Zambia’s new president, Defense and Justice Minister Edgar Lungu, was sworn on Sunday after he was declared the winner of the presidential poll Saturday night. Lungu was a candidate for the Patriotic Front , the ruling party in Zambia. The elections were called after the the death of President Michael Sata in October 2014. Lungu [...]
The United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama on Friday struck down the Alabama Sanctity of Marriage Amendment and the Alabama Marriage Protection Act , ruling them unconstitutional. Applying strict scrutiny, Judge Callie V.S. Granade found the marriage laws violated the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Saturday criticized the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) of using “unlawful and excessive force” against protestors in the capital of Kinshasa this past week. The recent demonstrations have taken place across the country to oppose proposed changes in a law that would allegedly allow President Joseph Kabila [...]
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Friday criticized Israel for unlawfully demolishing Palestinian homes in West Bank and East Jerusalem this week. OCHA indicates that over the past three days, 77 Palestinians have been made homeless as a result of Israel’s demolitions. Over half of those that have lost their [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Chris Wester, New England School of Law, Class of 2016, discusses how rights for same-sex couples in the US have evolved…Many of the rights that our society refers to today as basic, uninhibited and fundamental to the lives of all American citizens were not constitutionally guaranteed without substantial civil unrest and debate. [...]
An Egyptian court on Saturday ordered a retrial for 152 Muslim Brotherhood supporters sentenced in a mass trial last year. Thirty-seven were sentenced to death, and 115 others were sentenced to life imprisonment for their roles in attacks against Egyptian Christians and their churches in August 2013. The attacks are thought to be revenge for [...]
The US Supreme Court on Friday granted certiorari to determine whether Oklahoma’s lethal injection protocol is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment . The case, Glossip v. Gross , originated when four death row inmates filed a complaint against the Director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections for the use of the midazolam drug in the [...]
A criminal court in Paris convicted three people of hate crimes on Tuesday for tweeting homophobic messages on the social media site Twitter. The offenders received fines between 300 and 500 euros for inciting anti-gay sentiments by creating hashtags with messages such as “let’s burn the gays,” and “the gays must die.” This is the [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Justin Camper, Valparaiso University Law School Class of 2016, discusses the issues facing voters at the polls…“Voting is the most precious right of every citizen and we have a moral obligation to ensure the integrity of our voting process.” No sentiment concerning voting rings truer than this expression of former Secretary of [...]
A lawyer for former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks says the US government admitted his conviction was incorrect and did not dispute Hicks’ innocence. The US Court of Military Commission Review has not yet ruled on the appeal, but Hicks’ lawyer, Stephen Kenny, believes they will overturn the conviction. Hicks was sentenced to seven years [...]
