[JURIST] Thousands of Italians rallied in Rome on Saturday in support of a bill [JURIST report] that would give legal status to unmarried gay and heterosexual couples couples. The proposal, which has been harshly criticized by the Italian justice minister and the top Italian bishop [JURIST reports], would give unmarried couples combined medical insurance, the right to visit their partner in prisons or hospitals, inheritance rights, and decision-making authority should one partner become sick. Couples would have to live together for nine years before they would be entitled to property rights, but if the legislation is passed, couples would be able to take advantage of the other legal protections immediately.

The Vatican has said that giving unmarried couples rights would threaten traditional families [JURIST report]. A "traditional" family is held by the Vatican to be a marital union between a man and a woman. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Mexican President Felipe Calderon [official website; BBC profile] proposed changes to the country's constitution [text] Friday in an effort to reform its criminal justice system [press release]. Earlier this month, Amnesty International [advocacy website] accused Mexico [JURIST news archive] in a report [text] of having a "gravely flawed" criminal justice system in which human rights abuses are perpetuated and criminals are rarely punished. The report cited evidence of arbitrary detentions, torture, fabrication of evidence and unfair trials and claims that the victims are often indigenous Mexicans, the poor, women and children. The latest US Department of State human rights report [text] on Mexico released Monday reported:

Although the government generally respected and promoted human rights at the national level by investigating, prosecuting, and sentencing public officials and members of the security forces, a deeply entrenched culture of impunity and corruption persisted, particularly at the state and local level. The following human rights problems were reported: unlawful killings by security forces; kidnappings, including by police; torture; poor and overcrowded prison conditions; arbitrary arrests and detention; corruption, inefficiency, and lack of transparency in the judicial system; statements coerced through torture permitted as evidence in trials; criminal intimidation of journalists, leading to self-censorship; corruption at all levels of government; domestic violence against women often perpetrated with impunity; criminal violence, including killings against women; trafficking in persons, sometimes allegedly with official involvement; social and economic discrimination against indigenous people; and child labor.

[JURIST] Hundreds of Pakistani lawyers boycotted courts Saturday to protest Friday's suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry [JURIST report] for unspecified misconduct. An estimated 200 lawyers burned images of President Pervez Musharraf [official website; BBC profile] in Karachi. Amir Rana, a nephew of Chaudhry, told AP that the chief justice refused a request by Musharraf to resign and that Chaudhry's "movement has been restricted." Musharraf has directed the Supreme Judicial Council [governing constitutional provisions], the oversight body of Pakistan's judiciary, to investigate the allegations against Chaudhry. The council is expected to hear the case against Chaudhry on Tuesday.

Musharraf suspended Chaudhry Friday "after receiving numerous complaints and serious allegations for misconduct, misuse of authority and actions prejudicial to the dignity of the office of the Chief Justice of Pakistan." The reasons behind the allegations remain uncertain, although various private media outlets have recently accuse Chaudhry of nepotism. Chaudhry assumed the position of chief justice in 2005, and has developed a reputation for being willing to investigate alleged government abuses involving the illegal detention of political activists. AP has more.

[JURIST] US District Judge Richard G. Stearns ordered US immigration officials on Friday to provide detainees from a New Bedford, Massachusetts sweatshop access to lawyers and not to move them out of state. Stearns also told the state Department of Social Services and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency [official websites] to find a solution to the problem of mothers or primary caregivers who have been separated from their children and detained.

The US Department of Homeland Security [official website] detained more than 300 people for possible deportation as illegal immigrants after a raid Tuesday at Michael Bianco Inc. [corporate website], a leather factory that makes equipment for the US military. On Thursday, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick [official website] asked federal authorities to stop flights carrying workers to a deportation [JURIST news archive] holding facility in Texas until the workers' children could be accounted for [press release]. Immigration agents released 60 people who said they were the sole caregivers for their children. The Boston Globe has more.

[JURIST] Ecuador's Constitutional Tribunal [official website, in Spanish] has warned President Rafael Correa [official website, Spanish; BBC profile] that he would be acting illegally if he ignores a potential unfavorable ruling by the Tribunal on a controversial exercise of authority by the country's seven-member Supreme Electoral Tribunal [official website], which dismissed 57 of 100 lawmakers [JURIST report] in the Congress of Ecuador [official website] on Thursday. Tribunal president Dr. Santiago Velasquez Coello [official profile, Spanish] said Friday that "it is a crime when a citizen disregards a ruling" of the tribunal. Correa said Thursday that he will ignore unfavorable court rulings and proceed with plans to hold a referendum on whether Ecuador should form a constitutional assembly to rewrite its constitution [text, Spanish].

