The US House Judiciary Committee approved new legislation on Wednesday shielding reporters from being compelled to disclose confidential sources. Under the bill, journalists could not be forced by prosecutors to reveal their informants unless a court determined that the public interest in disclosure outweighed the public interest in news gathering. Committee chairman Rep. John Conyers [...]
The UK Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) issued a report Thursday on the shooting death of Jean Charles de Menezes , an innocent Brazilian man mistaken for a terrorist by police in July 2005, clearing London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair of any misconduct but concluding that Assistant Commissioner Andrew Hayman misled his colleagues and [...]
China's Shanxi province High People's Court announced the conviction of 31 defendants in 18 separate trials for their involvement in the use of slave labor at various brick kilns in the Shanxi and Henan provinces Thursday. The defendants were sentenced to between two to five-years in prison. Four government officials, convicted of dereliction of duty [...]
The US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court restricted the government's monitoring of e-mail and telephone conversations of suspected terrorists in foreign countries in a ruling publicly disclosed Thursday. According to US House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-OH) , the ruling limits the ability of US agencies to monitor communications between two suspected terrorists when the [...]
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove refused to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday during the committee's seventh hearing on the Justice Department's firing of US Attorneys . Following President Bush's orders that White House staff not appear , Rove skipped the hearing altogether. Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) [...]
UK Conservative Party leader William J. Hague repeated his earlier call for a general referendum on the proposed EU Reform Treaty during an interview with BBC Radio 4 Thursday, saying that the reform treaty is essentially the same as the failed EU Constitution and threatens to erode British sovereignty without a democratic mandate. Hague also [...]
Joseph Terrence Thomas v. Graham Mowbray, Federal Magistrate & ORS Defendants, High Court of Australia, August 2, 2007 . Read the full text of the judgment. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
Stockwell Two: An investigation into complaints about the Metropolitan Police Service's handling of public statements following the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July 2005, Independent Police Complaints Commission, August 2, 2007 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
Richard Vanderbrook, et al. v. Unitrin Preferred Insurance Company, et al., US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, August 2, 2007 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) convicted two former leaders of Sierra Leone's Civil Defense Forces militia Thursday, finding Moinina Fofana and Allieu Kondewa guilty on four counts of "murder, cruel treatment, pillage, and collective punishment." Kondewa was also convicted on an additional charge for the recruitment of child combatants under the age of [...]
