[JURIST] US Chief Justice John Roberts [official profile] has appointed US District Judge and former Whitewater prosecutor John D. Bates [official profile] to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) [FJC backgrounder] to replace US District Judge James Robertson [official profile], who resigned [JURIST report] last December, purportedly in protest over the controversial warrantless domestic eavesdropping program [JURIST news archive] promulgated by the Bush administration. Roberts secretly chose Bates to replace Robertson in February, but news of the appointment only came Friday after the Federation of American Scientists [advocacy website] reported in its Secrecy News [report] newsletter that Bates’ appointment had appeared in his own official online biography.

The FISC reviews applications for domestic intelligence surveillance and search warrant requests under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [text; FAS materials]. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] said Friday that it will rehear oral arguments [order text, PDF] for death penalty case Kansas v. Marsh [Duke Law backgrounder; merit briefs] so that Justice Samuel Alito can break a tie in the deadlocked court. The Kansas death penalty law requires that Kansas juries impose the death penalty rather than life in prison if the evidence for and against the death penalty is equal. The Kansas Supreme Court struck down the law [decision text], removing six convicts from death row. When argued [JURIST report] last December, the justices on the court appeared unsympathetic to arguments by counsel for Marsh, with Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia questioning what the defendant wanted.

Kansas v. Marsh is the second case the Supreme Court has needed to rehear in order to break a tie since former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor retired in January. Garcetti v. Ceballos [Duke Law backgrounder; merit briefs], re-argued [JURIST report] earlier this week, involves a question of whether free speech rights extend to government employees. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Hong Kong Law Reform Commission (HKLRC) [official website] on Friday released its proposals [HKLRC press release] to embed greater safeguards in the executive order on covert surveillance operations made last year by Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen [official profile]. Hong Kong High Court Justice Michael Hartmann ruled the order unconstitutional [JURIST report] in February. The HKLRC report [text, PDF] demands regulation of covert surveillance performed by any entity, not just law enforcement agencies. The HKLRC, which was appointed by the Hong Kong government, has also suggested prohibiting recording and wiretapping, whether or not on private property, and trespassing with the intent to spy.

Judge Hartmann did not reject the bill outright in February but granted the government six months to replace it with a version which would pass constitutional scrutiny. The Hong Kong government now has four months left to consider the proposals by the commission and reform the law. Channel News Asia has more.

[JURIST] Abortion rights activists in South Dakota [JURIST news archive] on Friday announced that they will seek a referendum [press release] that will overturn the state's newly-enacted abortion ban [PDF text]. The campaign [Reuters report], led by the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families [advocacy website], must collect 16,728 signatures by June 19 in order to get the issue on the November 7 ballot. If enough signatures are collected, the law will not take effect as scheduled on July 1.

Gov. Mike Rounds [official website] signed the legislation [JURIST report] two weeks ago, after it passed the Senate [JURIST report] and the House [JURIST report] last month. The law bans most abortions, excluding only those necessary to save a woman's life. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] announced Friday that US authorities have arrested [press release] Faheem Mousa Salam, a government contractor performing translation for Titan Corporation in Iraq, on bribery charges in Washington, DC. Salam, a naturalized US citizen, allegedly offered $60,000 to an Iraqi police official to help push a sale of 1,000 armored vests and a map printer for over $1 million in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) [text]. Salam also made a similar offer to an undercover investigator working for the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) [official website], an independent watchdog agency established to uncover bribery, extortion, fraud and other abuses in reconstruction efforts in Iraq. Salam could be imprisoned for as many as five years and fined at least $100,000 if he is convicted of the charges, which were filed by the DOJ in the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website].

In February, the DOJ announced [press release] that Robert J. Stein [Wikipedia profile], a former US Defense Department contract official for the Coalition Provisional Authority [official website], pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to charges of conspiracy, bribery, money laundering, unlawful possession of machine guns, and being a felon in possession of a firearm after a SIGIR investigation that also implicated six other Americans, including Philip Bloom [JURIST report] and five US Army officers [JURIST report], in a plot conspiring to steal $2 million and to rig bids on $8.6 million in reconstruction contracts. AP has more.

