Bertha Wilson , the first woman appointed to the Supreme of Canada , died over the weekend of Alzheimer's disease, it was disclosed Monday. Wilson was 83. She was appointed to the Canadian high court by then-Prime Minister Pierre Eliot Trudeau in 1982 after having become the first woman appointed to the Court of Appeal [...]
Tennessee's moratorium on executions will expire Wednesday after Gov. Phil Bredesen accepted revised death penalty protocols Monday. Bredesen ordered the moratorium in February and directed the Tennessee Department of Corrections to conduct a "comprehensive review of the manner in which death sentences are administered… and provide new protocols and related written procedures in administering death [...]
Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Ahmed Errachidi has been detained by Moroccan police after his transfer from US custody last week. Formal charges have not yet been filed against Errachidi, but a source from the Moroccan Ministry of Justice source confirmed Monday that he is under criminal investigation. Errachidi's family expressed concern over his detention, saying [...]
British Army Corporal David Payne, convicted of abusing Iraqi detainees in 2003, was sent to jail for one year on Monday. Payne, who was one of seven British soldiers who faced court-martial for charges of detainee abuse, had pleaded guilty to charges of inhumane treatment in September. The court-martial of the seven was the first [...]
The US Supreme Court granted certiorari Monday in Medellin v. Texas , 06-984, where the Court will consider whether the Bush administration has the authority to direct a state court to comply with a ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Jose Ernesto Medellin , a Mexican national sentenced to death in Texas for [...]
Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine issued an executive order Monday closing the loophole that allowed Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho to purchase a firearm despite having been ordered to receive psychiatric treatment by a Virginia court in 2005. The executive order amends Virginia law so that any person who has received involuntary outpatient or inpatient [...]
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko dismissed Ukrainian Constitutional Court Judge Valeriy Pshenichny from office for an "oath violation," according to the presidential press service Monday. No details were released on the exact nature of the "violation." On April 25, Pshenichny said that Yushchenko had requested a transcript of the court proceedings mulling the legality of Yushchenko's [...]
Kurdish legislators in the Iraq National Assembly will vote against a draft law to regulate the country's oil because some provisions of the bill violate a February agreement with Kurdish lawmakers, a Kurdish official said Monday. In February, the Kurds agreed to support the draft bill after lengthy negotiations , but the bill was since [...]
Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser said Monday that the treatment and trial of Australian detainee David Hicks at Guantanamo Bay demonstrate that the US and Australian governments are "prepared to throw every legal principle out the window and establish a process that we would expect of tyrannical regimes." In an op-ed published on JURIST, [...]
The US Supreme Court Monday declined to hear a lawsuit brought by two Guantanamo Bay detainees challenging the legality of their military commissions. In Hamdan v. Gates and Khadr v. Bush , 06-1169, Yemeni Salim Ahmed Hamdan and Canadian Omar Khadr sought to challenge the constitutionality of Congress' decision to deny habeas challenges by suspected [...]
