Jurist Paper Chase

[JURIST] US President-elect Barack Obama officially announced on Monday that he is nominating former Department of Justice (DOJ) official Eric Holder as the next US attorney general. If confirmed by the Senate, Holder will be the first African American to lead the DOJ. Holder served as Deputy Attorney General during the Clinton Administration and led Obama's VP selection team during the election. Obama said: Eric Holder has the talent and commitment to succeed as Attorney General from his first day on the job, which is even more important in a transition that demands vigilance. He has distinguished himself as a prosecutor, a Judge, and a senior official, and he is deeply familiar with the law enforcement challenges we face– from terrorism to counter-intelligence; from white collar crime to public corruption. Eric also has the combination of toughness and independence that we need at the Justice Department. Let me be clear: the Attorney General serves the American people. And I have every expectation that Eric will protect our people, uphold the public trust, and adhere to our Constitution.After news of the pending nomination leaked last month, the Republican National Committee criticized Obama's choice because of Holder's role in the pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich on the last day of the Clinton presidency.On Monday, Obama also announced that he has asked Robert Gates, current defense secretary, to continue in the position; James Jones, a retired Marine, to serve as national security adviser; Janet Napolitano, governor of Arizona, to be secretary of Homeland Security; and Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) to be secretary of state.

[JURIST] The government of Switzerland on Sunday announced that voters in a referendum have approved a measure making the country's heroin assisted treatment program (HAT) permanent. Sixty-eight percent of 2.26 million voters approved the permanent legalization of heroin while voting against a proposal for the decriminalization of marijuana by 63.2 percent. The key difference between the two legalization schemes was scope. The legalization of heroin is limited to 21 outpatient clinics and two prisons where distribution is tightly controlled by prescriptions and given only to addicts who have been unsuccessfully treated elsewhere. In contrast, the proposed amendment to the federal constitution concerning marijuana would have broadly legalized the consumption, growing, and sale of cannabis for personal use. The HAT program began as a Swiss National Cohort Study in 1994, concluding in 1996. The study showed that the lives of the addicts in treatment at government-run centers improved dramatically. The patients in the initial study moreover reduced their dependence on crime as a source of income from 70 percent to 10 percent after eighteen months. The Netherlands and Germany have initiated similar pilot studies following the Swiss success.

[JURIST] Government officials in Zimbabwe said Monday that they will disregard a South African Development Community Tribunal ruling that ordered Zimbabwe to halt its Land Reform Program. The tribunal held that the program's seizure of white-owned farms was racially motivated and therefore contrary to the Southern African Development Community treaty, but Zimbabwean Lands Minister Didymus Mutasa was quoted in Monday's Harare Herald as saying the program was justified because it corrected past racial disparities which had favored white farmers. Mutasa said the government would continue to operate the program and seize any remaining white-owned farms. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has been harshly criticized for his farm program, which since 2000 has sought to redistribute white-owned land among the nation's indigenous farmers. In February 2006, Mutasa said that, following controversial constitutional reforms, there are no longer any white farmers operating legally in Zimbabwe. Many observers attribute Zimbabwe's disastrous economic circumstances - including an inflation rate exceeding 231,000,000 percent - to the policy, under which previously productive farms have become barren under new inexperienced owners.

[JURIST] The Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI) on Sunday ordered the release of Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, an Iraqi freelance photographer working for Reuters held by the US military. The court order, supplied to a Reuters' attorney, said the US military had no evidence to support Jassam's continued imprisonment. Jassam has been held since September in a military prison near the Baghdad airport after being detained after a raid on his home in Mahmudiya. Press groups have called upon the US military to act more quickly when reviewing cases involving journalists covering the Iraq war. A joint statement on Jassam's case issued in November by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Iraqi-based Journalistic Freedom Observatory noted that "Since the start of the US armed intervention in Iraq in March 2003, the worldwide press freedom organisation has recorded arrests of 12 people working for Reuters, all of whom have subsequently been released and their cases closed without further action." Currently, the US has the right to hold indefinitely anyone that it deems a threat until the UN mandate authorizing US presence in Iraq which expires on December 31, 2008. Last week, the Iraqi parliament approved a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that limits the US military's ability to detain uncharged persons after its January 1, 2009 implementation.