[JURIST] Leading Friday's international brief, the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) [advocacy website] in Uganda has issued a report warning that the independence of the judiciary and the freedom of the press have been seriously impinged upon in the past year. In a report documenting the activities of the government with regards to human rights issues in 2005, FHRI asserts that violations by government agents are on the rise and include the interference and disruption of the free press, the use of indefinite detention and even torture by government police forces. Uganda's human rights record has been on the decline since 2003, when current Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni [BBC profile] alleged that members of a yet-unconfirmed rebel group called the People's Resistance Army attempted to seize control of the government. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of Uganda [JURIST news archive]. Uganda's Daily Monitor has local coverage.

In other international legal news ...

• Secretary General of the League of Arab States Amr Musa [official profile] told reporters Thursday that he supported the African Union (AU) [official website] decision to extend the AU peacekeeping force [JURIST report] in Darfur [JURIST news archive] until the end of September. Musa also said that Sudan should not be forced to accept "foreign troops" on its soil unless it agrees to do so, a thinly-veiled reference to the continued pressure on Sudan [JURIST report] to allow a UN peacekeeping force to take over from a severely under-funded and under-manned AU force. Sudan has repeatedly expressed its rejection of any UN peacekeeping force [JURIST report] comprised of non-African peacekeepers. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of Sudan [JURIST news archive]. The Sudan Tribune has local coverage.
  
  
• A Supreme Court [official website] ruling in Nepal [government website] dealt a significant blow to the aspirations of the rebel Maoist party to attain legitimacy as a political party. The Nepalese Supreme Court held that there was insufficient evidence to prove that the Maoist party was in fact a political organization devoted to governmental change within the boundaries of the constitution. The ruling allows the Nepal Monarchy to continue to classify Maoists as terrorists and employ powers granted by anti-terrorism legislation against the rebels. The Supreme Court issued a separate opinion on the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (Control and Punishment) Ordinance, 2005 [text] (TADO) in which it held that the provisions granting the government the power to detain individuals for up to one year without charging them with a crime did not violate the Nepalese Constitution. The law had been challenged as unconstitutional under Nepal's human rights protections. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of Nepal [JURIST news archive]. eKantipur.com has local coverage.
  
  
• Zimbabwean High Court Judge Alphas Chitakunye has denied bail to Peter Hitschmann, a national accused of planning to assassinate Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe [BBC profile]. Chitakunye also permitted the government to alter its charges against Hitschmann in order to allow trial to proceed, as the charges as originally filed could not be proven with the evidence the government had in its possession. Defense lawyers for Hitschmann have already announced their intent to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court on the grounds that the executive branch was interfering with the trial. Chitakunye took over the case after the original High Court judge assigned to the case recused himself [ZimOnline report] on the order of the attorney general. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of Zimbabwe [JURIST news archive]. ZimOnline has local coverage.

[JURIST Europe] Fresh talks between French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin [official website] and French trade union leaders over the new First Employment Contract (CPE) labor law [FAQ, in French; English-language official backgrounder] ended in deadlock Friday with the government continuing to insist that it will not withdraw the law, although it might amend it [JURIST report]. De Villepin appears to have the support of President Jacques Chirac [official website, in French; BBC profile]. Observers had seen the Friday talks as a first step towards possible compromise, but labor leaders said that no further talks with the government were planned. A nationwide protest strike [JURIST report] is still scheduled for March 28.

Meanwhile, violent protests against the law have continued, with French police arresting some 420 people nationwide on Thursday for vandalism and attacking officers. In Paris, 141 arrests were made as groups of masked youths set fire to cars and broke shop windows.

The CPE was introduced as a way to tackle the high level of unemployment for young workers. French employers can hire workers under the age of 26, but can also fire workers without just cause within the first two years of employment. The law was adopted by parliament two weeks ago and is now undergoing review by France's Constitutional Council [official website]. BBC News has more. Le Monde has local coverage [in French].

Angela Onikepe is an Associate Editor for JURIST Europe, reporting European legal news from a European perspective. She is based in the UK.

