The new term of the US Supreme Court begins Monday with new Chief Justice John Roberts being sworn-in at the Court in a private investiture ceremony . Roberts, who took the constitutional oath during a White House ceremony last week, will preside over a number of high-profile, controversial cases dealing with abortion, assisted suicide and [...]
The European Union Monday postponed a ceremony to mark the opening of membership talks with Turkey , without setting a new time. The postponement comes as member states reached a deadlock over the terms for opening the talks on Turkey's proposed membership in the EU . Austria has demanded that Turkey not be offered full [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Donna Arzt of Syracuse University College of Law says that for all the furor over whether the Hurricane Katrina evacuees should or should not be called "refugees", that legal label doesn't apply in circumstances of natural disaster…. In the midst of the Katrina disaster, many of the victims, their supporters, and much [...]
AP is reporting that President Bush will nominate White House counsel Harriet Miers to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as an Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court. A formal announcement is expected at 8 AM ET. Miers was mooted as a dark-horse candidate for the slot as early as July, and her name [...]
The Iraqi Special Tribunal announced Sunday that five as-yet-unnamed judges have been selected to preside over the trial of Saddam Hussein and seven of his associates for the 1982 killings of 143 Shiite Muslims in the village of Dujail . The trial is set to begin on October 19 , despite motions filed by Hussein [...]
The UN-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) announced Sunday that it will investigate allegations of voting fraud in last month’s legislative elections . The JEMB decision says that the instances of fraud, including ballot stuffing and proxy voting, were isolated, not systematic, and will not affect the integrity of the overall results. JEMB chairman Peter [...]
Lawyers acting on behalf of former New Orleans prisoners have filed papers asking the US Department of Justice to immediately assume direct supervision over a temporary holding facility at a closed juvenile prison in Jena, Louisiana, the source of more than two dozen complaints of prisoner abuse. Other affidavits filed by defense lawyers based on [...]
Connecticut joined Vermont Saturday as the second US state that recognizes civil unions for same-sex couples . The development was marked by special Saturday hours at Hartford’s City Hall , where 26 same-sex couples applied for their licenses. A New Haven spokesperson reported that only 10 couples applied for the licenses there on the first [...]
Yevgeny Adamov, the former minister in charge of the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency (FAAE) has gone on hunger strike in a Swiss prison, where he has been held since May 2. Adamov, 66, is demanding that Swiss authorities extradite him to Russia on fraud charges. He is also wanted by the US, and was [...]
US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has started new negotiations with Shiites and Kurds in a last-ditch attempt to achieve a political compromise on the provisions of the draft Iraqi constitution creating a federal structure for the country. Humam Hammoudi, the Shiite head of the country's constitutional drafting commitee, said American representatives had met with [...]
