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 Legal news from Thursday, January 31, 2008 |
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Thursday, January 31, 2008 |
Pakistan lawyers rally for release, reinstatement of ousted judges
Nick Fiske at 7:25 PM ET
[JURIST] Thousands of lawyers held rallies across Pakistan on Thursday, protesting the ouster of Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry [JURIST news archive] and other superior court judges last November when Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf declared emergency rule [JURIST report] and suspended the country's constitution. The protests followed a statement by Chaudhry [JURIST report] Wednesday in which he called Musharraf an "extremist" and chided him for deposing 60 judges and keeping Chaudhry under virtual house arrest [JURIST report] in his official residence. The lawyers are demanding Musharraf's resignation, the release of all detained judges and lawyers, and the reinstatement of all deposed judges.
Last week, Pakistani lawyers demonstrated in Islamabad [JURIST report] against Chaudhry's continued detention. Also last week, a report [text] by Pakistan's News daily suggested the government's detention of Chaudhry may be skirting constitutional limits on detentions generally [JURIST report]. The Pakistani constitution requires that preventative detention be limited to 90 days unless a review board has extended the detention. The detention period will expire as of January 31, but the government has not referred Chaudhry's case to a review board, instead saying that because Chaudhry and other deposed judges are not being held under court-ordered detention they do not qualify for review. AKI has more.
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Iraq VP opposes bill allowing reinstatement of ex-Baath party members
Benjamin Klein at 6:44 PM ET
[JURIST] Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi [personal website, in Arabic; EPIC profile, PDF] said Thursday that he is opposed to a proposed law that would allow most members of Saddam Hussein's defunct Baath Party [BBC backgrounder] to be reinstated to public life. Al-Hashemi criticized the Accountability and Justice Law [ICTJ backgrounder, PDF], passed by the Iraqi parliament [JURIST report] earlier this month and later endorsed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, because it would require that many Iraqis given jobs following the 2003 US-led invasion of the country be forced to vacate their positions for the former Baathists. Before it can become law, the bill must be ratified by the Iraqi Presidency Council, which consists of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi [BBC profiles], and al-Hashemi. Al-Hashemi said Thursday that Talabani and Abdul-Mahdi also object to the law and will not sign it. Reuters has more.
Iraq set up a De-Baathification Commission [official website] in 2003 with the approval of the US-run Coalition Provisional Authority [official website], and its early agenda was rooting out members of Hussein's Baath party from positions of power in the Iraqi government, prompting the forced removal [JURIST report] of nearly 30,000 Baathists from public life. The Bush administration, however, urged the Iraqi government to shift the commission from outright prohibition to "accountability and reconciliation" in the interests of countering the growing insurgency in the country. Passage of de-Baathification reform legislation was noted by the White House last year as an as-yet-unmet benchmark [JURIST report] of Iraqi progress towards stability. Iraqi Shiite religious leader Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani has previously called the bill "dangerous" [JURIST report] and the bill's passage stalled [JURIST report] as recently as late November 2007.
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US Supreme Court stays execution of Alabama death row inmate
Mike Rosen-Molina at 6:17 PM ET
[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] on Thursday stayed the execution [order, PDF] of Alabama death row inmate James Harvey Callahan "pending the timely filing and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari." Callahan had been scheduled to be executed at 6 PM CST on Thursday. The stay will terminate automatically if Callahan's petition for certiorari is denied. A district judge blocked Callahan's execution [opinion, PDF] in December, pending the Supreme Court's decision in Baze v. Rees [JURIST report], but the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit lifted the stay [opinion, PDF] earlier this week after finding that Callahan had filed his constitutional challenge to Alabama's execution procedures after the statue of limitations had expired. AP has more. SCOTUSblog has additional coverage.
Callahan would have been the first prisoner to be executed since September 2007, when the Supreme Court granted certiorari to hear Baze v. Rees. In that case, the Court is considering whether the three-drug lethal injection cocktail [DPIC backgrounder] now used in over 30 states violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Since the US Supreme Court accepted the Baze case in September, courts have stayed executions in several states, including Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida [JURIST reports].
