AP is reporting that the Iraqi electoral commission says it will recheck "unusually high numbers" in constitutional referendum results from certain areas of the country to make sure the poll meets international standards. A Sunni leader Sunday claimed that Sunnis in four provinces had voted against the draft Iraqi constitution, and delivered a letter to [...]
The British government on Monday proposed allowing non-lawyers to partner with lawyers to run combined firms and the creation of an independent body to handle complaints against legal professionals. The proposed reforms to the legal profession in England and Wales were outlined by the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) in a white paper, The Future [...]
The US Supreme Court Monday lifted a temporary stay issued late Friday that blocked a lower court order allowing prison officials in Missouri to transport a pregnant inmate to a medical facility for an abortion. Justice Clarence Thomas had issued the stay pending a decision by the full Court, which unanimously refused Missouri's request to [...]
The Dutch Equal Opportunities Commission will hear the nation's first case brought by a Muslim woman who was refused a job because she would not wear a headscarf . The Islamic College in Amsterdam refused to hire Samira Haddad for an Arabic teaching job because she refused to wear a burka. Dutch law requires religious [...]
France's former Interior Minister Charles Pasqua said Monday that he did not profit from the now defunct UN Oil-for-Food Program in Iraq. A US Senate report released in May alleged that Pasqua, France's former UN Ambassador Jean-Bernard Merimee, and several other English and Russian officials received barrels of oil from Baghdad during the program, which [...]
The Former Iraqi Government on Trial, Human Rights Watch, October 17, 2005 . Excerpt: The first trials before the SICT will be a litmus test for whether it is up to the task of delivering justice. The charges against the accused are the most serious recognized by the international community, and the SICT must be [...]
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Monday he will not be forced into weakening the government's tough new anti-terrorism measures . The draft legislation, leaked onto the Internet last Friday by the concerned Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory, has been severely criticized by many who believe it erodes civil liberties and free speech, [...]
UK Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer said Sunday that although he agreed with the Government's position that extended periods of custody in detaining terror suspects were needed, detainments must be monitored by a judge. Speaking on BBC television's Sunday AM, Falconer said that a judge overseeing the process on a regular basis would make sure that [...]
JURIST Contributing Editor William G. Ross of Cumberland Law School, Samford University, says that while the nomination of Harriet Miers to the US Supreme Court is not without its problems, the selection of close presidential associates for the high court is an historical commonplace, and several criticisms of Miers' background and education are artificial and [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist William Banks of Syracuse University College of Law says that President Bush's proposal after Hurricane Katrina to change the federal Posse Comitatus law to allow a greater military role in the event of natural disasters may not be a good idea from a cultural or military perspective, and may not even be [...]