[JURIST] Kazakhstan has fallen short on its pledges to reform election laws before it takes over as chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Europe's main security and human rights body, in 2010, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released Monday. The report focused on two fundamental areas of ensuring an open and free system of elections - the rights to freedom of expression and assembly and the failure of Kazakhstan to live up to its promises of reform in those areas. The report quoted the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) as saying that the elections "did not meet a number of OSCE commitments, in particular with regard to elements of the legal framework and to the vote count and tabulation" and "interrupted an ongoing dialogue on election legislation." The report added that proposed electoral law changes sent to parliament earlier this month fail to address the fundamental problems such as term limits for the President, his unchecked powers to dissolve parliament, his ability to appoint a third of the members of the upper chamber and choose the chair and two members of the seven-member Central Election Commission. Some of the criticism of Kazakhstan's electoral practices has stemmed from the December 2005 election in which President Nursultan Nazarbaev, in office since 1991, was re-elected with 91 percent of the vote. International observers raised concerns of fraud after that poll, which opposition parties unsuccessfully challenged afterwards. In August 2007 parliamentary elections the ruling party, Nur Otan, won 88 percent of the vote. Kazakhstan has never had elections considered fair and free by Western monitors.

[JURIST] A Myanmar court on Friday sentenced two reporters to seven years imprisonment for allegedly undercutting the country's military junta by possessing reports deemed seditious. Thet Zin and Sein Win Maung were found in February with a copy of a UN special rapporteur's human rights report on Burma, along with videotapes of last year's pro-democracy demonstrations (Independent backgrounder) during a raid of the offices of The Myanmar Nation, the now-closed newspaper for which both reporters worked. The two were sentenced on a charge of breaking section 17/20 of the military-controlled country's Printers and Publishers Registration Act, and received the maximum penalty allowed allowed under that law. The sentencing came on the same day as another Myanmar court sentenced 13 members of the 88 Generation Students to six years imprisonment for undermining stability. The sentences are the latest in a string of harsh jail terms handed out to Myanmar dissidents which have been condemned by human rights groups, Western governments, and the UN as making a mockery of the military junta's announced plans to renew democracy in the country.

[JURIST] Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday convened a meeting of all political parties in order to gather national support for a plan to strengthen security in the country after terrorist attacks in country's financial capital of Mumbai killed over 180 and injured more than 300. Singh told the gathering that the country would set up a Federal Investigating Agency, strengthen air and maritime security, and use the National Security Act (NSA) to combat terrorism. He also said the National Security Guard (NSG), the country's leading anti-terrorism force, would grow in size and be given more facilities, particularly four new hubs throughout the country. The meeting was convened shortly after Home Minister Shivraj Patil, the cabinet member responsible for security affairs, resigned his position, claiming moral responsibility for the attacks. Zeenews has more. The India Times has additional coverage. The attacks in Mumbai started on Wednesday last week, and were carried out at ten locations across the city including the landmark Taj Mahal Palace hotel. Members of the Mumbai police force believe that members of a Pakistani militant group called the Lashkar-e-Taiba were responsible for the killings. In a statement to the nation a day after the attacks started, Singh said the country "will take the strongest possible measures to ensure that there is no repetition of such terrorist acts... take whatever measures are necessary to ensure the safety and security of our citizens." The attack was the worst the city has seen since a group of bombings killed over 250 people in 1993.

[JURIST] The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) has filed a federal civil rights complaint with the US Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) Office of Fair Housing & Equal Opportunity (FHEO) claiming that two leading credit rating agencies, Moody's Investor Services and Fitch Inc., caused significant damage to African-American and Latino communities during the current foreclosure crisis. The complaint alleges the two agencies facilitated, encouraged, and profited from discriminatory lending by making public misrepresentations about the soundness and reliability of subprime securities' ratings. John Taylor, president and CEO of NCRC, said in a statement:The complaint alleges that Moody's and Fitch issued false and inflated ratings for securities backed by problematic high-cost loans. Reckless and irresponsible lending has restricted housing opportunity for countless African-American and Latino families who have already lost their home or are now in jeopardy of foreclosure... The rating agencies put their highest rating on hundreds of billions of dollars of securities backed by subprime mortgages. The Emperor had no clothes, and yet the rating agencies continued to say he was dressed in his Sunday's finest.The NCRC seeks a declaratory judgment, permanent injunctive relief, and damages against the two agencies for the "direct disproportionate adverse injury" to African American and Latino communities across the country. The NCRC also said it will consider federal litigation if HUD does not address the complaint. The Washington Post has more. In September, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was reported to be investigating Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, and AIG along with 22 other financial institutions for possible mortgage fraud. In June, the FBI announced that more than 400 people had been indicted in connection to what has been termed the US "sub-prime mortgage collapse." The vast majority of the indictments involved fraud related to individual mortgages, with the FBI focusing on lending fraud, foreclosure rescue scams and mortgage-related bankruptcy schemes, which account for more than $1 billion in losses.