The Congress voted to hold a referendum [JURIST report] in February, but last week, Congress and Correa submitted separate versions of the referendum to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which chose Correa's version. Correa's version disregarded a stipulation by Congress that the constitutional assembly may not retroactively dismiss members of congress and other elected officials of previous elections. The 57-dismissed member of congress voted to impeach four members of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which prompted the tribunal to respond with the dismissals. In January, Correa became the eighth president [JURIST report] of Ecuador [JURIST news archive] in ten years on the platform promising to overhaul the nation's economy to fight poverty. Correa has characterized the congress as a "sewer of corruption" and has expressed admiration for the policies of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez [JURIST news archive]. AP has more.

[JURIST] A Turkish court on Friday lifted a ban on YouTube [corporate website] two days after the court banned the popular video-sharing website [JURIST report]. The court had ordered telecom providers in the country to block access because of videos allegedly insulting the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk [Turkish News profile]. It is unclear why the court lifted the ban.

The controversial videos caused an uproar among Turks and led to prosecutors recommending the website be banned. During the past week, the country's media has been reporting a "virtual war" on YouTube between Turkey and Greece [JURIST news archives], in which citizens of both countries have been creating videos to mock the other. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Wolesi Jirga [Wikipedia backgrounder], the lower house of the Afghan parliament [IRIN backgrounder], voted Saturday to approve a revised resolution calling for an amnesty for groups that allegedly committed war crimes [JURIST news archive]. The resolution, revised by President Hamid Karzai [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], bars the state from independently prosecuting individuals for war crimes absent accusation from an alleged victim. The revised resolution also extends the amnesty to all groups, as opposed to only leaders of various factions alleged to have committed war crimes during the 1980s resistance against Soviet forces and war crimes committed during the country's civil war [CNN backgrounder].

Both Wolesi Jirga and the Meshrano Jirga [Wikipedia backgrounder], the upper house of parliament, initially approved a resolution calling for amnesty [JURIST report] for leaders in February. The resolution drew some popular support [JURIST report] but was criticized by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights [JURIST report] and other rights advocates. Afghanistan's highest body of Islamic clerics also opposed the issuance of a blanket amnesty, arguing that the perpetrators of war crimes can only gain forgiveness from the victims and not the parliament. The amnesty bill will become law unless the president acts within 15 days of parliamentary passage. If Karzai refuses to sign the bill, the 250-member Wolesi Jirga can override his veto with a two-thirds majority vote. AP has more.

[JURIST] Top US Justice Department officials moved quickly Friday to acknowledge fault and apologize for illegal activities after a sharply critical DOJ inspector general's report [PDF] on Patriot Act investigative practices revealed that the FBI [official website] broke and misused laws [JURIST report] in the process of obtaining personal information from telephone companies, internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus and other business personal records. FBI Director Robert Mueller said [press briefing transcript] that FBI agents had improperly used so-called "exigent letters," under which communication carriers, relying on the FBI's representation of "emergency situations", are directed to provide personal information with the expectation that grand jury subpoenas would follow. Mueller noted that the report "found that there were not necessarily exigent circumstances and that [subsequent] grand jury subpoenas had not followed." Mueller told reporters that the FBI had suspended the use of exigent letters since May of last year and will only use them in future "when the circumstances comport with the [Patriot Act]." Mueller also admitted that the FBI violated privacy protections in its use of national security letters (NSLs) [FAS backgrounder; example, PDF] with inaccurate record keeping, and also failed to detect potential Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) violations and submit them to IOB review. Mueller stated that the FBI has taken corrective measures [diagram] to ensure that the FBI complies with all applicable laws and internal policy requirements.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales meanwhile said [prepared remarks] that he has ordered the DOJ National Security Division (NSD) [official website] "to begin oversight and auditing of the FBI's use of NSLs..." and had ordered briefings on the inspector general's report to be "given to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, Congress and key advocacy groups." The review by the DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) [official website] was conducted under the terms of the 2005 Patriot Act renewal legislation. Both Gonzales and Mueller reiterated that the inspector general found no "intentional or deliberate misuse of authorities." AP has more.