US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts announced in the 2014 Year-End Report Wednesday that the Supreme Court is developing an electronic filing system, expected to be operational in 2016. This will make documents available online to the public with no charge, including petitions, responses to petitions, merits briefs, motions and applications. In the report, [...]
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday expressed “principled condemnation” of an attempted coup in Gambia earlier this week, urging respect for the rule of law. On Tuesday morning gunfire erupted near the presidential palace in Banjul. Gambia President Yahya Jammeh returned to the country on Wednesday, and officials say the situation is now calm and [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida ruled Thursday that Florida county clerks have a legal duty to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples, while also noting that they are not ordered to do so. This ruling clarifies a stay on the August district court decision that declared the [...]
The High Court of Kenya on Friday suspended eight sections of the controversial new anti-terrorism law until a legal challenge by the opposition is heard by the court. The Security Laws (Amendment) Act of 2014 , signed by President Uhuru Kenyatta , was passed by the Kenyan Parliament two weeks ago and was promptly challenged [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, of Penn State Law, discusses President Obama’s executive actions on immigration and analyzes the two main immigration reform programs … On November 20, 2014, President Obama announced a series of executive actions on immigration aimed at reducing deportations for people who present positive equities such as a close family [...]
Israel’s Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a petition filed by eight human rights groups and four Israeli families against a policy of demolishing terrorists’ homes . The four families’ homes in east Jerusalem all have impending demolition orders. The attorney for the organizations argued the policy, Section 119 of the emergency defense regulations, had not [...]
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday signed the Rome Statute to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) at a meeting in Ramallah. The Rome Statute is the founding treaty of the ICC. It lists the “crimes falling within the jurisdiction of the ICC, the court’s rules of procedure and the mechanisms for States to cooperate [...]
Egypt’s Court of Cassation on Thursday, ordered a retrial for three Al Jazeera journalists jailed for falsifying news reports and associating with the Muslim Brotherhood . The three journalists are Peter Greste, Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Baher Mohamed. Greste and Fahmy are both foreign nationals; Greste is Australian, and Fahmy holds both Egyptian and Canadian [...]
India’s President, Shri Pranab Mukherjee approved the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Bill on Wednesday to modify the judicial selection process in the nation’s supreme courts and 24 high courts. The bill replaces the 20 year-old collegium system, which was criticized within India in recent years. The Chief Justice of India will run the NJAC, [...]
Illinois Governor Patt Quinn on Tuesday signed into law a bill that establishes new rules over how private conversations may be recorded. The new law requires that all parties involved in a private conversation give their permission to be recorded. Under the law such a conversation is defined as any oral communication between two or [...]