[JURIST] American officials denied a claim Friday that they planned to release 12 high-ranking prisoners from the US detention facility at Camp Cropper [Wikipedia backgrounder] near Baghdad International Airport [GlobalSecurity backgrounder]. Iraqi lawyer Badia Aref had said that US officials planned to free the prisoners within two weeks, but that his client, former Iraqi Prime Minister Tariq Aziz [BBC profile], would not be among those released. Aref has been calling [JURIST report] for the release of Aziz due to his deteriorating health [JURIST report].

The US currently holds 65 high-ranking figures from the Saddam Hussein regime awaiting trial. There have been no releases since the US freed over 20 prisoners [JURIST report] in December, including two of Hussein's top weapons experts. Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, acting as a spokesman for the facility, said that the US had no plans to release high-value detainees any time soon. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif [official profile] has said that he plans to replace [JURIST report] the country's 25-year-old emergency laws [EOHR backgrounder] with anti-terror legislation. The emergency laws, renewed every three years, are set to expire in May. They were adopted in 1981 in response to the assassination of former President Anwar Sadat [CNN profile], and grant the government the power to arrest anyone who appears to pose a threat to state security and detain them for renewable 45-day periods. The laws also allow military courts to try civilians, and bar public demonstrations.

The laws have come under heavy criticism [HRW press release] from opposition forces as well as local and international human rights groups. The Egyptian government says it has rarely invoked the emergency laws, and only used them in response to repeated attacks by suspected Islamic militants. They also became an issue [JURIST report] during the 2005 election. Prime Minister Nazif told parliament late Wednesday that he will form a committee to draft the replacement anti-terror legislation, but has yet to provide a timeline for the project. AFP has more.

[JURIST Europe] Early Friday morning local time, Belarus police swept down on hundreds of demonstrators camped out in Minsk's Oktyabrskaya Square in protest against the results of last Sunday's presidential elections [JURIST report] which returned Alexander Lukashenko [official website; BBC profile] to power in Belarus [JURIST news archive] with 82.6 percent of the vote, according to official results [Belarus Central Election Commission tally, in Belarusian]. After a scuffle with a few protestors who resisted, 200-300 were quickly loaded into vans, leaving the camp abandoned after about 20 minutes.

International election observers have said the elections were severely flawed [JURIST report] while opposition candidates, including Alexander Milinkevich [campaign website; Wikipedia profile], are calling for a re-run of the poll [JURIST report]. Another demonstration is scheduled for March 25. The US has condemned the police action and has said that it does not accept the results of the vote [transcript]. Russia views the elections as legitimate and has pledged support for Lukashenko. BBC News has more.

10:55 AM ET - In the wake of the crackdown the European Union announced Friday that it would impose threatened sanctions [EU Austrian Presidency statement] against Belarus. AP has more.

11:23 AM ET - White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Friday that the US would join the EU in imposing sanctions against Lukashenko. AP has more.

Angela Onikepe is an Associate Editor for JURIST Europe, reporting European legal news from a European perspective. She is based in the UK.

[JURIST] After European Union foreign ministers met in Brussels Thursday to discuss the future of the EU Constitution [text; JURIST news archive], Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik [official EU profile] has expressed doubt that a solution to the current impasse will be ready by a June summit on the constitution. Austria currently holds the EU presidency [official website] and has made reconsideration of the constitution one of its goals [JURIST report] for its term.

Prior to the summit, other European leaders met to discuss plans to revive the constitution [JURIST report]. Rejections of the document from France [JURIST report] and the Netherlands [JURIST report] last year had brought the debate to a standstill, despite its approval by 12 other European countries [BBC report]. EUObserver.com has more.

[JURIST] UN Legal Counsel Nicolas Michel [official profile] said Thursday that the UN is ready to begin final negotiations on the establishment of an international tribunal to try suspects in the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri [JURIST news archive]. Michel said that a mixed tribunal with both Lebanese and international support, similar to the Special Court for Sierra Leone [official website], would produce the best outcome. He said that it is unlikely that the tribunal will be established inside Lebanon and that factors such as impartiality and safety of witnesses and judges will determine its location. Michel's comments follow a recommendation of a mixed tribunal [JURIST report] from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan earlier this week.

The UN Security Council [official website] must vote to allow Annan to open formal negotiations on the establishment of a tribunal, and that vote could come next week. A UN commission investigating the assassination [UN materials] has suggested that top Syrian security officials were involved, but Syria has denied any involvement. Reuters has more. The UN News Centre has additional coverage.

