[JURIST] Manitoba MP Vic Toews [official profile] became the new Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Monday when he was sworn in [backgrounder] along with the rest of the cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper [official website] at a ceremony in Ottawa. Harper's Conservative Party [party website] defeated the incumbent Liberals in the January federal election [JURIST report], putting them into opposition for the first time in 13 years.

In the Justice portfolio Toews, formerly a constitutional negotiator for the Manitoba provincial government and later Conservative Justice critic in the House of Commons, is likely to come in for scrutiny and criticism over actual and proposed legal changes. Both Toews and Harper oppose same-sex marriage and have asked for a free vote [CTV report] in the House to determine whether MPs want to reopen debate on a 2005 law [C-38 text] legalizing the practice. Toews will also play a leading role in an expected Conservative crackdown on crime and the reassertion [JURIST report] of Canada's legal claim to the Northwest Passage [backgrounder]. CBC News has more.

[JURIST] US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile] late Monday concluded a day of testimony [JURIST report] before the US Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] on the Bush administration's controversial domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive]. Although Gonzales maintained that the wiretapping program was a vital "early warning system" for terrorists, several Republicans and Democrats continued to challenge the president's authority to initiate the program carried out by the National Security Agency [official website].

Gonzales defended the program as being lawful, reasonable, and essential but refused to answer detailed questions about its current operations, citing program secrecy. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) [official website] asked Gonzales whether the president had broken any laws, to which Gonzales responded, "The president has not authorized any conduct that I'm aware of that is in contravention of law." Republicans expressed fear that future presidents could be hurt when asking for authorizations since the Bush administration has interpreted the 2001 Congressional resolution [PDF text] authorizing military use against al-Qaida so broadly. Committee chairman Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) [official website] predicted that the committee would hold at least two more hearings on the topic, which may include more testimony by Gonzales and former Attorney General John Ashcroft [JURIST news archive]. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Senate Monday began debate [Leahy Senate floor log] of controversial legislation that would create a privately-funded trust to compensate victims of asbestos exposure [JURIST news archive] and shield companies from further liability. Under the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act [PDF], $140 billion would be set aside by asbestos manufacturers and insurance companies in exchange for immunity from civil suits at the state and national level. Asbestos-injured workers and their families would be eligible to receive anywhere from $25,000 to $1.1 million in compensation, with attorney fees capped at 5% of the total award.

In floor remarks [text] on Monday, Sen. Patrick Leahy [official website], co-sponsoring the bill with Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, said it would bring the "tragic history of asbestos use in our country to an end." Fellow Democrat Sen. Edward Kennedy [official website] nonetheless criticized the bill [statement] for failing to provide just compensation to the enormous amount of workers suffering from asbestos-induced diseases. It's not yet clear whether the legislation will come to an up-or-down vote; as several Democrats have objected to a general debate, GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has called a preliminary procedural vote [Reuters report] for Tuesday evening on whether to proceed. AP has more.

[JURIST] Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said Monday that the resolution by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) [official website; JURIST news archive] Board of Directors to refer Iran to the UN Security Council was a "hasty and unjustified decision without any legal and technical basis." Interviewed [recorded audio] on BBC Radio 4, Soltanieh also asserted that the Board's vote on the resolution [text, PDF] should have been delayed until March to allow him to file an official report. The report, Soltanieh said, would "thoroughly explain why there are serious difficulties to justify legally this resolution."

Also on Monday, Iran made good on its promise to no longer comply [JURIST report] with the so-called "Additional Protocol" [model text, PDF] of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) [text] and ordered the IAEA to remove surveillance cameras and agency seals [CTV report] from sites and nuclear equipment. On Saturday, the IAEA voted 27-3 [JURIST report] to refer Iran to the UN Security Council, which has the power to issue diplomatic and economic sanctions. The UK Press Association has more.

[JURIST] British judge Rosalyn Higgins [official profile], a highly-respected legal scholar and international lawyer, was elected president of International Court of Justice (ICJ) [official website; press release] Monday, becoming the first woman to serve in that role. Higgins, the only woman ever to sit on the ICJ, was elected by her 15 fellow judges to serve a three-year term as president.

First appointed to the high court in 1995, Higgins takes over from Chinese judge and current president Shi Jiuyong [official profile], who is stepping down to rejoin the panel. The ICJ is the highest court in the United Nations system and is authorized by international statute [text] to resolve disputes between nations by agreement. AP has more.

