Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was taken into custody Tuesday morning for questioning regarding allegations that he received millions of euros in illegal campaign financing from former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi . The questioning lasted from early Tuesday morning to well into the night. According to local reports, the prosecutors questioning Sarkozy specialize in tax [...]
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday rejected a request made by Ireland to find that the “Hooded Men” previously detained by the UK had suffered torture. Dismissing the request 6-1, the ECHR stated there was no justification in revising the 1978 decision that found the treatment of the men was inhumane and [...]
An independent UN human rights expert on Tuesday submitted a report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva highlighting Israel’s failure to ensure the health and welfare of Palestinians living under their control. Michael Lynk, the current Special Rapporteur to the Human Rights Council, found that the healthcare system provided to Palestinians living in Gaza [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral argument on Tuesday concerning the constitutional validity of California’s Reproductive Fact Act , which has been challenged on First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds. The Act requires licensed clinics that list their primary purpose as providing family planning or pregnancy-related services to notify and inform all clients concerning the availability [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Tennessee on Monday dismissed an action by the state of Tennessee against the federal refugee resettlement program. The plaintiffs on behalf of the state of Tennessee asserted that the federal government was violating the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, reserving all powers not [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday that the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 (SLUSA) did not strip state courts of jurisdiction over class action lawsuits under the 1933 Securities Act . The Supreme Court decided that the statute does not say that state courts cannot hear class actions brought only on federal [...]
A three-judge panel of the Inner House of the Scotland Court of Session on Tuesday ordered a hearing on whether a referral may be made to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the revocability of the UK’s notice of intention to withdraw from the EU. In so ordering, the court rejected the lower court’s [...]
Amenesty International on Tuesday warned that China’s new Supervision Law is a “systemic threat to human rights.” The stated purpose of the new law is to centralize local and provincial supervision bodies in order to limit corruption. However, Amnesty expressed its concerns over the new supervision body, “the Liuzhi system,” which creates a body that [...]
Golos , a Russian organization which advocates for fair elections, reported numerous, large-scale instances of electoral fraud at Sunday’s election, in which Vladimir Putin was reelected. In addition to members monitoring the voting facilities in person, the organization received 2,000 written reports of violations on election day and six thousand calls to the organization’s hotline. [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in a case concerning the Minnesota revocation-upon-divorce statute, which revokes an ex-spouse’s beneficiary designation once the couple divorces. The relevant part of the statute states: “the dissolution or annulment of a marriage revokes any revocable … beneficiary designation … made by an individual to the individual’s former [...]
