Pakistani riot police and security forces fired tear gas at dark-suited lawyers and law students assembled at the High Court in Lahore Monday and charged them with batons as some 2000 demonstrated against President Pervez Musharraf's Saturday proclamation of emergency rule , suspension of the constitution and dismissal of the country's Supreme Court. The initially-peaceful [...]

A top official with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said Sunday that an unsuccessful bid by a French charity to fly 103 children out of Chad late last month violated international law. UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman was quoted by Reuters as saying that it was “simply unacceptable to see children taken out of [...]

US Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) said Sunday that he will support the nomination of former federal judge Michael Mukasey as US attorney general. Mukasey's nomination has come under fire over his refusal to call waterboarding torture. Specter, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on CNN's Late Edition that Mukasey could have provided [...]

Chadian authorities Sunday freed seven Europeans – three French journalists and four Spanish flight attendants – held in connection with a French charity's attempted airlift from Chad of 103 children alleged to be Darfur orphans. French President Nicolas Sarkozy flew to Chad Sunday to personally intervene with the Chadian government over its handling of the [...]

Pakistani police and security services detained hundreds of lawyers, rights activists and opposition figures Saturday and Sunday in a clampdown following President Pervez Musharraf's Saturday proclamation of emergency rule . Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said Sunday that up to 500 people had been arrested in the previous 24-hour period. Among the current detainees are former [...]

New Pakistan Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar Sunday effectively set aside dismissed Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry's last-ditch attempt to block President Pervez Musharraf's Saturday emergency declaration and Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) , saying that the Supreme Court of Pakistan had issued no order on the matters. A declaration issued Saturday by an 8-member Supreme Court [...]

Order, Supreme Court of Pakistan, November 3, 2007 . Read the full text of the order . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

JURIST Contributing Editor Ali Khan of Washburn University School of Law says General Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency in Pakistan has created a situation of lawlessness in the country that may actually prompt another military coup… On November 3, Pakistan took its turn at playing the Dark Future — a lawless game of alternate reality, [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Faisal Naseem Chaudhry, an advocate of the Lahore High Court in Lahore, Pakistan, says that the greatest danger to law and the constitution in Pakistan in the wake of General Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule is not the much-maligned judiciary, but the military dictator himself and those who would support [...]

Basil Nabi Malik : "An 8 member bench of the Supreme Court has held as illegal and unconstitutional the Proclamation of Emergency and the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) issued today by the Chief of Army Staff. The Supreme Court restrained the Government of Pakistan, composed of the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan, from undertaking [...]