[JURIST] The retrial of the first federal lawsuit against the manufacturers of Vioxx [JURIST report] began Monday in New Orleans with jury selection. The case first went to trial last year, but was declared a mistrial [JURIST report] in December when jurors could not agree on a verdict. Evelyn Irvin Plunkett is suing Merck [corporate website], alleging that her husband died of a heart attack as a result of taking Vioxx [JURIST news archive] for one month. The painkiller was recalled in 2004 after clinical tests showed that patients who use the drug for more than 18 months faced increased risk of stroke and heart attack [FDA public health advisory]. Lawyers for Merck maintain that Vioxx had nothing to do with the death of the plaintiff's husband, saying that he suffered from clogged arteries and a blood clot prior to taking the drug, but Plunkett will argue that Vioxx affected blood-thinning enzymes and caused the clot which lead to her husband's death.

This is the third case among some 9,600 state and federal Vioxx lawsuits against Merck to go trial. Last August, a Texas jury awarded a $253.4 million verdict [JURIST report] to the plaintiffs in a wrongful death lawsuit, but a New Jersey jury found that Merck was not liable [JURIST report] and that the company properly warned consumers about the risks associated with the drug. AP has more.

ALSO ON JURIST  Op-ed: Retrying Merck: The Once and Future Federal Vioxx Suits

[JURIST] The defense team in the Saddam Hussein trial [JURIST news archive] said Monday that the proceedings against the deposed Iraqi dictator in the Iraqi High Criminal Court - formerly the Iraqi Special Tribunal [official website] - have been fixed by United States and Iraq's Shiite leaders and called for court-appointed defense lawyers to quit their positions [AP report]. Hussein and his lawyers are boycotting trial proceedings [JURIST report], prompting chief judge Ra'uf Rasheed Abdel-Rahman [BBC profile, JURIST report] to appoint replacements. While Hussein's lawyers originally vowed to continue the boycott until Abdel-Rahman was replaced, the defense team now says "it has reached a dead-end with the illegal, so-called Criminal Court."

The boycotting lawyers have not been allowed access to Hussein [JURIST report] since they left court on January 29, and, according to chief prosecutor Ja'afar Moussawi, will have to apply through the court for such access in the future. Proceedings have been adjourned [JURIST news archive] until February 13, but Moussawi has stated that the court will "take the appropriate action," possibly forcing Hussein to attend, if the boycott continued at that time. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] At least five people protesting the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad [JURIST news archive] in Danish and other European papers were killed in Afghanistan Monday when security forces and police opened fire on demonstrators as the cartoons furor setting blasphemy against free speech reached global proportions. Two Afghans were killed outside the US airbase at Bagram when a crowd converged there. Three others died in disturbances in Afghanistan's Laghman province, where demonstrators shouted "death to Denmark". About 200 protestors also gathered outside the Danish embassy in Kabul. Afghan President Hamid Karzai had already condemned the cartoons, but had called for Muslims to forgive their publication [Zeenews report] and "not make it an issue of dispute between religions or cultures". In May 2005, 15 Afghan demonstrators were killed [JURIST report] in similar religiously-motivated protests after Newsweek magazine wrongly reported that the Koran had been desecrated in incidents at the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

Meanwhile the cartoons controversy escalated elsewhere Monday:

• protestors in Tehran, Iran, threw petrol bombs and rocks at the Danish embassy building there, and also attacked the Austrian embassy [AP report]. The Iranian government announced it would boycott Danish goods [IRNA report];
  
  
• 4000 protesters in the southern Iraqi city of Kut took to the streets demanding Iraq cut ties with countries associated with the cartoon publications, and calling on Denmark to withdraw its contingent of troops from Iraq. In Kurnah, shots were fired at a Danish patrol [Mainichi report];
  
  
• demonstrators gathered outside Danish diplomatic missions in Indonesia and Thailand [press release], chanting slogans and burning Danish flags;
  
  
• in the predominantly-Muslim East African state of Somalia, a teenage boy was trampled to death [Mail & Guardian report] when police fired into the air to disperse protestors in the port city of Bosaso who turned on UN and international aid agency buildings;
  
  
• in New Delhi, India, police fired tear gas and water cannons [IANS report] to disperse hundreds of demonstrating university students;
  
