[JURIST] The International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] Wednesday ordered the release [decision, PDF; press release] of Congolese ex-militia leader Thomas Lubanga [ICC materials; BBC profile] after finding that past prosecutorial misconduct would prevent him from having a fair trial. The release order will go into effect in five days, barring an appeal by prosecutors and assuming the completion of transfer arrangements with a "state that is obliged to receive him." The court explained:

[T]he Chamber has concluded that the logical - indeed the inevitable - consequence of the Decision is that the only correct course is to order the release of the accused, because, consistent with the Decision and on the basis of the available information, a fair trial of the accused is impossible, and the entire justification for his detention has been removed. It would be unlawful for the Chamber to order him to remain in what, in reality, would be preventative detention or to impose conditional release.

[JURIST] Washington DC police are launching a new voluntary program to reduce the number of guns in the city after the US Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] last month that a city ban on private handgun ownership violated the Second Amendment [text] to the US Constitution. Under the Safe Homes Initiative [Washington Post report], police will ask residents for permission to search their homes for guns and residents will receive amnesty from prosecution for any weapons confiscated under the program. Critics allege that the program could amount to a violation of the Fourth Amendment [text] right against unreasonable search and seizure if homeowners are intimidated into allowing the searches. The Washington DC chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union [advocacy website] has distributed flyers [DOC text] advising DC residents of their constitutional rights. NBC has more.

Other cities are considering similar programs following the Supreme Court ruling. Gun ownership advocacy groups have filed lawsuits in Chicago and San Francisco [court documents; JURIST report] seeking to overturn laws which ban handguns within those cities. In September 2007, Washington DC Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and DC Attorney General Linda Singer [official profiles] formally appealed a March 2007 federal court ruling which invalidated the District of Columbia's handgun ban [JURIST reports]. The Supreme Court affirmed a March DC Circuit holding [opinion, PDF] that the city's 30-year-old ban on private possession of handguns was unconstitutionally broad.

[JURIST] Belgium's Court of Cassation [official website, in French] Tuesday approved the transfer of former Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) [JURIST news archive] rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba [ICC profile; JURIST news archive] to the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] where he will face prosecution for war crimes. Bemba, who was arrested by Belgian authorities [JURIST report] in May, had challenged the move by alleging that authorities did not follow proper procedures. The ICC has indicted [arrest warrant, PDF, in French; decision to unseal, PDF, in French] Bemba on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in the Central African Republic (CAR) [BBC backgrounder] between October 2002 and March 2003. Prosecutors say he is responsible for rape, torture, outrages upon personal dignity, and pillaging. Bemba's arrest warrant is the first issued by the ICC in its investigation of large-scale sexual offenses [ICC press release] in the CAR. AFP has more. IWPR has local coverage.

Bemba, now a member of the Congolese Senate, was elected to his office after losing a run-off presidential election [JURIST report] to Joseph Kabila [BBC profile], who in December 2006 became the first freely-elected president of the DRC since 1960. After the election, Bemba's private militia force led a violent campaign against government troops until the DRC Supreme Court rejected his election challenge [JURIST report]. In the process, Bemba's supporters set fire to the Supreme Court building [JURIST report]. Following the clashes, the chief prosecutor of the DRC issued a warrant for Bemba's arrest [JURIST report], and he fled to Europe. A court in CAR referred the original war crimes charges [JURIST report] to the ICC in April 2006.

[JURIST] Private security contractors operating in Iraq will no longer receive immunity from prosecution under a US-Iraqi agreement now in negotiation, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told AFP Tuesday. Contractors have worked largely above the law due to legal loopholes because the US government exempted its employees and contractors from Iraqi law [order, PDF] when Iraq was still under US administration. Even though Iraq has since formed its own government, the exemption still applies and has been a source of tension between the US and Iraqi governments. Criticism of the exemption intensified in January after the shooting death of at least eight Iraqi civilians [JURIST report] at the hands of private security contractor Blackwater USA [corporate website]. AFP has more.

During a private meeting in December, DOJ officials reportedly told Congress that numerous legal hurdles [JURIST report] would have to be overcome before Blackwater employees could be charged with any crimes. The Blackwater allegations have caused domestic outrage in Iraq and have prompted legal controversy in the US. In November, the New York Times and the Washington Post reported that an FBI investigation into the incident concluded that the shootings were unjustified {JURIST report].

[JURIST] The Cambodian lawyer representing former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan [JURIST news archive] before the Extraordinary Chambers of the Court of Cambodia (ECCC) resigned [press release, PDF] Tuesday, citing health problems. Some have speculated [ECCCReparations op-ed] that Say Bory's resignation is related to controversial tactics employed by French co-counsel Jacques Verges [BBC profile]. In February, Verges said that Samphan was ending his cooperation [JURIST report] with the court, saying that documents necessary for Samphan's defense had not been translated into French. In a decision [PDF text] to adjourn the proceedings, the court responded that French copies of all relevant documents were available and issued a warning to Verges for not indicating sooner that language difficulties existed. The Phnom Penh Post has local coverage.

