[JURIST] US President George W. Bush said in Monday evening's State of Union address [text; recorded video] that he would issue an executive order Tuesday directing the federal government to ignore any future earmarks [White House fact sheet] included in legislation that are not explicitly voted on by Congress, and that if Congress does not reduce the level of earmarks by 50 percent in next year's appropriations process, he would veto any bill not meeting that goal. Bush has repeatedly pressed for earmark reductions [JURIST report], having also raised the issue in his 2007 State of the Union message [text].

The President also called on Congress to extend the Protect America Act, which allows the federal government to eavesdrop inside of the US without court approval as long as one end of a conversation is reasonably perceived to have been outside of the US:

To protect America, we need to know who the terrorists are talking to, what they are saying, and what they are planning. Last year, the Congress passed legislation to help us do that. Unfortunately, the Congress set the legislation to expire on February 1. This means that if you do not act by Friday, our ability to track terrorist threats would be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger. The Congress must ensure the flow of vital intelligence is not disrupted. The Congress must pass liability protection for companies believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend America. We have had ample time for debate. The time to act is now.

[JURIST] Alleged French "rogue trader" Jerome Kerviel [BBC profile] was released on bail Monday after French judges filed preliminary charges of "breach of trust," "falsifying and using falsified documents," and "breaching IT access codes" against him relating to $73 billion worth of unauthorized trades he made while working for French bank Societe Generale [bank website]. The judges refused a request by prosecutors to include a charge of attempted fraud in their formal investigation. Kerviel, who has since been dismissed from Societe Generale, turned himself over voluntarily [JURIST report] to French police on Saturday. On Sunday, French authorities extended his detention for an additional 24 hours [JURIST report]. In addition to holding Kerviel, authorities seized evidence including computer disks and documents from his home and the offices of Societe Generale. AP has more, as well as a timeline of the events. AFP and Reuters have additional coverage.

The bank, which lost $7 billion when it was forced to unload the fraudulent positions, has filed a criminal complaint against Kerviel, and described the methods he supposedly used to commit the fraud in an explanatory note [PDF text] released Sunday. Kerviel has maintained his innocence and says that he is being made a scapegoat [Telegraph report] by the bank, which he alleges was aware of his activities. Additionally, BusinessWeek reports [text] that the Eurex derivatives exchange [exchange website] warned Societe General in November about Kerviel's unauthorized transactions.

[JURIST] The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio [advocacy website] filed a motion for a preliminary injunction [PDF text] Monday in the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio to prevent Cuyahoga County, Ohio from conducting any election using a paper balloting system. The motion comes in a lawsuit [complaint, PDF; case materials] filed earlier this month against Secretary of State of Ohio Jennifer Brunner, the Cuyahoga Country Board of Elections, and various members of the Board of Elections and the Cuyahoga County Board of County Commissioners [official websites]. US District Judge Kathleen O'Malley will hold a hearing on February 5 to consider the motion for an injunction.

At issue is a decision by Brunner and the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections to use ballots that do not notify voters of any errors on the ballot at the time of voting. According to the ACLU's brief in support of the motion for preliminary injunction [PDF text]:

In the March 2008 primary election, Cuyahoga County voters - in contrast to those in other Ohio counties - will be denied the benefits of voting technology that provides notice of and the opportunity to correct errors. The predictable result of this step backward is that more Cuyahoga County residents will have their votes rejected in comparison with voters elsewhere in the state. This violates Plaintiffs' fundamental right to have their votes count on an equal basis with those cast by other citizens.

[JURIST] US District Judge Andrew Hanen of the US Southern District of Texas [official website] Monday released a Friday order directing 10 property owners in Cameron County, Texas [official website] to provide the federal government access to their land for 180 days so it can begin surveying for a 670-mile fence along the US-Mexico border [JURIST news archive]. The federal government had asked Hanen to rule on the case without informing the property owners, a permissible move under eminent domain law, but the judge ordered that the owners should be alerted before the hearing held last Friday. On January 16, in contrast, US Western District of Texas [official website] Judge Alia Moses Ludlum ordered [JURIST report] the City of Eagle Pass, Texas [official website] to temporarily turn over 233 acres of its land to the federal government for the border fence project without providing the city with any notice. Earlier this month, US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) [official website] officials said DHS is preparing over 100 court cases [JURIST report] against landowners along the US-Mexico border who have refused to allow construction of the border fence on their properties. The Cameron County and Eagle Pass cases are the first DHS lawsuits to have been decided by a judge. AP has more.

