charges did not amount to a [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said Friday that it will not reconsider its July 2007 decision that federal appeals courts reviewing the "enemy combatant" designation of Guantanamo Bay detainees must review all evidence regarding that detainee. In the July decision, the appeals court rejected the government's argument that the [...]
The Constitutional Court of Romania Thursday ruled that parts of the law creating the National Council for the Study of Securitate Archives (CNSAS) are unconstitutional. Head of the Supreme Council of Magistrates Linda Barbulescu said that the court's ruling effectively strikes down all previous findings by the CNSAS, the agency charged with investigating the archives [...]
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Thursday that Turkey violated the human rights of two men when police subjected them to inhuman and degrading treatment and then failed to properly investigate their allegations of abuse. In Donmus and Kaplan v. Turkey , two plaintiffs said they were physically tortured while in police custody [...]
Pakistani Supreme Court Bar Association President Aitzaz Ahsan Friday called for the resignation of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf after being freed from house arrest late Thursday. Ahsan was detained in a security sweep after Musharraf's November 3 declaration of emergency rule ; he was held for a time in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail before being sent [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Thursday upheld a district court's dismissal of a lawsuit against a Massachusetts town that allows its public school system to teach children about same-sex marriage . The appeals court held that "Public schools are not obliged to shield individual students from ideas which potentially are [...]
The UK military is investigating allegations surrounding the 2004 deaths of 22 Iraqi detainees who may have been in UK custody and the alleged torture of nine other detainees, officials said Thursday after a court-imposed gag order on the probe was lifted. The investigation concerns a 2004 clash between insurgents and a British convoy in [...]
