Thailand's National Legislative Assembly (NLA) on Thursday approved the lifting of a ban on public gatherings of more than five people, according to Assembly President Meechai Ruchapan . The Council for National Security , formerly the Council for Democratic Reform, announced the ban on public gatherings one day after the Thai military led a bloodless [...]
Xiao Yang, president of the Supreme People's Court in China, has encouraged Chinese courts to refrain from passing death sentences , telling judges to always lean toward life when possible . Xiao's comments, reported in the state media Thursday, follow recent legislation passed by the National People's Congress to amend the Organic Law on the [...]
The International Criminal Court (ICC) held a hearing Thursday to determine whether there was enough evidence to proceed to trial in the case against a Congolese militia leader. Thomas Lubanga , founder of the militant Union of Patriotic Congolese , was formally charged with enlisting child soldiers in the violence-plagued Ituri district . Lubanga is [...]
The Russian Supreme Court on Thursday reversed the acquittal of two Chechens accused of murdering Forbes magazine editor Paul Klebnikov in 2004 and ordered a new trial in the case. Kazbek Dukuzov and Musa Vakhayev, who did not appear in court Thursday, were acquitted by eight jurors in the Moscow City Court in May after [...]
The Ethiopian government is responsible for the deaths of thousands of student protestors and demonstrators over the past 15 years, Judge Teshale Aberra told the Guardian in an interview Wednesday. Aberra, who was president of the Oromia Supreme Court and a judge in Ethiopia for 12 years, defected to the UK in October and is [...]
US District Judge Susan Illston of the Northern District of California on Wednesday blocked the enforcement of provisions of Proposition 83 , a measure approved Tuesday by 70 percent of state voters that prohibits registered sex offenders from residing "within 2,000 feet of any public or private school or park where children regularly gather." Illston [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Wednesday applauded the resignation of US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as a "step in the right direction" and urged Congress to launch an investigation into his alleged abuses of power. ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said in a statement: Rumsfeld is responsible for the torture and abuse [...]
Martha Stewart , her company and its insurers are expecting to pay $30 million to settle a class action lawsuit regarding Stewart's 2001 sale of ImClone Systems stocks one day before an FDA announcement resulted in a significant drop in the stock's value, according to the company's quarterly report filed with US Securities and Exchange [...]
JURIST Special Guest Columnist Giovanni Di Stefano, an Italian lawyer who has represented Saddam Hussein and former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, says that the recent trial of Hussein and seven co-defendants for crimes against humanity in Dujail is problematic not only as regards Saddam, but also in its conviction of Awad Hamad al-Bandar, [...]
JURIST Contributing Editor Marjorie Cohn of Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president of the National Lawyers Guild, says that although Donald Rumsfeld is resigning as US Secretary of Defense, steps should be and will be taken to hold him accountable for breaches of international law and even war crimes sanctioned in Iraq and Guantanamo during [...]