US President George W. Bush signed the Secure Fence Act of 2006 [PDF text; JURIST report] in October 2006. The legislation authorizes the construction of approximately 700 miles of fencing along the 2,000-mile US-Mexican border. Critics of the fence include locals in border communities, who feel that a border fence could interfere with irrigation, harm wildlife, and disrupt Mexican consumers and investors that positively contribute to the local economy. In May 2007, the International Boundary and Water Commission [official website] said that construction of the fence could violate a boundary treaty [JURIST report] between the United States and Mexico.

[JURIST] A three-judge panel of the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled [opinion, PDF] Monday that Arizona residents should be able to purchase specialty license plates bearing the slogan "Choose Life." The Ninth Circuit held that the Arizona License Plate Commission violated the First Amendment free speech rights of the Arizona Life Coalition [advocacy website] when it refused an application to print the group's anti-abortion message on state-issued license plates in 2002. The Ninth Circuit overturned a lower court summary judgment in favor of the state License Plate Commission. Reuters has more. The Arizona Star Daily has local coverage.

Last week, a federal judge ruled [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] that the state of Missouri cannot deny an anti-abortion group's application for a specialty license plate with an anti-abortion message, holding that the Missouri law that allowed the denial was unconstitutionally vague. Choose Life of Missouri [advocacy website] had applied to get specialty license plates with the message "Choose Life," but its application was rejected when two senators on the license plate approval committee objected. US District Judge Scott Wright found the Missouri law unconstitutional because it did not include protections against state officials denying application based on viewpoint discrimination. The Missouri attorney general's office has not decided whether it will appeal that decision.

[JURIST] Judge Royce Lamberth of the US District Court for the District of Columbia sentenced [DOJ press release] Colombian rebel Ricardo Palmera [advocacy website] to 60 years in prison Monday for his role in a hostage-taking conspiracy involving three American citizens in Colombia [JURIST news archive]. Palmera, aka Simon Trinidad, is a senior member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) [CDI backgrounder], Colombia’s largest guerrilla group which uses drug profits to finance its mission to overthrow the Colombian government. A federal jury convicted [DOJ press release] Palmera in July of conspiracy to take hostage three civilian Pentagon contractors who were captured when their counter-drug surveillance plane crashed in Colombia in 2003. They have reportedly been held by FARC forces ever since.

Palmera was originally extradited [JURIST report] to the United States in December 2004 to face drug smuggling and kidnapping charges. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe [BBC profile], a staunch supporter of the US, agreed to Palmera's release to US authorities after FARC failed to release any of the more than 60 hostages it was known to be holding. AP has more.

[JURIST] UN Office on Drugs and Crime Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa [official profile] Monday opened a week-long UN anti-corruption conference in Bali with a plea [text; UN News Centre report] that nations take serious steps to enforce the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) [text]. Costa warned that efforts to recover stolen national assets are being hindered in many countries by politicians and bureaucrats who have an entrenched interest in maintaining the status quo. In addition, Costa called on private businesses to also take an active role in fighting institutionalized corruption [JURIST news archive], saying that in the past too many had encouraged or profited from government graft. Costa proposed a Corporate Integrity Charter to promote businesses' conformity to the UNCAC, as well as a body to review corporate compliance. The UNCAC was ratified by 107 nations, including the United States, and entered into force in 2005.