[JURIST] A spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry [official website, English version] said Thursday that the case of a detained Chinese researcher who worked for the New York Times is being dealt with according to Chinese law. Zhao Yan has been held since September 2004, and has still not been released [JURIST report] by Chinese authorities despite two formal requests filed by Yan's defense lawyer following a court order last week to dismiss state secret charges [JURIST report] levied against him. Asked about the case, the Ministry spokesman simply said that the "actual situation is not like what you are talking about."

The Committee to Protect Journalists [official website] reports that 32 journalists are currently being held [CPJ report] in Chinese prisons, allegedly more than in any other country. Zhao, a researcher at the Times Beijing bureau, was accused of leaking state secrets after the Times published a report on the unexpected resignation of former President Jiang Zemin [Wikipedia backgrounder] from his role as chief of the military. AP has more.

[JURIST] Leading Muslim clerics have urged that Afghanistan [JURIST news archive] ignore international pressure and execute Abdul Rahman [JURIST report] for converting from Islam to Christianity. "The people will kill him if he is freed," declared the chief cleric of a Kabul mosque, and Abdul Raoulf, chief of the Afghan Ulama Council added that "we will call on the people to pull him to pieces." The 41-year-old former medical aid worker faces the death penalty [JURIST report] if convicted of apostasy under Afghanistan's Islamic sharia laws [CFR backgrounder], and it is unclear whether he has a lawyer. An Afghan Supreme Court judge said on Thursday that Afghan courts will not bow to international pressure [JURIST report] after Condoleezza Rice telephoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai [BBC profile] to ask for a "favorable resolution."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Amnesty International have also called on Karzai to ensure that Rahman is not executed [AI statement]. Rahman is believed to have lived in Germany for nine years and worked as a medical aid provider for an international Christian group. "This is much more important to us than all the aid the world has given us," claimed Said Mirhossain Nasri, a cleric at one of the largest Shiite places of worship in Kabul. AP has more.

4:51 PM ET - An Afghan government official said Friday that Rahman would be released in the coming days and that a top-level meeting on the situation is scheduled for Saturday. AFP has more.

[JURIST] Prosecutors concluded their case in the sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui [JURIST news archive] Thursday with the testimony of former FBI agent Aaron Zebley, who claimed that the FBI would have been able to trace records and identify 11 of the 19 hijackers if Moussaoui had admitted receiving thousands of dollars in wire transfers when he was arrested in August 2001. Presiding US District Judge Leonie Brinkema [official profile] has already warned prosecutors not to base their case on Moussaoui's failure to act [JURIST report], which she described as "shaky legal territory." Defense attorneys have countered that the FBI failed to respond to 70 requests by FBI agent Harry Samit to investigate Moussaoui as a terrorist-in-training.

Moussaoui's lawyers began their defense Thursday by outlining the government's failure to track two of the Sept. 11 hijackers who were known al Qaeda associates. Moussaoui could take the stand as early as next week, over his lawyers' objections. Moussaoui pleaded guilty [JURIST report] last April to six conspiracy charges, and the current trial will determine whether he receives the death penalty or life in prison. AP has more.

[JURIST Europe] A Belgrade court has reinstated an arrest warrant against the widow of ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic [JURIST news archive] after she failed to attend a court appearance [JURIST report] scheduled for Thursday. Mira Markovic [BBC profile] was charged with abuse of power when she obtained a flat for the family nanny. The court withdrew the outstanding arrest warrant [JURIST report] earlier this month at the request of Milosevic's Socialist Party, which sought Markovic's attendance at his funeral in his hometown of Pozarevac. The Party was able to raise enough money to post bail at 15,000 euros ($25,144) for Markovic and vouch for her return to Serbia. Markovic, a resident of Russia for the past three years, was not present at the funeral. The court ruled the bail money to be forfeited.

Milosevic died from heart failure [JURIST report] March 11 while in the fifth year of his genocide and war crimes trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [official website]. He was the first head of state to ever appear before an international war crimes court. Reuters has more.

Angela Onikepe is an Associate Editor for JURIST Europe, reporting European legal news from a European perspective. She is based in the UK.