  
• Norway said it would demand compensation from Syria [NRK report] after its embassy in Damascus was set on fire on Saturday. The Danish government Sunday reserved [press release] "the right to take all steps vis-à-vis the Syrian Government" in respect of the burning of its own Damascus embassy the same day;
  
  
• Lebanon apologized to Denmark [Ya Libnan report] for the Sunday burning of its embassy [JURIST report] in Beirut, while the European Union officially reminded 18 Muslim countries of their legal obligations to protect foreign embassies under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations;
  
  
• the prime ministers of Turkey and Spain published an open letter [IHT op-ed] appealing for calm, but Turkey's foreign minister warned that press freedoms had limits and that Muslims should not be treated in the same way Jews have historically been treated and caricatured in the West;
  
  
• British MPs called for the arrest of Muslim protestors [UPI report] who over the weekend had marched in London waving placards with slogans like "Behead those who insult Islam" and threatening a repeat of the July 7 London bombings, saying they were inciting people to violence. Downing Street later issued a statement saying the "police should have our full support in any actions they may wish to take in respect of any breaches of the law";
  
  
• Muslim leaders in Australia called on the Brisbane Courier-Mail to apologize for reprinting one of the Danish cartoons in its Saturday edition;
  
  
• in the US a small group of Muslim protestors gathered outside the offices of the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper to protest its republication [Philadelphia Inquirer report] of the Muhammad cartoons over the weekend.

[JURIST] A Pennsylvania appeals court ruled Monday that the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority [official website] violated the constitutional separation of church and state when it seized a woman's home to help Hope Partnership for Education [education website], a religious group, build a private school. In a 4-3 decision [PDF text], judges of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled that the seizure of the property through the use of eminent domain [JURIST news archive] was an unconstitutional violation of the Establishment Clause [backgrounder] due to entanglement between church and state. In a 2005 decision, the US Supreme Court ruled in Kelo v. New London [opinion text; JURIST report] that eminent domain could be used to seize homes for private redevelopment projects. AP has more.

[JURIST] Russia's Chief Military Prosecutor on Monday told the Federation Council [official website], the upper house of parliament, that approximately 6,000 people were abused by Russian military personnel last year and 2,600 soldiers were convicted of abusing other soldiers [JURIST report]. Alexander Savenkov said that "beating has become a typical method of dealing with subordinates in the military," and referenced one soldier who escaped from his unit [Itar-Tass report] last month after being beaten by his sergeant in a hazing incident. The sergeant confessed to the beating and was arrested, but the victim suffered severe frostbite during his two-day walk from the unit and is facing amputation. Russia's liberal politicians and human rights groups have called on the government to end the country's long national history of military conscription [HRW backgrounder], which currently requires Russian men to serve at least two years between the ages of 18 and 27, but the Kremlin has so far refused. AP has more. MosNews has local coverage.

[JURIST] Zacarias Moussaoui [JURIST news archive] was escorted from a Virginia courtroom Monday after an argument with US District Judge Leonie Brinkema during the first few minutes of jury selection [JURIST report] in his sentencing trial [case docket]. Moussaoui declared "I am al Qaeda" upon his entrance to the courtroom and informed the judge that his lawyers "do not represent" him. Judge Brinkema cautioned that it was not his time to speak, but Moussaoui demanded to be heard and was subsequently removed without resistance.

Approximately 500 potential jurors were summoned to answer a 49-page questionnaire [PDF text] asking about their opinions regarding Muslims, their religious beliefs, and their feelings about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks [JURIST news archive] on the US. The twelve selected jurors will determine whether Moussaoui, who pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to six charges of conspiracy [indictment] last year, should receive the death penalty or life in prison. Opening statements are expected to begin on March 6. AP has more.

[JURIST] A lawmaking committee in the Russian parliament is considering legislation to tackle the country's increasing problem with racism and extremism, according to the chairman of committee in the State Duma [official website, in Russian]. The lower parliamentary house is reacting to recent events in Russia [JURIST news archive] indicating an increase in extremist activity, including deadly attacks on dark-skinned foreigners and an attack on a Moscow synagogue [BBC report] by a man carrying a knife. The list of proposed laws include imposing harsher punishments for the distribution of extremist materials on the Internet and to the media and making recruiting to extremist groups a crime. Before the Duma committee's proposals can be debated before the entire house of parliament, they must be reviewed by the Russian government and the Constitutional Court [backgrounder]. AP has more.