[JURIST] Former Argentine President Carlos Menem was formally charged Friday with illegally trafficking arms to Croatia and Ecuador, contrary to a 1991 UN embargo against Croatia and a 1995 Organization of American States (OAS) ban on selling arms to Ecuador. Defense lawyers contend the then-president authorized legal arms shipments to Venezuela and Panama which were then diverted, without Menem's knowledge, to Croatia and Ecuador. A Buenos Aires-based court charged Menem by videolink with his home town in Argentina's northern La Rioja province as Menem said health problems precluded his attendance. BBC News has more. Menem, on trial with 17 co-defendants, began trial in October, although parties in Argentina are formally charged individually. If convicted, Menem could face up to 12 years in prison, although his senate seat affords him temporary immunity. In May, prosecutors sought Menem regarding an alleged cover-up of the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish community center.

[JURIST] The Namibia-based Southern African Development Community Tribunal on Friday ruled that 78 white Zimbabwe farmers whose land was seized by the Zimbabwe government under its farm redistribution program were owed compensation and that the seizures were racially motivated, discriminatory and contrary to the treaty setting up the Southern African Development Community. The farmers, many of whom had been found guilty in Zimbabwe courts for failing to obey state-sponsored eviction orders, had argued that that the program did not further a public purpose and that the government did not provide fair compensation within a reasonable time. Although Zimbabwe is one of 14 states party to the SADC treaty it has rejected the Tribunal's jurisdiction over this case and it is not expected to defer to the ruling. AP has more. From Zimbabwe, the Herald has local coverage. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has been harshly criticized for his farm program, which since 2000 has sought to redistribute white-owned land among the nation's indigenous farmers. In February 2006, the Zimbabwean land minister said that, following controversial constitutional reforms that took effect in 2005, there are no longer any white farmers operating legally in Zimbabwe. The government has appropriated some 4,000 farms through the program, and has traditionally argued that any compensation owed white farmers should be paid by the British government, Zimbabwe's former colonizer. Many observers attribute Zimbabwe's disastrous economic circumstances - including an inflation rate exceeding 231,000,000 percent - to the policy, under which as previously productive farms have become barren under new inexperienced owners.

[JURIST] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Friday urged accountability for abuses as a prerequisite to quelling six years of fighting and restoring peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Speaking at the opening of a Special Session on the Congo crisis at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, Pillay said:Parties to the conflict must be held accountable for the atrocities committed by their forces. The United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) must be provided with political backing and unhindered access to conduct investigations into allegations of serious abuses. The findings of such investigations must be fully taken into account by parties involved in diplomatic and political efforts to respond to the crisis.... The periodic cycles of bloodshed and destruction that have for so long affected the DRC will keep recurring unless the perpetrators of human rights violations are brought to justice, and unless the illegal exploitation of natural resources is adequately and comprehensively addressed.The DRC runs the risk of becoming a case study in how peace processes can go awry without the will to make justice and accountability an integral part of these processes . . . Past peace agreements have enabled well-known perpetrators of atrocities to be integrated into the army and police. This has exacerbated the current climate of impunity in the DRC, empowered human rights violators and further endangered the Congolese population.An estimated 500 people have been killed and another 1,000 detained and possibly tortured by Congolese security forces since the disputed 2006 elections. The Special Session will continue Monday. The UN News Centre has more. Earlier this month, the International Criminal Court reasserted jurisdiction over local war crimes issues in the Congo in the wake of renewed fighting in the Congolese provinces of North and South Kivu. UN officials on the ground have also warned of possible war crimes and genocide being committed by militias attacking civilian populations.

[JURIST] The UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon could begin prosecuting suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri on March 1, 2009 with its prosecutor's scheduled arrival at The Hague, according to a report from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the Security Council. The Special Tribunal will consist of 11 international and Lebanese judges, be based at The Hague and have a budget of $51 million for its first year. The report was made Wednesday. Reuters has more. From Beirut, the Daily Star has local coverage. While no indictments have been issued, Daniel Bellemare, the Canadian prosecutor who heads the International Independent Investigation Commission (IIIC), believes a criminal network was behind the plot. The investigation has increased tensions between Lebanon and Syria as several IIIC reports have implicated Syrian officials in Hariri's death.

