[JURIST] Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf [official website; JURIST news archive] Friday promulgated an order to amend [amendment text] the Pakistani constitution, allowing the president to declare a state of emergency without parliamentary ratification and providing that any judge who has not taken an oath under the Oath of Office (Judges) Order, 2007 [text] established under Musharraf's Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) [text as amended] ceased to hold office effective November 3. The move was widely seen as an attempt to validate and legitimize Musharraf's November 3 declaration of emergency rule [proclamation, PDF] and give constitutional cover to Musharraf's ousting of the country's Supreme Court and High Court judiciaries. Musharraf has promised to lift emergency rule on Saturday.

Last month, Musharraf amended the Pakistani constitution [JURIST report] to make the emergency and its accompanying orders immune from any legal challenge by deeming them always to have been validly made. Musharraf has the power to unilaterally amend the country's constitution under Article 2(1) of the PCO. AFP has more.

[JURIST] Jean-Marie Le Pen [BBC profile], leader of France's far-right National Front party [party website, in French], went on trial Friday for "complicity in contesting crimes against humanity and complicity in justifying war crimes." The charges stem from Le Pen's 2005 comments [BBC report] during an interview with the right-wing weekly magazine Rivarol [media website, in French] that the World War II Nazi occupation of France was "not particularly inhumane." Under a French anti-racism law [text, in French; Wikipedia backgrounder on the "Loi Gayssot"], it is illegal to deny Nazi war crimes. The prosecution has requested a five month suspended sentence and a fine of 10,000 euros. A verdict is expected on February 8.

The trial comes after Le Pen lost his fifth bid to become president [JURIST report] this past April. Le Pen's platform had included plans to reduce the age of criminal liability to 10, create a National Guard, end benefit payments to foreigners, create 75,000 more prison places, and pull France out of NATO [official website]. The National Front party failed to win a seat in the French parliament in the June legislative elections. Previously, Le Pen had surprised observers with his strong performance in the 2002 French presidential election [BBC backgrounder] when he finished second. Reuters has more. The Telegraph has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The UK parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) [official website] Friday issued a report [PDF text] opposing a proposal by the government to extend the time limit on detaining terror suspects [JURIST report] from 28 to 42 days. The JCHR concluded that the government had not made an adequate case for the increase and that:

i) it can find no clear evidence of likely need in the near future;
ii) alternatives to extension do enough, in combination, to protect the public and are much more proportionate;
iii) the proposed parliamentary mechanism would create a serious risk of prejudice to the fair trial of suspects;
iv) the existing judicial safeguards for extensions even up to 28 days are inadequate.

[JURIST] A court in Chad has set December 21 as the trial date for six French nationals connected with the abortive effort by French charity Zoe's Ark [advocacy website, in French; BBC backgrounder] to airlift so-called "Darfur orphans" out of Chad [JURIST news archive] to Europe. The six will be tried on kidnapping, fraud, and forgery charges. Zoe's Ark founder Eric Breteau said in a written statement to the BBC that Zoe's Ark workers believed the children to be orphans from Darfur and that any confusion was the fault of intermediaries who brought the children to him.

Last month, Chad released three Spanish air crew and a Belgian pilot [JURIST report] held in Chad in connection with the attempted airlift. Chadian authorities also freed seven Europeans [JURIST report] in early November, including three French journalists, after French President Nicolas Sarkozy personally intervened on their behalf. Three Chadians and one Sudanese national are also facing trial in Chad for complicity in kidnapping and fraud. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov [official profile] Friday defended a Russian government directive earlier this week to shut down [BBC report] local offices of the British Council [official website] by January 1, saying that the offices in Yekaterinburg and St. Petersburg were originally established in breach of international and Russian law. Russian authorities insist the Council has violated Russian tax laws. The British Council, a non-departmental public body that promotes UK culture abroad, has denied the accusations, saying it is an arm of the British Embassy and is entitled to diplomatic immunity from tax. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown Thursday called the shutdown order "totally unacceptable" and UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband described it as "illegal." UK-Russian relations have become very strained recently, partly due to Russia's refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoy [JURIST news archive], suspected in the November 2006 polonium-210 poisoning of British citizen and former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko [JURIST news archive]; in July, the British government ordered several Russian diplomats removed from the UK. AFP has more. The Moscow Times has local coverage.

Russia has clamped down on foreign groups operating within the country since a controversial Russian law imposing restrictions on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) took effect [JURIST report] in April. The new law, signed [JURIST report] by Russian President Vladimir Putin in January imposes strict financial oversight on NGO operations, and provides for dissolution if an organization's activities "threaten Russia's independence or sovereignty" or if a group participates in activities deemed to deviate from its explicit mission statement. Putin has defended the law as necessary to protect against "puppeteers abroad" [JURIST report].

[JURIST] Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam Friday denied that Libya engages in torture in response to a lawsuit filed [JURIST report] Wednesday by a Palestinian doctor detained in Libya after being accused of deliberately infected hundreds of children with the HIV virus. Ashraf Jima Hajuj filed the lawsuit against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi [official website], as well as five police officers and a doctor in Libya, alleging that he was tortured during his eight year detention. Hajuj's claim, filed in Paris, relied on France's accession to the 1984 UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment [text], which allows signatory countries to take legal action against suspected torturers who enter their territory; Gaddafi arrived in France on Monday for a five-day visit, although, as a head of state, he may enjoy immunity. AP has more.