The conference is expected to take special interest in the case of former Indonesian President Haji Mohammed Suharto [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], who was the subject of corruption investigations before his death [JURIST report] Sunday. Suharto, who ruled Indonesia as President from 1967 to 1998, was sued by the government on charges that he embezzled $440 million from the Yayasan Supersemar [official website], a state-funded scholarship fund, between 1974 and 1998. Prosecutors began proceedings [JURIST report] in September seeking to recover $440 million in diverted states funds and $1.1 billion in damages from Suharto. On Monday, a human rights lawyer was quoted as saying that Indonesian law permits recovery from a decedent's estate of funds that were illegally converted during the person's lifetime. The government dropped criminal corruption charges against Suharto when several strokes rendered him unable to speak or write [JURIST reports]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A French bill aimed at reducing violent crimes committed by repeat offenders violates international fair trial standards [press release], Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday. The proposed law, sponsored by the administration of French President Nicolas Sarkozy [official profile; BBC profile], would allow three judges to decide whether a convicted violent offender is still dangerous. After a multi-disciplinary panel, including a psychologist, assesses the convict's risk, the judges may grant an additional one-year sentence in a "socio-medico-legal detention center." Such sentences are renewable indefinitely and have limited appeal options. HRW said that "locking people up on speculation that they might commit some future crime undermines hundreds of years of criminal justice in France," and that the law violates the European Convention on Human Rights [text] Article 6 fair trial guarantees. The bill was approved [DPA report] earlier this month by the French National Assembly [official website, in French] and now goes to the French Senate [official website, in French] for debate Wednesday.

Sarkozy, who campaigned on a tough anti-crime platform, last year began to push draft legislation instituting minimum sentences for repeat offenders [JURIST report]. French Justice Minister Rachida Dati [official profile, in French] later appeared before the National Assembly [JURIST report] in support of the bill, which also allows minors as young as 16 to be treated as adults when charges are serious. Critics argue that the already-overcrowded French prisons, which house approximately 61,000 inmates but were designed for only 50,000, cannot withstand the additional pressure.

[JURIST] The Bush administration warned Democratic leaders over the weekend that US President George W. Bush will veto any attempt to extend the temporary Protect America Act [S-1927 materials; JURIST report] beyond its February 1 expiration date that does not include liability protection for telecom companies, according to the Washington Post Sunday. The Protect Act, enacted as a stopgap while Congress worked on long-term legislation to "modernize" the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [text; JURIST news archive], currently allows the US government to eavesdrop inside of the US without court approval as long as one end of a conversation is reasonably perceived to have been outside of the US. Senate Republicans defeated an attempt by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [official website] to extend the Protect Act without the immunity provision for companies that might face lawsuits over data-sharing for an additional month on January 22. Reid then sent a letter to President Bush asking that he support an extension to the Protect Act [JURIST report] as it appeared unlikely Congress would agree to reauthorize FISA before February 1. He has since reportedly denounced Bush's expressed intent to veto such an extension.

In his weekly radio address [transcript; recorded audio] Saturday, Bush urged Congress to approve the Senate's proposed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Bill [S 2248 materials; JURIST news archive] designed to revise and extend FISA so as to - among other things - expand the oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) [official backgrounder], giving it greater powers to monitor the government's use of eavesdropping on American citizens. The US Senate voted [JURIST report] last Thursday against an amendment [Leahy press release] to the bill which would have incorporated several changes to the legislation that were previously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Washington Post has more.

8:20 PM ET - On Monday, the US Senate voted down [roll call] an attempt by Senate Republicans to end further debate on extending the Protect Act.

[JURIST] A Turkish court on Monday sentenced political science professor Atilla Yayla Monday for "insulting the legacy" of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey. Yayla was charged [JURIST report] last March after suggesting in a November 2006 speech that Ataturk's regime from 1925 to 1945 was not as progressive as suggested by official Turkish literature. Yayla's lawyers say they will appeal the verdict. Yayla was charged under Law No. 5816 [HRW backgrounder], which prohibits "crimes committed against Ataturk." Individuals who publicly "insults or curses the memory" of Ataturk may be subject to a prison term of up to three years.

Many prominent Turkish journalists, authors, and academics have also been tried for insulting "Turkishness" [JURIST report] under the controversial Article 301 [Amnesty backgrounder; JURIST news archive] of Turkey's penal code [text, in Turkish]. Critics accuse Turkey of using the law to silence government critics, which has posed a major stumbling block [JURIST report] to Turkey's accession to the European Union. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] French prosecutors asked a judge to file preliminary charges on Monday against alleged "rogue trader" Jerome Kerviel [BBC profile] in connection with what is being called the largest bank fraud in history. Prosecutors asked for preliminary charges of forgery, breach of trust, and fraud against Kerviel, who turned himself in [JURIST report] on Saturday and denies any wrongdoing. Societe Generale [bank website], Kerviel's former employer, says it lost $7 billion when it was forced to unload over $70 billion in fraudulent positions acquired by Kerviel. The bank explained how Kerviel hid his fraudulent activity from bank auditors in an explanatory note [PDF text] released Sunday.

