[JURIST] The US House Ethics Committee [official website] Thursday opened its investigation into allegations of misconduct related to the House Page program [backgrounder, PDF], issuing nearly four dozen subpoenas for witnesses and documents, according to statements [1, 2, text] issued by the Committee leadership. A special bipartisan subcommittee, set up under HR 1065 [text of resolution], is being led by Doc Hastings (R-WA) [official website], and Ranking Minority Member Howard Berman, (D-CA) [official website], and also contains two other members, one from each party.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-IL [official website], who has come under fire [BBC report] after allegations that he had prior knowledge of the sexually explicit e-mails sent from ex-congressman Mark Foley [JURIST news archive] to teenage males in the House Page program, says he will not resign and is willing to testify to the committee if subpoenaed. Foley, who stepped down [Reuters report] after being confronted with transcripts of the messages he sent to the pages, has since begun treatment for alcohol abuse, and has admitted that he is gay, but has denied any sexual contact with minors. AP has more.

[JURIST] California’s First District State Court of Appeal [official website] upheld a state ban on gay marriage Thursday. In a 2-1 decision [opinion, PDF], the court held that the ban was not unconstitutional because it did not violate any "vested fundamental right" of gays and lesbians. The move overturns a March 2005 ruling [JURIST report] by San Francisco Superior Court [official website] Judge Richard Kramer which had held limits on gay marriage unlawful under the state’s constitution. He wrote, "The state's protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional."

On August 10, the California Supreme Court [official website] issued a statement [JURIST report] that it would not immediately take up the case, thereby leaving the matter to the appeals courts. Now that the appellate court has ruled in favor of the ban, advocacy groups have already said that they will take their case up to the California high court. The court rulings, however, could become largely irrelevant if California gay marriage opponents succeed in passing a constitutional amendment [JURIST report] prohibiting same-sex marriage, which they are trying to get on the ballot in the fall elections. AP has more.

[JURIST] US President George W. Bush attached a signing statement [text] to the 2007 spending bill [DHS press release] for the Homeland Security Department [official website] Thursday, giving himself the authority to make changes to the agency's annual Privacy Office [official website] reports. Congress stated that only the Department's Privacy Officer could edit the reports, designed to ensure that the Department obeys privacy rules. Bush's statement would nonetheless allows him to construe the bill's section on privacy reports "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch."

Signing statements attached to legislation during the Bush presidency became controversial earlier this year when the Boston Globe and other papers reported that he had added them to some 750 bills [Boston Globe report] since the outset of his presidency. In July, the American Bar Association [official website] criticized the practice [JURIST report] as undermining congressional authority. The US Department of Justice [official website], however, has said that Bush's frequent use of signing statements is not abnormal [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Federal Trade Commission announced [press release] Thursday that it has reached an agreement for the settlement of pretexting charges [complaint text, PDF; news release] against Virginia-based Integrity Security & Investigation Services [corporate website]. Current federal law allows the government to only collect $2,700 in damages, the entire sum of profit that the company made from selling confidential phone records and credit card transaction reports. The settlement agreement [text, PDF] prevents Integrated Security from obtaining or selling consumers' phone records or other personal information unless authorized by law or court order. The company is barred from pretexting, or hiring others who will pretext on its behalf.

Pretexting has made headlines recently in the wake of revelations that computer company Hewlett-Packard [corporate website; JURIST news archive] used it to obtain phone records of board members, employees, and journalists while attempting to determine who was leaking information from board meetings. Charges have been filed [JURIST report] in that case. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Israel's High Court Thursday gave the state five days to explain why it appointed government officials to investigate [JURIST report] its handling of the recent Hezbollah conflict [JURIST news archive] rather than establish an independent inquiry committee. The Movement for Quality Government in Israel [advocacy website] last week called on the High Court to intervene as part of its campaign for a full independent inquiry [press release] into Israel's conduct of the war.

Critics say the government committee led by retired judge Eliyahu Winograd will only hide the government's shortcomings during the 34-day confrontation that ended with a ceasefire August 14. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert [official website; speech transcript], however, has said that the country needs a professional inquiry, not a political solution. Israel has been heavily criticized for its conduct during the conflict, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Questions have been raised about the country's military preparedness, its operational strategy, and the legal policy behind some of its targeting decisions. AFP has more.

[JURIST] A UN Human Rights Council [official website] envoy on Thursday called for an investigation by the International Criminal Court [official website] into whether Israel committed war crimes during the 34-day Middle East conflict [JURIST news archive]. In a report, UN special rapporteur on food rights Jean Ziegler [official profile] wrote that Israel's bombing campaign against Lebanon [JURIST news archive] blocked access to food and water by bombing farmland and blocking Lebanon's ports. Israel has criticized Ziegler for going beyond the authority given to him by the council.

Another group of four UN human rights envoys reported Tuesday that Israel and Hezbollah [CFR backgrounder] both violated international humanitarian law [JURIST report] during the Middle East conflict. Their report to the Human Rights Council claims that Israel [JURIST news archive] failed to adequately protect civilians and failed to use means which would inflict the least amount of damage. The report blamed Hezbollah for using almost 4,000 Katyusha rockets which were fired at civilian areas in northern Israel, resulting in the deaths of approximately 40 civilians. AP has more.