[JURIST] US Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] hearings on the Bush administration's controversial domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive] opened Monday with testimony from US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile] after senators argued over whether or not he should be given a sworn oath to tell the truth [recorded video]. A vote by the Republican-dominated committee resulted in no oath, and Gonzales proceeded to defend the National Security Agency (NSA) [official website] warrantless wiretapping program, sidestepping a question posed by committee chairman Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) [official website] who suggested a review of the program by the Foreign Intelligence Service Court under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [text], reminding Gonzales that the "president does not have a blank check" to eavesdrop. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) [official website], the Committee's ranking Democrat, also challenged the legality [statement] of the surveillance program, acknowledging that al-Qaida terrorist suspects should be watched but expressing concern for "peaceful Quakers who are being spied upon, and other law-abiding Americans...who are placed on terrorist watch lists." Gonzales reiterated comments made in an extensive prepared statement [text] released prior to the start of Monday's hearing in which he called the surveillance program "reasonable" and "legal," and said it "may make the difference between success and failure" in stopping a future terrorist attack on the US. AP has more.

[JURIST] An Italian prosecutor is seeking to put 17 former Nazi SS members on trial for participation in the 1944 massacre of 700 civilians in the town of Marzabotto [Wikipedia profile] in Bologna. Prosecutor Marco de Paolis has asked a judge in the town of La Spezia to add the officer and 16 enlisted men of the 16th SS Division to a trial of 4 SS personnel from the same division that began last year. The judge is expected to decide whether the trial will go forward next month, as it will take time to notify the defendants, all German residents in their 80s. After the war, two former leaders of the division were convicted in Italy, and last year, 10 former SS members were sentenced to life imprisonment [BBC report] for another massacre in Tuscany. Last month, a German court acquitted [JURIST report] former Nazi commander Ladislav Niznansky of murder charges involving massacres in Slovakia, and activists have recently criticized Austria [JURIST report] for its reticence in trying Nazi war criminals. AP has more.

[JURIST] Prosecutors at an appeals hearing in Arusha, Tanzania, Monday asked the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) [official website] to overturn the genocide acquittals of two former Rwandan officials. One-time Rwandan Transport Minister Andre Ntagerura [ICTR case materials] and Emmanuel Bagambiki [ICTR case materials], a civilian official in the Cyangugu Province, were acquitted [judgment, PDF] in 2004 of genocide and crimes against humanity during the 1994 Rwandan genocide [HRW backgrounder; JURIST news archive] after the ICTR's trial chamber determined that prosecutors did not prove they were criminally responsible for the alleged deaths. Prosecutors claim that the tribunal did not consider testimony from seven suspected accomplices of the two men. AP has more.

[JURIST] A four-hour prison riot in Los Angeles County on Saturday was the result of racial tension, county Sheriff Lee Baca [official website] said Sunday. The riot, in which 2,000 inmates participated, took place at the maximum-security North County Correctional Facility [official website] in Castaic, California between black and Latino prisoners. One inmate was killed and over 40 injured. Officials cited retaliation for the stabbing of a Latino man at a downtown jail as the possible catalyst. The issue of racial tension in the California prison system came before the US Supreme Court [official website] in 2005, when the Court ruled in Johnson v. California [opinion] that state prisons cannot temporarily segregate inmates by race [JURIST report], except in the most extraordinary circumstances. The California Department of Corrections [official website] had previously had an unwritten policy of racially segregating inmates to prevent gang violence. Baca told reporters Sunday that he had re-segregated 200 prisoners to forestall further trouble, a move which drew support from community leaders [KABC report]. The Los Angeles Times has more.

[JURIST] Leading Monday's international brief, in one of the first public signs of division inside the Zimbabwean government of President Robert Mugabe [BBC profile], the Zimbabwean Attorney General and the Zimbabwean Registrar General have expressed sharp disagreement concerning the proposed draft of a parliamentary bill that would enable to government to seize the passports of individuals deemed likely to "harm the national interest" if allowed to travel abroad. The legislation is needed to enable one of the new powers granted to the office of the president in last August's controversial constitutional reforms [JURIST report]. Zimbabwean Attorney General Sobuza Gula-Ndebele has been outspoken in his criticism of the proposed bill, saying that the Zimbabwean Ministry of Justice would continue to "follow due process" and expressed his concern that the law would only reinforce international opinion that Zimbabwe is a dictatorship in all but name. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of Zimbabwe [JURIST news archive]. ZimOnline has local coverage.