If the judge approves some or all of the preliminary charges, prosecutors will have additional time to build their case against Kerviel before deciding whether to proceed to trial. Kerviel's lawyer has suggested that the bank is scapegoating Kerviel to cover up substantial losses suffered in connection with the US sub-prime mortgage crisis. Prosecutors extended Kerviel's weekend detention [JURIST report] on Sunday to continue his interrogation. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Israeli Supreme Court [official website, in Hebrew] on Monday rejected an appeal by Omri Sharon [JURIST news archive] to reduce his seven-month prison sentence, saying that it found no reason to lighten Sharon's sentence after a lower court reduced his sentence [JURIST report] from nine months for good behavior. Sharon, who will begin serving his sentence on February 27, was convicted in February 2006 of illegally raising money [JURIST report] for his father's re-election campaign.

Sharon, son of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, has renounced his parliamentary immunity and has given up his seat in the Knesset [official website]. Lower courts have previously delayed the start of Sharon's prison sentence so he may spend time with his comatose father [JURIST report]. Haaretz has more.

[JURIST] Several prominent Indonesian lawyers told AFP on Monday that a civil corruption case against former Indonesian President Haji Mohammed Suharto [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] could continue after Suharto's death [JURIST report] on Sunday. Suharto, who ruled Indonesia as President from 1967 to 1998, was sued by the government on charges that he embezzled $440 million from the Yayasan Supersemar [official website], a state-funded scholarship fund, between 1974 and 1998. Prosecutors began proceedings [JURIST report] in September seeking to recover $440 million in diverted states funds and $1.1 billion in damages from Suharto. On Monday, a human rights lawyer was quoted as saying that Indonesian law permits recovery from a decedent's estate of funds that were illegally converted during the person's lifetime.

The government dropped criminal corruption charges against Suharto when several strokes rendered him unable to speak or write [JURIST reports]. AFP has more.

[JURIST] A French criminal court on Monday sentenced six French aid workers, convicted in Chad for attempting to kidnap [JURIST reports] 103 African children, to eight years in French prison, agreeing with French prosecutors' recommendations [JURIST report] to convert their sentences handed down by a court in Chad. The six were originally sentenced to eight years of hard labor in Chad, but were returned to France [JURIST reports] in late December 2007 after a formal request from the French Foreign Ministry under the 1976 France-Chad Agreement on Judicial Matters [PDF text]. The French criminal court did not retry the case, and lawyers representing the six have said they will appeal the sentence.

The aid workers, affiliated with Zoe's Ark [advocacy website], claimed they were attempting to airlift orphaned children [JURIST news archive] from the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur, but investigations revealed that most of the children were not Sudanese or orphans. In January, another aid worker was charged [JURIST report] in French court with conspiring to allow illegal residents into the country in connection with the foiled airlift. AP has more.

[JURIST] A Malaysian opposition leader released the third part of a video [YouTube video; PDF transcript] Monday that allegedly shows prominent Malaysian lawyer VK Lingam admitting to having bribed former Chief Justice Dzaiddin Abdullah. Abdullah was Chief Justice from 2000 to 2003. According to a press release [text] from opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim accompanying the video, Lingam is quoted as saying, "And we have given him [Abdullah] the most expensive gift. Don't ask about it lah. I have given him and Vincent Tan has given him." Vincent Tan is another lawyer involved in the scandal.

Ibrahim, Malaysia's former Deputy Prime Minister and opposition leader, released the first part of the video [JURIST report] in September, sparking a large protest led by the Malaysia Bar Council against judicial corruption. The first video allegedly shows Lingam bragging about arranging the appointment of "friendly" judges to the bench. Earlier this month, Lingam denied the accusations and claimed to have been intoxicated [JURIST report] when the video was captured.

The videos prompted a Royal Commission investigation into broader charges of corruption in Malaysia's judiciary. In the press release accompanying the video, Ibrahim says:

while the creation of the Royal Commission gave the Malaysian public some hope that the credibility and integrity of the Judiciary might be restored, we are unimpressed with the proceedings and the procedural decisions made by the Commissioners thus far. The Royal Commission must operate with the highest level of integrity and transparency so as not to be seen as feeding the rot which has tarnished the Malaysian Courts.