[JURIST] The European Court of Human Rights [official website] on Thursday ruled [judgment text] that Germany violated the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights [PDF text] by allowing a lawsuit to continue for 30 years. Jurgen Grasser filed a lawsuit against the city of Saarbrucken in 1974 after the city refused to grant him a building permit for a shopping center for his own land. After spending 30 years in and out of German courts, the European Court of Human Rights criticized the length of proceedings as "a particularly grave violation of the right to a hearing within a reasonable time." The court also said that Grasser "undoubtedly suffered distress resulting from the protracted length of the proceedings, which he had to conduct for almost all his working life."

Lawyers for the German government argued that there was no causal connection between the length of the proceedings and the damages alleged and that Grasser's compensation claims were excessive. Although Grasser had hoped for millions, he was awarded 60,000 euros ($76,446). Grasser still has another case pending before a German court, in which he claims 180 million euros in damages. Deutsche Welle has more.

[JURIST] Britain's High Court [official website] Thursday quashed the four-week suspension of London Mayor Ken Livingstone [official profile], originally handed down by the Adjudication Panel for England [official website] in February. The suspension was ordered [ruling text, PDF] after Livingstone made controversial comments to a Jewish journalist. A High Court judge overturned the suspension, but did not make an immediate decision on whether the Adjudication Panel correctly concluded that Livingstone breached the Greater London Authority's Code of Conduct. Livingstone's lawyers argued that the comments were made outside the scope of his employment as mayor while an Ethical Standards Officer argued that the mayor's arguments trivialized the code of conduct.

The incident occurred when Livingstone, leaving a private party, responded to reporter Oliver Finegold's questions by telling him he was "like a concentration camp guard - you are just doing it because you are paid to." Livingstone later defended his comments [JURIST report] as referencing not the journalist himself, but his employer, the Evening Standard, a tabloid paper that supported the Nazis in early 1930s. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger [official website] issued an emergency proclamation [text; press release] Wednesday to relieve prison overcrowding by allowing inmates to be transferred to other states. Citing severe overcrowding as a threat to the health and safety in 29 of the state's 33 prisons, Schwarzenegger said: "Our prisons are now beyond maximum capacity, and we must act immediately and aggressively to resolve this issue. These actions are necessary to protect the safety and well being of the officers, inmates and the public." The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) [official website], which has been forced to house more than 15,000 inmates in gymnasiums and other areas not designed as living space, estimates it will run out of beds as early as June 2007. More than 19,000 inmates expressed interest in transferring to a correctional facility outside California, and the CDCR is studying facilities in nine other states.

California prison reform [CDCR backgrounder] was also at issue when a federal judge ordered the establishment of an expert panel to reform Los Angeles jails after racially motivated riots broke out [JURIST reports] earlier this year. California Youth and Adult Corrections Secretary Roderick Hickman [official profile] resigned [JURIST report] in February after a two-year attempt to reform the prison system, citing lack of political support for reforms that address problems such as overcrowding, an aging inmate population and entrenched gang activity. The CDCR houses more than 171,000 youth and adult convicts and employs 59,000 throughout the state. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Another Turkish author went on trial Thursday on charges [AP report] that he "insulted the Turkish identity" in violation of Article 301 [Amnesty backgrounder] of the country's penal code. Ipek Calislar wrote that the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, once left his palace disguised as a woman to evade an assassination attempt. Calislar faces 4.5 years in prison if convicted.

Turkey [JURIST news archive; CIA backgrounder] is seeking membership to the European Union (EU) [official website], which has urged that Article 301 be abolished [JURIST report] because it infringes upon the freedom of expression. Despite revising portions of the penal code [JURIST report] last year, Turkish leaders have no immediate plans to make further changes to the law. Turkish novelists Elif Shafak [personal website], Hrant Dink and Orhan Pamuk [JURIST news archive] have all been charged under Article 301 for discussing the alleged Armenian genocide. Shafak was acquitted and Pamuk's charges were dismissed [JURIST reports], while Dink faces a retrial [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] sharply questioned federal officials Wednesday during oral arguments in the case of a Pakistani man who says he was detained because of his race, religion or national origin soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks [JURIST news archive] and tortured while in custody. Javaid Iqbal, who was held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after a US immigration and security sweep [US DOJ backgrounder] picked up some 1,200 mostly Arab and Muslim men [ACLU backgrounder] in November 2001, claims he was abused and held for no legitimate reason. Iqbal sued several defendants, including former US Attorney General John Ashcroft [official profile; JURIST news archive], FBI Director Robert Mueller and former Bureau of Prisons head Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, seeking to find out whether they knew about the abuse, which allegedly included severe physical and verbal abuse, unnecessary body-cavity and strip searches, and interference with Iqbal's exercise of religion and with attempts to communicate with counsel. The defendants appealed a US district judge's decision [PDF text] last year rejecting Ashcroft's motion to dismiss the suit [JURIST report].