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Bush signs 15-day extension for stopgap surveillance law
Nick Fiske at 6:00 PM ET
[JURIST] US President George W. Bush Thursday signed a 15-day extension to the temporary Protect America Act [S 1927 materials; JURIST report], carrying it beyond its February 1 expiration date. The Protect Act, enacted as a stopgap while Congress worked on long-term legislation to "modernize" the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [text; JURIST news archive], currently allows the US government to eavesdrop inside of the US without court approval as long as one end of a conversation is reasonably perceived to have been outside of the US. On Monday, Bush threatened to veto any extension of the Act that did not include a provision which granted immunity to telecom companies that cooperated with the government's warrentless domestic wiretap program [JURIST news archive]. Last week, Senate Republicans defeated an attempt by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [official website] to extend the Protect Act for an additional month without the immunity provision. Reid then sent a letter to Bush asking that he support an extension to the Protect Act [JURIST report] as it appeared unlikely Congress would agree to reauthorize FISA before February 1.
In his weekly radio address [transcript; recorded audio] Saturday, Bush urged Congress to approve the Senate's proposed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Bill [S 2248 materials; JURIST news archive] designed to revise and extend FISA so as to - among other things - expand the oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) [official backgrounder], giving it greater powers to monitor the government's eavesdropping on American citizens. AP has more.
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Russia top court upholds life sentence for ex-Yukos security chief
Benjamin Klein at 5:57 PM ET
[JURIST] The Russian Supreme Court [official website; in Russian] Thursday rejected an appeal to overturn a life sentence for former Yukos [JURIST news archive] security chief Alexei Pichugin [Wikipedia profile] for his involvement in organizing a series of contract killings. Pichugin was convicted [JURIST report] by the Moscow City Court in August 2007 for organizing three murders and four attempted murders. Pichugin originally received a 24-year sentence [JURIST report], but the Russian Supreme Court overturned the sentence and ordered a retrial [JURIST report] after prosecutors appealed the sentence as being too lenient. Pichugin's lawyers said they have already filed an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights [official website], claiming his right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights [text] has been violated.
Pichugin has maintained that the charges against him were politically motivated as part of an effort to connect former Yukos executive Leonid Nevzlin [Forbes profile] to the deaths. Nevzlin is currently living in Israel to escape possible prosecution. Former Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky [JURIST news archive] and his business partner Platon Lebedev [JURIST news archive] are currently serving eight-year terms in a Siberian prison for fraud and tax evasion. RIA Novosti has more.
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Rights group urges Malaysia to revoke controversial security law
Brett Murphy at 12:31 PM ET
[JURIST] The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) [advocacy website] Thursday called for Malaysia to lift the Internal Security Act (ISA) [HRW backgrounder], a preventive detention law that allows the Malaysian government to detain suspects for two years without trial and to renew the detention indefinitely. The FIDH said that the ISA is contrary to fundamental human rights [press release] and is being used to stifle peaceful dissent against the government. FIDH also said that five members of the Hindu Rights Action Force [Wikipedia backgrounder] who were detained [JURIST report] in December will not receive a fair trial as long as the law is in effect. A court heard the activists' appeal against their detention earlier this week and a decision in the case is expected on February 26.
In November 2007, some 20,000 protesters took to the streets of Kuala Lumpur to participate in demonstrations [TIME report] that were sparked by complaints that the predominantly Malay Muslim government economically discriminates against ethnic Indians and other minorities. Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi [official website; BBC profile] gave permission for authorities to rely on the ISA to stop the protests [JURIST report]. Twenty-six ethnic Indians were later charged with attempted murder [JURIST report] during a clash with police at a temple compound in connection with the protest. All 26 suspects pleaded not guilty. AP has more.
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Zimbabwe court affirms alleged coup plotter extradition to Equatorial Guinea
Brett Murphy at 12:09 PM ET
[JURIST] The Zimbabwe High Court Wednesday ruled against an appeal filed by the legal team defending Simon Mann [BBC profile] seeking to prevent Mann's extradition [JURIST report] for trial in Equatorial Guinea. Judge Rita Makarau held that the government had enough evidence that Mann was involved in a plot to overthrow Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Ngeuma [BBC profile] to allow the extradition order. Lawyers for Mann, who is currently serving a four-year sentence after being convicted on weapons charges [JURIST report] in Zimbabwe in 2004, argued that Mann will likely face torture and possibly the death penalty if he is extradited to Equatorial Guinea, but the judge ruled that his defense failed to establish a sufficient likelihood of torture.
In 2004, Mann and over 60 mercenaries were sentenced [JURIST report] in Zimbabwe for plotting a coup against Ngeuma. In 2005, Sir Mark Thatcher [BBC profile], son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, pleaded guilty in South Africa to charges related to the failed coup and was fined [JURIST reports]. AP has more.