[JURIST] Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat demoted Police Chief Gen. Patcharawat Wongsuwan to an inactive position within the Prime Minister's office, according to media reports Friday. Patcharawat's removal comes a day after the Prime Minister declared a state of emergency because of continuing political protests at two airports, Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang, in the capital Bangkok. The People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) initiated the protests at the airports earlier this week as part of an ongoing effort to bring down Somchai's government. No reason was given for Patcharawat's removal, but it is believed that he was not cooperating with the government's efforts to end the protests. The Thai News Agency has more. China Daily has additional coverage. PAD protests have been ongoing throughout the year, based on its disapproval of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Somchai is the brother-in-law of Thaksin, who was ousted in military coup in 2006. Somchai took over as prime minister earlier this month after the Constitutional Court of Thailand ruled that then-prime minister Samak Sundaravej had violated the constitution by accepting payment for his appearance on a television cooking program. Critics claim that Somchai is just a proxy for Thaksin, who remains in exile while being tried in absentia for corruption.

[JURIST] The European Commission (EC) Thursday called on Germany to modify its Volkswagen anti-takeover law within two months or else face referral of the matter to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The law, created in 1960 in order to privatize Volkswagen AG (VW), was aimed at protecting the automaker from hostile takeovers by giving public authorities automatic representation on the VW board, instituting a 20 percent voting cap, and allowing a 20 percent blocking minority. The law was revised in May, but the provision allowing the 20 percent blocking minority was left in place. The EC disputes the clause as it allows the German state of Lower Saxony, which holds a 20.1 percent stake in VW, to block major business decisions. Also on Thursday, a German court upheld the 20 percent blocking minority provision against a challenge by Porsche SE. The ruling is seen as setback to Porsche's attempted takeover of Europe's largest automaker. Deutsche Welle has more. Xinhua has additional coverage. The EC initially challenged the law in 2005. The ECJ ruled in October 2007 that a previous version of the law was illegal because it limited "the free movement of capital" and discouraged foreign direct investment in Germany. The EC has filed or has threatened to file similar suits against Spain and its energy companies, Italy and highway company Autosrade SpA, and Poland for intervening in Italy's UniCredit SpA business in Poland.

[JURIST] Moscow Military District Court judge Yevgeny Zubov Wednesday refused to recuse himself from the trial of three men accused of involvement in the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office had requested a new judge claiming that Zubov had violated procedural rules. Last week Zubov declared the trial would be open to the public in accordance with the wishes of Politkovskaya's family, then closed it due to alleged fears by members of the jury. When these were publicly denied, he opened the trial again. Under court rules, only a judge himself can make a decision to leave a case. AP has more. On Thursday, members of Politkovsakaya's family testified that she had received regular threats against her life. The trial is now in recess until December 1. Sergey Khadzhikurbanov and brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, all from Chechnya, were arrested in connection with the killing in August 2007. The primary suspect, Rustam Makhmudov, also from Chechnya, has yet to be captured, but Russian authorities have said he is hiding in Western Europe. On Tuesday, defense lawyers announced that court documents would show that Politkovskaya's murder was ordered by an unnamed Russian politician. Politkovskaya, a reporter for the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta widely known for her stories about human rights abuses by Russian troops in Chechnya, was murdered after returning to her Moscow apartment building in October 2006.

[JURIST] The Mexican Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that would amend the General Law of Health to allow terminally ill patients to refuse medical treatment. The bill passed with 84 votes in favor and only one abstention. Under the new law, a patient who has an incurable, irreversible disease and a life expectancy prognosis of less than six months may exercise the right by raising the case in front of a hospital bioethics committee. The patient's family may alternatively assert the right if the patient is incapacitated. The law's provisions ensure that the patient will receive palliative treatment that does not delay or speed death, but will ease physical and emotional pain and discomfort. Although the treatments described by the law are known as passive euthanasia, the senators were careful to distance themselves from the term by characterizing the law as one respecting patients' dignity and autonomy. La Jornada has local coverage, in Spanish. The initiative for the law stems from the Mexican Health Department's 2007 proposal that measures should be created to respect patients' autonomy about treatment when they are terminally ill. In November 2007, the Mexico City Legislative Assembly (ALDF) approved a similar measure called the Law of Anticipated Will, which allows patients to determine in advance the treatment they wish to receive if terminally ill or incapacitated. The present initiative was supported by the Catholic Church in Mexico from its initial stages in the ALDF, in contrast to a law decriminalizing abortion that was passed last year.