A lawyer for Ashcroft and Mueller argued Wednesday that the attacks created a national emergency requiring special action and that it is not apparent that his clients were involved. Other defendants argued that Iqbal's allegations of mistreatment while in custody did not give rise to a due process claim, an argument which met with harsh criticism from the panel. No terrorism charges were ever filed against Iqbal, who was deported to Pakistan for credit card fraud. A second plaintiff in the suit, Egyptian Ehab Elmaghraby, settled [JURIST report] with the US government for $300,000. In July, Algerian Benamar Benatta, the last individual believed to have been still in detention following the post 9/11 sweep was released [JURIST report]. Reuters has more. The New York Times has additional coverage.

[JURIST] US District Judge Christopher Boyko [official profile] ruled [opinion, PDF] Wednesday that an Ohio voting rule requiring naturalized citizens to provide proof of citizenship if challenged by poll workers was unconstitutional. The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio [advocacy group] assisted a group of citizens in filing a lawsuit [press release] to challenge the law in August. Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell [official website] did not oppose the lawsuit during the court hearing Wednesday, saying he agreed that the rule should be struck down.

Boyko said the Ohio [JURIST news archive] voting rule encouraged racial profiling and requested his decision to be forwarded to other states. The rule was part of the controversial HB 3 election reform bill [text] passed in February, which also required voters who could not prove their identity at the time of voting to instead cast a temporary ballot that would not be counted if the voter failed to provide citizenship documentation to a county elections board within 10 days of the vote. Last month, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website] also ruled [JURIST report] that another part of the bill made it prohibitive for minority parties to be included on ballots. AP has more.

[JURIST] Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock [official website] said Thursday that the Australian government plans to appeal [press release] a court decision giving Aborigines native title [NNTT backgrounder] to land in the city of Perth, saying the ruling could prevent non-indigenous people from having access to public parks and beaches in the area. Ruddock said the decision could have implications for several similar native title determination cases that are pending across Australia [JURIST news archive] and noted that there needs to be a "clear understanding among stakeholders as to what the law allows."

The decision [text] last month by Justice Murray Wilcox granted native title to 2,300 square miles of land in Perth to the Noongar people [Wikipedia backgrounder] who were stripped of their property rights during white settlement in 1829. The South-West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council [advocacy website], which represented the Noongar people, expressed dissatisfaction with the government's decision and said the Noongars would prefer to negotiate over the land use rather than enter an appeals process. AFP has more.

[JURIST] Two US Marines charged [JURIST report] with the death of an Iraqi civilian in Hamdania [JURIST news archive] pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of murder and kidnapping. Pfc. John Jodka and Cpl. Marshall Magincalda are the first of eight soldiers from the Camp Pendleton [official website] military base to be arraigned in the April death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad [Wikipedia profile]. The soldiers allegedly shot Awad and then attempted to make it seem that he was an insurgent planting a roadside bomb by placing a shovel and rifle next to his dead body. In August, military prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty [JURIST report] against the men, but if convicted, both could face life in prison.

The military judge presiding over the case also issued a temporary gag order Wednesday, prohibiting all attorneys from speaking to the media or releasing information regarding the case, and ruled that attorneys for Jodka and Magincalda will be permitted to travel to Hamdania and interview witnesses. Jodka requested to have his case heard before a panel of fellow Marines [official website] in his March trial, while Magincalda was permitted to delay deciding whether he would choose the same for his February case or whether he wanted the case to be heard by a military judge. Reuters has more.

10:13 AM ET - A lawyer for another soldier implicated in the Hamdania incident, Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Melson J. Bacos, has said that Bacos will testify against the other seven soldiers in exchange for the dismissal of charges against him. The lawyer said Bacos will testify at court martial proceedings later this week and that murder charges against his client will be dropped. Bacos has also agreed to plead guilty to two lesser charges. AP has more.

[JURIST] Two US Marines charged [JURIST report] with the death of an Iraqi civilian in Hamdania [JURIST news archive] pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of murder and kidnapping. Pfc. John Jodka and Cpl. Marshall Magincalda are the first of eight soldiers from the Camp Pendleton [official website] military base to be arraigned in the April death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad [Wikipedia profile]. The soldiers allegedly shot Awad and then attempted to make it seem that he was an insurgent planting a roadside bomb by placing a shovel and rifle next to his dead body. In August, military prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty [JURIST report] against the men, but if convicted, both could face life in prison.

The military judge presiding over the case also issued a temporary gag order Wednesday, prohibiting all attorneys from speaking to the media or releasing information regarding the case, and ruled that attorneys for Jodka and Magincalda will be permitted to travel to Hamdania and interview witnesses. Jodka requested to have his case heard before a panel of fellow Marines [official website] in his March trial, while Magincalda was permitted to delay deciding whether he would choose the same for his February case or whether he wanted the case to be heard by a military judge. Reuters has more.

10:13 AM ET - A lawyer for another soldier implicated in the Hamdania incident, Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Melson J. Bacos, has said that Bacos will testify against the other seven soldiers in exchange for the dismissal of charges against him. The lawyer said Bacos will testify at court martial proceedings later this week and that murder charges against his client will be dropped. Bacos has also agreed to plead guilty to two lesser charges. AP has more.