In other international legal news ...

• A discussion paper researching the interaction between Australian law and aboriginal law that has been released by the Law Reform Commission of Western Australia (LRCWA) [government website] calls on the government to make over 90 substantive changes to the Western Australia's state laws concerning its aboriginal population, including the reintroduction of traditional aboriginal punishments such as spearing and beating. The state of Western Australia [government website] has the largest proportion of aboriginal inmates and the report claims that incorporating traditional aboriginal criminal punishments will help deter crime among a populace unfamiliar with western concepts of criminal punishment. Read the official LRCWA press release. The Australian has local coverage.
  
  
• South African President Thabo Mbeki [official profile] has announced that, despite a larger-than-needed majority in the South African Parliament [government website], he had no plans to pursue constitutional changes to allow for a third presidential term. Mbeki said that his ten years as president, beginning in 1999, will have been more than enough and that South Africa had no need for any attempt at significant constitutional amendment concerning presidential powers. Some political elements have been calling on Mbeki to seek a third term after he very publicly fired [JURIST report] his Vice-President, and heir apparent, Jacob Zuma for his ties to a corruption scandal. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of South Africa [JURIST news archive]. South Africa's Mail & Guardian Online has local coverage.
  
  
• Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] has called on the UN Security Council [official website] to create an international peacekeeping force for not only the Darfur region [JURIST news archive] of Sudan [government website], but also for the neighboring region in Chad, just across the Sudanese border. HRW released information Sunday documenting the death of several dozen Chadian civilians at the hands of both Sudanese government and rebel military forces. Sudan has yet to agree to the proposed UN peacekeeping force [JURIST report] in Darfur, although it has allowed 7,000 African Union [official website] peacekeepers access to the troubled region. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of Sudan [JURIST news archive]. Read the official HRW press release. The Sudan Tribune has local coverage.

[JURIST] Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant [official profile] has asked the Canadian federal government for the power to ban handguns, vowing to look to constitutional options if he is refused. Last last week Bryant criticized current Canadian firearms laws [Canadian Criminal Code provisions] permitting collectors to own guns for sporting competitions as ineffective, due to "the dangers caused even by safe storage of these weapons of human misery." Bryant's statements come after a wave of thefts from handgun collectors and a rash of gun-related violence [Toronto Star report] in Ontario, where a reported 2 million guns are registered. In December, outgoing Prime Minister Paul Martin [official website] proposed a national ban on handguns [JURIST report]; less than three weeks later Toronto mayor David Miller lashed out at lax US gun laws [JURIST report] after a shooting spree on a main downtown street left one person killed and six bystanders wounded. New Prime Minister Stephen Harper, [official profile] who cited cracking down on crime as a key issue in the January's Canadian federal election, will face the issue next, but is not in favor of a handgun ban. The Toronto Star has more.

[JURIST Europe] Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] Monday condemned as "shameful" the British government's inattention to the plight of nine long-term British residents currently being held at the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], Cuba, and called once again for the camp to be closed. British government officials responded to the criticism by pointing out that while the men lived for lengthy periods of time in the UK, in some cases even having British wives and children, the men themselves are not UK citizens, and thus the British government is not authorized to demand their release. The last UK nationals interned at Guantanamo were transferred to the UK [JURIST report] by US authorities in January 2005 and later released. Read the AI report [official text], which also chronicles the long-term effects of detention at Guantanamo Bay. The UK Independent has local coverage.

D. Wes Rist is Bureau Chief for JURIST Europe, reporting European legal news from a European perspective. He is based in the UK.

[JURIST Europe] UK Conservative Party [party website] leader David Cameron Monday urged [official speech text] a review of the traditionally-unilateral "royal prerogative" powers exercised by the prime minister in the name of the British monarch, including the powers to go to war, sign treaties, and change internal governmental structures. The party has set up a Democracy Task Force [press release] led by Conservative frontbencher Kenneth Clarke to study and press the issue. Cameron's criticism of the scope of the prime minister's powers centers on the fact that the PM can exercise them without approval from Parliament; in a pointed reference to recent events, he said:

Just last week, we first heard about the Government's decision to send 4,000 troops to Afghanistan in the pages of the Sun newspaper....While there was a vote on the decision to go to war in Iraq, albeit very late in the process, there was no vote on the action in Kosovo. So shouldn't there be a formal process for parliamentary approval?