[JURIST]The Iraqi parliament on Thursday approved a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that sets a 2011 deadline for the withdraw of US troops but also passed an additional law calling for a national referendum on the pact in July 2009. The vote on the SOFA had been delayed several times while majority Shia and minority Sunni factions negotiated over the Sunni-favored referendum and other provisions. The SOFA itself will take effect on January 1st, 2009, a day after the current UN mandate authorizing the US presence in Iraq expires. The International Herald Tribune has more. Aswat al-Iraq has local coverage (in English and Arabic). The SOFA was approved by the Iraq cabinet on November, 16 2008. In addition to the official deadlines for troop withdraw, it gives Iraqi courts limited jurisdiction over American military personnel and eliminates immunity for US defense contractors working within Iraq.

[JURIST] Human Rights Watch said Wednesday in a new report that Greece and Turkey are according inhumane treatment to migrants and possible asylum seekers from Iraq and elsewhere attempting to enter the EU. The report describes the migrants as trapped in a "revolving door" because the EU's Dublin II Regulation stipulates that the state of first entry is responsible for evaluating an asylum claim. Greece nonetheless blocks migrants' entrance into that country by disabling vessels and secretly and forcefully deporting would-be asylum seekers back across Turkish borders. For those who make it to Greek territory, the government blocks access to asylum procedures, and denies 98 percent of all asylum claims. Turkey in turn deports Iraqis to their home country "without giving them a meaningful opportunity to seek protection." The report recommends that the EU reevaluate the Dublin II Regulation and suspend transfers of asylum seekers back to Greece, examining asylum claims itself. It also calls on Greece to make a public commitment to ensure a fairer asylum process and to stop forceful deportation practices. The UN has been urging the EU to revise the Dublin II Regulations to ensure the rights and protection of refugees and asylum-seekers since 2006. In 2005, Amnesty International concluded in a report that Greece was not meeting international rights standards for asylum seekers.

[JURIST] Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz said Wednesday that he is considering indicting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert following police recommendations in connection with his alleged double billing of state and charitable donors for travel expenses in 2002-2006 while serving as a government official. Olmert allegedly accumulated over $100,000 in an account handled by the same agency to fund his own and his family's travel. In the face of the Attorney General's formal statement Olmert has the right to defend himself at a hearing. Pursuant to that, the Attorney General may or may not decide to indict Olmert. If Mazuz moves to indict, Olmert would be the first PM to be indicted in Israeli history. The double billing case was one of the reasons why Olmert officially resigned in September, but he is currently continuing to serve as caretaker PM until a new PM is elected on February 10, 2009. Olmert maintains his innocence on all charges, and refuses to step down by declaring himself incapacitated or taking an extended leave, despite critical pressure from his own Kadima party.

[JURIST] Members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed Palestinian terror suspects in defiance of a 2006 Israeli Supreme Court ruling on targeted killings, according to Haaretz Wednesday. The 2006 ruling set up guidelines for targeted killings which include a direction that if possible, suspects should be arrested, and that "every effort must be made to minimize harm to innocent civilians." Haaretz said IDF documents it obtained indicate that since 2006 Israeli Defense Forces have generally made little effort to arrest suspects before killing them. In June 2007, for example, the IDF made no attempt to arrest Jenin Islamic Jihad head Ziad Malaisha before killing him. Israeli Chief Military Advocate Brigadier General Avichai Mendelblit rejected the newspaper's report, saying all IDF actions, including targeted killings, are in compliance with the law. In 2006 the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that although some targeted killings were not legal, not all are prohibited by international law. It outlined four factors that would determine whether a particular targeted killing was justified. Two Israeli human rights groups filed a petition in 2002 seeking a ban on the Israeli policy, which Israeli government officials have defended as the most effective method of stopping Palestinian terrorists from bombing Israel targets. The court's consideration of the case had been put on hold after Israeli security officials said in January 2005 that targeted killings of Palestinian militants would be suspended, but the court resumed deliberations later that year after the IDF resumed the practice.