Retired Thai police Col. Charnchai Netirattakarn turned himself in Monday on charges of offering a judge $890,000 in bribes in exchange for a favorable ruling for ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and the former ruling party Thai Rak Thai (TRT) in an electoral fraud case . Charnchai was granted $5,900 bail. He faces a [...]
The Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG), Ethiopian troops and insurgent forces were responsible for "rampant violations of the laws of war" during fighting between March and April 2007 in the vicinity of Somali capital Mogadishu, according to a report released Monday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) . HRW Executive Director Ken Roth said that "the [...]
The Canadian Bar Association (CBA) on Sunday urged Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to "negotiate" with the US government for the immediate release of Canadian Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr . In a letter to Harper, CBA President J. Parker MacCarthy reiterated the CBA's position that detention at Guantanamo Bay contradicts the rule of law because [...]
Iraqi prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi announced additional charges Monday against Saddam Hussein's cousin and former Iraqi defense minister Ali Hassan al-Majid for the violent response to the predominately Shi'a uprising in southern Iraq following the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Al-Majid, also known as Chemical Ali, is being charged with genocide, mass murder, and crimes against humanity. [...]
A senior judicial official in Iran said Sunday that prosecutors have completed their investigation into two Iranian-American scholars who have been detained since May. Deputy Prosecutor Hassan Haddad said that the two scholars – Dr. Haleh Esfandiari of the DC-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Open Society Institute consultant Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh – [...]
Canadian Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin told the Canadian Bar Association Saturday that access to the country's legal system needs to be more affordable. She said "the price of justice should not be so dear" and called access to justice a "basic right." In March, a Toronto Star investigation revealed that a three-day civil trial in [...]
US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told the American Bar Association annual meeting Saturday that he was unhappy with the outcomes of several key Supreme Court cases last term, but said that he still has a strong belief in the rule of law . In his speech, Breyer said: "I'm not going to be in [...]
US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Saturday praised Justice Department officials working in Baghdad for their "commitment to the rule of law" and their work to protect "the rights and liberties of Iraqi citizens." On his third trip to Iraq as US Attorney General, Gonzales said : I am pleased to see first-hand … the [...]
A few weeks before passing the Protect America Act 2007 , members of Congress were briefed by intelligence officials that intercepts of foreign-based communications had declined to 25 percent of previous levels due to oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) , the New York Times reported Saturday. Just days before the passage of [...]
The American Bar Association (ABA) is considering a resolution urging President George W. Bush to reconsider his July 20 executive order on interrogations, which two ABA committees say allows the Central Intelligence Agency to be exempted from Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The proposed resolution also urges the US Congress to enact legislation [...]