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Bangladesh court hands down life sentences in 2005 bombings trial
Brett Murphy at 11:16 AM ET
[JURIST] Seven Islamic militants involved in multiple bombing attacks on a town in northwestern Bangladesh were sentenced to life in prison by a Bangladeshi court Thursday. The attacks were part of a larger bombing plot [JURIST report; BBC report] allegedly organized by the Islamic group Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) [SATP backgrounder] that set off more than 400 bombs nearly simultaneously throughout the country in 2005. No one was injured in the five bombings orchestrated by the seven men sentenced Thursday.
Six top JMB members were executed by hanging last year after the Bangladesh High Court in 2006 confirmed death sentences imposed by a trial court for the murder of two judges [JURIST reports] during the bombings. In 2006, three other JMB members were sentenced to death [JURIST report] and five others sentenced to life in prison for their involvement in the bombings. AP has more.
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US asks federal court to lift remaining restrictions on Navy sonar use
Brett Murphy at 10:48 AM ET
[JURIST] The US Department of Justice asked US District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper Wednesday to lift a preliminary injunction restricting the US Navy's use of sonar along the coast of Southern California. President Bush granted an exemption [JURIST report] earlier this month allowing the Navy to continue using sonar, after which Cooper eased portions of the order [order, PDF]. The DOJ argued that the exemption fell within Bush's scope of duties and asked the court to remove the injunction or, in the alternative, maintain the current partial restrictions. Lawyers for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) [advocacy website] say that Bush's action was unconstitutional and asked the court to re-impose the full injunction [PDF text] creating a 12-nautical mile zone along the coast in which the use of sonar is forbidden.
Bush's order came despite a November 2007 ruling [PDF text; NRDC press release] by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the Navy should limit its use of high-powered sonar. Bush exempted the Navy from the requirements of several environmental laws, including the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) [text], on the basis of national security, but the NRDC warned that sonar is harmful to whales and other marine animals [press release], characterizing the presidential waiver as "an attack on the rule of law." AP has more.
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US Interior Department 'unreasonably delayed' Indian Trust accounting: judge
Jaime Jansen at 9:19 AM ET
[JURIST] A federal judge in the US District Court for the District of Columbia Wednesday ruled [PDF text] that the US Department of the Interior (DOI) [official website] "unreasonably delayed" the accounting of billions of dollars of American Indian money [DOI Indian Trust Fund website], adding that it is now impossible for the DOI to remedy the breach. The decade-old Indian Trust case [Cobell v. Norton litigation website; JURIST news archive] returned to court [JURIST report] in October when US District Judge James Robertson held an evidentiary hearing. The class-action suit involves the DOI's alleged mismanagement of Native American money, including lease and sales revenues, permit fees and interest received and held for Native Americans by the US government over the last 120 years. Lead Plaintiff Elouise Cobell called the ruling "a great day in Indian Country" [press release], and said the plaintiffs looked forward to the next hearing in February to form a solution.
In March, the Native American plaintiffs rejected [JURIST report] a $7 billion settlement proposal from the US government. Some read the offer as a governmental acknowledgment of liability, but DOI officials disputed that interpretation. The plaintiffs criticized the settlement offer as "pennies on the dollar" in respect of the value of their claim as well as for its attempt to preclude further claims. AP has more.
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Federal judge dismisses Hurricane Katrina Army class action against Army Corps
Jaime Jansen at 8:00 AM ET
[JURIST] A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a class action lawsuit [JURIST report] brought by residents of New Orleans against the US Army Corps of Engineers [official website], ruling that the Flood Control Act of 1928 [text] grants immunity to the Corps. The residents of New Orleans sued the Corps alleging that the Corps had been negligent in the collapse of a flood wall and levee caused by Hurricane Katrina [JURIST news archive], arguing that the levee had been damaged prior to Katrina and that the Corps was negligent in maintaining it. While US District Judge Stanwood Duval, Jr. dismissed the suit, he also berated the Corps for their actions in building the levee system, saying that "millions of dollars were squandered in building a levee system...which was known to be inadequate by the corps' own calculations."
In a separate canal breach case [LAED case materials], Duval ruled in February that those plaintiffs could proceed with claims [JURIST report] that the Corps ignored warnings that the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet contained defects that exacerbated flooding during Katrina. AP has more. The New Orleans Times-Picayune has local coverage.
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