[JURIST] American and European officials meeting in Munich Sunday at the annual Conference on Security Policy [official website] criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin [official website] for backsliding on his protection of human rights. US Senator John McCain [official website] went so far as to suggest an international boycott of the upcoming G-8 [US State Department backgrounder] summit to be hosted by Putin in St. Petersburg [summit website] in June, saying in a speech [text]:

The Kremlin...continues to pursue foreign and domestic policies strongly at odds with our interests and values....It continues to prosecute a brutal war in Chechnya that has killed as many as 200,000, radicalizing the Muslim population, and it actively supports dictatorships in Central Asia. As one journalist recently catalogued, the broadcast media are Kremlin-controlled, as are parliament, provincial governors, and the judiciary. All of these were free and independent when Mr. Putin took office. Andrei Illarionov, Mr. Putin's former economics advisor, said upon resigning, "It is one thing to work in a partly free country, which Russia was six years ago. It is quite another when the country has ceased to be politically free."

After the Soviet Union collapsed, the West invested resources, political capital, and above all hope in Russia. We wanted to see a reformist, democratic, capitalist Russia acting in partnership with the West. But let's be honest with ourselves - everything we see today indicates that the Russian government has chosen its path, and it is not ours. The Kremlin seems to prefer the pursuit of autocracy at home and abroad, to prefer blocking concerted action against rogue states, to prefer weakening what it views as democratic adversaries. This is a Soviet mindset, not a post-Cold War one. Under Mr. Putin, Russia today is neither a democracy nor one of the world's leading economies, and I seriously question whether the G8 leaders should attend the St. Petersburg summit.

[JURIST] The House of Lords [official website], the UK's highest court, hears arguments Monday in the case of a Muslim teenage girl who argues that a British school's decision to forbid her from wearing a Muslim jilbab [Wikipedia backgrounder] to school was a violation of the UK Human Rights Act [text]. Shabina Begum was 14 when she was banned from school for wearing the traditional full-length religious dress [JURIST news archive]. Last year she won her case [court judgment; JURIST report] in the UK Court of Appeal [official website], but Luton's Denbigh High School [official website] appealed. The Guardian has more.

[JURIST] Some 30,000 Israelis protested in Jerusalem Sunday against the recent demolition of illegally built homes on the West Bank, a move which they fear heralds the beginning of a new wave of government-ordered Jewish settlement evacuations under the administration of Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert [official profile]. The destruction of nine settler buildings at Amona [JURIST report] last Wednesday triggered the most violence between settlers and Israeli troops since last year’s mass withdrawals from Gaza [BBC report]. At least 160 settlers and police were injured, and Israeli police have opened an inquiry into allegations of police brutality. About 240,000 settlers and 2.4 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, though the International Court of Justice [official website] has said that settlements on the occupied territory taken from Jordan in 1967 are illegal. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Some US senators are discussing a constitutional amendment which would place limits on the power of the president during times of war, according to a report [text] by TIME [media website] magazine Sunday. A source close to the negotiations told TIME that the amendment would give Congress the final power in evaluating presidential decisions that affect US citizens or domestic affairs. The government's controversial surveillance program [JURIST news archive] has raised concern with some Republicans who usually have been behind US President George Bush in limiting the power of the other branches of government since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks [JURIST news archive] on the US. UPI has more.

[JURIST] Jury selection begins Monday in Virginia for the sentencing trial [court information for the public; case docket] of Zacarias Moussaoui [JURIST news archive] to determine if the al-Qaida follower should be given life in prison or a death sentence for his role in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks [JURIST news archive] on the US. Moussaoui, a French Muslim of Moroccan extraction, pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to six charges of conspiracy [indictment, text] in 2005; he admits knowing that al-Qaida had plans to fly planes into US buildings and that he traveled to the US to participate, but claims he never knew specifically of the Sept. 11 plan because his involvement was in another plot to fly into the White House. The jury selection process will begin with 500 potential jurors answering a questionnaire including inquiries about whether the individuals belong to the National Rifle Association [official website] or veterans groups, what bumper stickers they have on their cars, and what their favorite television shows are. Opening statements are scheduled to begin before US District Judge Leonie Brinkema in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia [official website] on March 6 after 12 jurors and six alternates are chosen. AP has more.