Hajuj was among the six foreign medics [BBC Q&A; JURIST news archive] who had been sentenced to life in prison [JURIST report] for allegedly infecting hundreds of children with the HIV virus. Libya released [JURIST report] the six in July after obtaining an agreement from the European Union to normalize and develop closer political and economic ties and increase medical and infrastructure aid. Earlier that month, the Libyan Supreme Court upheld the death penalty [JURIST report] in the case, but the death sentences were later commuted by the Supreme Judiciary Council when the families of the infected patients dropped calls for execution after each was allotted $1 million in compensation [JURIST report]. The six medics have consistently maintained their innocence, saying they were being scapegoated for unsanitary conditions in the Libyan hospital were they worked. Bulgaria and its allies argued that the medics are innocent and were tortured into admitting guilt [HRW report].

[JURIST] The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has launched a criminal probe of Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) [official website] Stuart Bowen [official profile] on allegations that he misappropriated taxpayer money to pay for his legal defense during a 2006 administrative probe and that he improperly accessed employees' emails, according to a Thursday report in CongressDaily. The probe may also encompass questions about whether Bowen misled investigators by inflating the costs of a project to write a book about the Iraq reconstruction. Bowen maintained his innocence in comments to Congress Daily, and several employees familiar with the FBI investigation said that it might be politically motivated, as Bowen's office has uncovered multiple instances of fraud, bribery, and other legal violations [JURIST reports] by US government officials and government contractors in Iraq that have embarrassed the Bush administration.

Both houses of the US Congress passed legislation [JURIST report] extending the mandate of the SIGIR last December, and the agency will continue to monitor US spending in Iraq until the fall of 2008 pending President Bush's signature. SIGIR was originally established to independently supervise and investigate operations of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority [official website]. In May, the White House confirmed that the SIGIR's office was being investigated by the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency [member list, PDF] after accusations of misconduct by former employees, but denied that that administrative investigation was politically motivated. AP has more. The Washington Post has additional coverage.

[JURIST] UN special envoy for human rights defenders [official website] and co-founder of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan [advocacy website] Hina Jilani told US lawmakers in Washington Thursday that Pakistan's parliamentary elections scheduled for January 8 have already been rigged and that there was no point in sending election monitors or observers to them. Jilani, an outspoken Lahore lawyer and the sister of fellow Pakistani human rights advocate Asma Jahangir [JURIST report] said that the elections lacked credibility because rights had been curtailed under President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule and the process was technically under the supervision of a newly-appointed judiciary which, she said, lacked public confidence. AFP has more.

Pakistan's main political parties have all decided to participate in the poll, a move opposed by the country's lawyers [JURIST report], who are still angry about the November 3 suspension of the constitution and the effective ouster - and later replacement - of the country's Supreme Court and High Court judges. Bar leaders like Supreme Court Bar Association President Aitzaz Ahsan have since shifted to urging electoral candidates to press for reinstatement of the pre-emergency judiciary.

[JURIST] US District Judge Joan A. Lenard [official profile] Thursday ordered a mistrial in a terrorism case against six men charged with allegedly conspiring to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago and the FBI headquarters in Miami, after the jury was unable to reach a verdict after nine days of deliberations. A seventh man, Lyglenson Lemorin, was acquitted on terrorism conspiracy charges. If the men had been convicted, they would have faced up to 70 years in prison.

The seven were indicted [JURIST report] last year on charges [indictment, PDF] of conspiring to provide material support to al Qaeda; conspiring to provide material support, training, and resources to terrorists; conspiring to maliciously damage and destroy by means of an explosive; and conspiring to levy war against the government of the United States. The indictment alleges that ringleader Narseal Batiste recruited the six other defendants to "organize and train for a mission to wage war against the United States government," and that they pledged an oath to al Qaeda in an attempt to secure financial and logistical backing. Lawyers for some of the men said that their clients were entrapped [JURIST report] by an FBI informant posing as an al Qaeda operative. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The Spanish National Court Thursday dismissed a complaint against Cuban President Fidel Castro [BBC profile] and former Cuban tourism minister Osmani Cienfuegos, alleging that the two had committed crimes against humanity. The complaint alleged that Castro and Cienfuegos were responsible for the death of nine prisoners during the 1961 anti-Castro Bay of Pigs Invasion [JFK Library backgrounder]. The court held that Castro enjoys sovereign immunity from claims as head of state, despite having ceded power to a provisional government after undergoing emergency surgery in July.

The complaint, submitted by the Committee of Help to Dissent 2506 [advocacy website, in Spanish], generally accused Castro and Cienfuengos of genocide, terrorism, and torture. AP has more. ANTARA News has additional coverage.

[JURIST] UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism Martin Scheinin [official website; JURIST news archive] said Thursday that the destruction of CIA videotapes suggests that US interrogators may have violated international prohibitions against torture. Scheinin told reporters after the presentation of his latest report [summary] to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that he believes the CIA continues to use interrogation methods prohibited by international law, but did not offer any specific evidence. CIA Director Michael Hayden has denied that the destroyed tapes depicted torture. Hayden acknowledged [statement text] last week that the CIA had videotaped the interrogation [JURIST report] of two terror suspects in 2002, but said that the tapes had been destroyed in 2005 amid concerns that they could be leaked to the public and compromise the identities of the interrogators. Several probes into the tapes' destruction have been launched, including a joint DOJ-CIA preliminary investigation [DOJ letter; JURIST report] and multiple congressional inquiries. AP has more.

Scheinin recently completed a visit to Guantanamo Bay, after which he expressed "grave concern" [press release] over the "lack of judicial guarantees and fair trial procedures" for detainees facing military commission proceedings there. In a report to the UN Human Rights Council, Scheinin also expressed concern regarding difficulties detainees face in presenting evidence in their defense. In May, Scheinin said that the US has committed human rights violations in its interrogations of terror suspects; in October, he called on the US to quickly prosecute or release terror suspects [JURIST report] so the detention center might be closed.