[JURIST] The Iraqi parliament [official website, in Arabic] on Saturday approved a bill that will allow most members of Saddam Hussein's now-defunct Baath Party [BBC backgrounder] to be reinstated to public life. The law, known as the Justice and Accountability Law, was introduced by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani [BBC profile] and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki [BBC profile] last March and was passed unanimously by the 143 Shiite and Sunni lawmakers present during the vote. The law distinguishes between former Baath party officials who have been charged with crimes for their role in the implementation of the party's oppressive policies - still barred from reinstatement - and those members who joined out of necessity and are now free to reapply for positions in the government and military. Under the new law, officials banned from reinstatement will collect pensions.

Iraq set up a DeBaathification Commission [official website] in 2003 with the approval of the US-run Coalition Provisional Authority [official website], and its early agenda was rooting out members of Hussein's Baath party from positions of power in the Iraqi government, prompting the forced removal [JURIST report] of nearly 30,000 Baathists from public life. The Bush administration, however, has urged the Iraqi government to shift the commission from outright prohibition to "accountability and reconciliation" in the interests of countering the growing insurgency in the country. Passage of de-Baathification reform legislation was noted by the White House last year as an as-yet-unmet benchmark [JURIST report] of Iraqi progress towards stability. Iraqi Shiite religious leader Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani previously called the bill "dangerous" [JURIST report] and its ratification process had stalled [JURIST report] as recently as late November. AFP has more. Reuters has additional coverage.

[JURIST] A Chilean appeals court in Santiago Friday sentenced General Manuel Contreras [Trial Watch profile], the secret police chief under former dictator Augusto Pinochet [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], to 10 years in prison. Contreras, the former head of Pinochet's National Intelligence Directorate [FAS backgrounder], was sentenced for the kidnapping of 7 neighborhood leaders from La Legua in December 1973. The two men who survived the kidnapping testified in the case. The court also sentenced former officers Jose Friz Esparza and Marcelo Moren Brito for their role in the kidnapping.

Pinochet died of a heart attack [JURIST report] in December 2006 without ever facing trial on multiple charges of tax evasion and human rights violations. In November 2007, Chile's Supreme Court affirmed seven convictions and overturned one [JURIST report] in cases involving murders committed by state agents during Pinochet's 1973-90 regime. The court based its decision on the Geneva Conventions [ICRC materials], finding that Chile was in a state of internal armed conflict when the murders occurred. DPA has more.

[JURIST] Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf ruled out the possibility of a United Nations investigation into the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto [BBC obituary; JURIST news archive] in an interview with a French newspaper published Friday. He told Le Figaro that an investigation will be conducted internally with the help of British police from Scotland Yard [official website]. Musharraf's statement came in the face of repeated calls [JURIST report] from Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari [BBC profile] and her son Bilawal Zardari [BBC profile] for the UN to conduct an inquiry similar to the ongoing investigation into the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri [JURIST news archive]. Musharraf blamed Al Qaeda for the Bhutto assassination and said a UN investigation was not necessary since there is no suggestion that a outside country has been involved.

Bhutto was assassinated [JURIST report] December 27 at a political rally in Rawalpindi. AFP has more.

[JURIST] US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [official website] has issued a memo saying that its officers are now required to obtain a judge's approval before a deportee can be sedated in order to facilitate his or her removal from the country. The memo, written by ICE Director of the Office of Detention and Removal Operations John Torres [official profile] and released Wednesday, said that in order to receive permission to sedate, officials must show a judge that a deportee has a history of physically resisting removal or that they pose a danger to themselves. ICE gave 56 deportees psychotropic drugs during a seven-month period in 2006 and 2007, 33 of whom had no prior history of mental illness.

In June the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (ACLU/SC) [advocacy website] brought a federal class action lawsuit [JURIST report; ACLU press release] against the US government on behalf of two immigrants who said they were forcibly drugged with sedatives during deportation proceedings. Neither of the men had a history of mental illness, and the ACLU/SC alleges the druggings were merely meant to silence them. AP has more.

[JURIST] US Navy Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby [official profile], commander of the Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] military prison, was reassigned Friday after only six months at that position. The date of Buzby's departure for the Virginia-based US Fleet Forces Command [official website] has not been publicly released. According to a brief Pentagon statement [official text], Rear Adm. David M. Thomas [official profile] will replace Buzby at the detention center. Buzby assumed command [press release] at Guantanamo in May. Buzby's predecessor, Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris, Jr., became Director of Operations for US Southern Command in June 2007 after a 14-month tenure as Guantanamo commander. Harris' predecessor, Army Maj. Gen. Jay Hood, commanded Joint Task Force Guantanamo for two years, from March 2004 to March 2006. AP has more.

Buzby's departure comes as the number of detainees at Guantanamo continues to decline rapidly. Yemeni nationals now constitute the largest group of prisoners at the camp (almost 100 out of 275); the Yememi detainees cannot be freed due to a diplomatic stalemate between the Yemeni government and Washington. AP Friday quoted a US Defense Department official as saying that the Yemeni government must promise to do more to assure that released detainees do not attack the US or its allies. Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Kerbi has said in turn that Guantanamo must be closed and that Yemen "does not accept smaller prisons elsewhere." AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Friday that NASA [official website] cannot compel low-risk contract employees working at its Jet Propulsion Laboratory [official website] to undergo intensive background checks. NASA has been conducting background checks of employees since it was founded in 1958, but contract employees were only included after the agency revised its Security Program Procedural Requirements [official backgrounder] in 2006. NASA argued that contract employees were added to the list of workers who had to undergo background checks in compliance with Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 [White House press release], the Federal Information Security Management Act [text, PDF], and the Space Act [text].

In balancing the interests of NASA and the employees facing the background checks, Judge Kim Wardlaw, writing for the court, held that

The balance of hardships tips sharply toward Appellants, who face a stark choice—either violation of their constitutional rights or loss of their jobs. The district court [in this case] erroneously concluded that Appellants will not suffer any irreparable harm because they could be retroactively compensated for any temporary denial of employment.