In a ruling from the bench on Thursday, Wisconsin Dane County Circuit Judge Josann Reynolds ordered the state’s Governor Scott Walker to call special elections to fill two empty seats which were previously held by Republicans. Walker had previously refused to call the elections after two fellow Republicans stepped down to join the Walker administration. [...]
Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed a bill known as the Reproductive Parity Act (RPA) into law on Wednesday, which will require insurers in the state of Washington to provide coverage for elective abortions and contraception if they also provide coverage for maternity care. Additionally, the RPA will also require health insurance plans issued or renewed [...]
The US House of Representatives on Wednesday approved the “Right to Try Act of 2017,” which would give terminally ill patients the “right to try” unproven experimental treatments. Under the bill, the government would not be able to prohibit or restrict production and distribution of an experimental drug that “is intended to treat a patient [...]
The US District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi on Tuesday granted a temporary restraining order blocking Mississippi’s HB 1510 , enacted only one day earlier, that prohibits abortion after the 15-week gestation period. Termed the most restrictive abortion legislation in the US, the law calculates the gestation period from the first day of [...]
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on whether a court may exercise jurisdiction over property owned by a tribal government despite a generally applicable sovereign immunity to suit. In this case , the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe and the Lundgrens owned adjacent properties in which a Washington state trial court denied the tribe’s motion to [...]
Former South Korean president Lee Myung-bak was arrested and jailed early Friday on multiple corruption charges, including bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power. The Seoul Central District Court approved the arrest warrant based on serious allegations of crime and the possibility that the ex-president may attempt to destroy evidence. Prosecutors accuse Lee of taking up [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Dennis J. Ventry, Jr., of the University of California Davis School of Law (UC Davis School of Law) discusses how a recent Supreme Court decision on whistleblower laws ultimately undermines the corporations they are meant to protect… In Digital Realty Trust Inc. v. Somers , the U.S. Supreme Court voted 9-0 to [...]
At the UN Human Rights Council Wednesday, 45 nations condemned the increasingly authoritarian actions taken by the regime in Cambodia. Last fall, opposition leader Kem Sokha was jailed and is being held in terrible conditions in an isolated prison. Shortly thereafter, his party was officially dissolved by the supreme court. The party’s previous leader Sam [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday urged Eastern Caribbean countries to repeal colonial “buggery” laws . Among a variety of requests, HRW urged the countries, including Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, to repeal all laws that criminalize consensual activity among sex couples, [...]
Several Republican legislators in Pennsylvania filed resolutions on Tuesday to impeach Democratic Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justices Max Baer, David Wecht, Debra Todd, Christine Donohue, and Kevin Dougherty . The resolutions claim that the Justices should be impeached due to misbehavior in office. The resolutions were filed following a memorandum submitted by Pennsylvania House member Cris [...]