Khieu Samphan was the fifth senior Khmer Rouge [JURIST news archive] leader to be detained by the ECCC when he was arrested last year. The Khmer Rouge is generally held responsible for the genocide of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians [PPU backgrounder] who died between 1975 and 1979. The ECCC was established by a 2001 law [text as amended 2005, PDF] to investigate and try surviving Khmer Rouge officials.

[JURIST] A divison of the New York State Supreme Court dismissed [decision] remaining charges against former New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) [official website] CEO Richard Grasso [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] on Tuesday. Former NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer had brought six charges against Grasso over his controversial $187.5 million compensation package from NYSE. Four of the charges were dismissed [JURIST report] in May 2007. The two remaining charges against Grasso involved violations of state law regarding not-for-profit corporations. In the dismissing the charges against Grasso, Associate Justice James McGuire wrote:

Here, the Attorney General is using public funds out of appropriations to his office to prosecute causes of action on behalf of an entity that is no longer a not-for-profit corporation and seeks only a money judgment that would benefit the owners of the for-profit entity into which the not-for-profit has been converted (even if the judgment nominally would be paid to the not-for-profit corporation). The Attorney General's continued prosecution of these causes of action ... vindicates no public purpose.

[JURIST] A proposed Ethiopian law regulating non-governmental organizations, which it terms Civil Society Organizations (CSO), would severely undermine human rights efforts in the country, according to two separate reports issued Tuesday by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) [PDF texts; joint press release]. The groups said that Ethiopia's Charities and Societies Proclamation [Mahder.com backgrounder] would bar foreign CSOs from engaging in human rights work and block Ethiopian CSOs from accepting foreign funding. The provision could result in the complete shutdown of all aid groups not expressly approved by the government. The law would also create a Charities and Societies Agency with broad authority to interfere in CSO internal workings and to ban any CSO that failed to meet government specifications. HRW's analysis of the law [PDF, text] stated:

The CSA and numerous government ministries would have enormous discretionary powers to refuse to accord legal recognition to CSOs, to disband CSOs that have already been legally recognized, to subject CSOs to intrusive patterns of surveillance, and to interfere in the management and staffing of CSOs up to the point of altering their organizational missions.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Rhode Island [official website] Tuesday overturned [decision, PDF] a 2006 jury verdict holding paint manufacturers liable [JURIST report] for contamination caused by lead-based paint. The court rejected state arguments that the paint companies had created a public nuisance, finding that they had no control over how the paint was used:

But however grave the problem of lead poisoning is in Rhode Island, public nuisance law simply does not provide a remedy for this harm. The state has not and cannot allege facts that would fall within the parameters of what would constitute public nuisance under Rhode Island law. As set forth more thoroughly herein, defendants were not in control of any lead pigment at the time the lead caused harm to children in Rhode Island, making defendants unable to abate the alleged nuisance, the standard remedy in a public nuisance action.

[JURIST] The Shanghai People's Higher Court will broadcast its hearings online, a Shanghai judge announced Tuesday. China began televising live court cases [BBC report] in 1998, and the internet broadcasts are the newest element of its effort to increase judicial transparency. Speaking at a conference last week, Supreme People's Court (SPC) Chief Justice Wang Shengjun recommended [China Daily report]:

We should make full use of the Internet, letters from and visits by the masses and appeals, among others, to ensure that the public can express their opinions.

[JURIST] A report [text, PDF] from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) [official website] has found that while US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [official website] is not responsible for the 2006 deaths of two detainees, ICE officials do not always adhere to proper medical protocols. The medical standards chapter of the ICE Detention Operations Manual [text, PDF] requires ICE officials to medically evaluate and care for detainees. However, in the two cases investigated by OIG, detainees with prior medical conditions were found to have been improperly treated. In those two cases, one detainee died of a parasitic brain infection, while the other died of malignant pancreatic cancer, but according to the OIG report, ICE officials' failure to follow detainee treatment protocol did not contribute to the deaths. OIG investigators wrote:

The two detainees died as a result of serious pre-existing medical conditions. Although there have been problems with adherence to medical standards at the two facilities in question, ICE’s overall standards are equivalent to other detention organizations. ICE has been taking steps to enhance its ability to effectively monitor immigration detention facilities.

[JURIST] Millions of Swedish citizens have filed electronic petitions [sample petitions, in Swedish] against the country's newly approved electronic wiretapping law [draft text, in Swedish], according to news reports Wednesday. The law was narrowly approved [JURIST report] earlier this month and gives the country's National Defence Radio Establishment [official website] broad authority to monitor international telephone and electronic communications passing through the country. Upon passage, opponents warned that the bill could also be used to intercept domestic communications [press release, in Swedish], and more recently one business leader said that it may drive high-tech companies out of the country [Local report]. The new law is scheduled to take effect in January 2009. AP has more. Expressen has local coverage.

Warrantless wiretaps have been an increasingly controversial topic as officials struggle to balance civil liberties with security concerns. In February, a Canadian judge ruled [excerpts] that Section 184.4 of the Canadian Criminal Code [text], which allows law enforcement officers to electronically intercept private communications in "exceptional circumstances" without court authorization, is unconstitutional because it violates "the fundamental freedom to be free from unreasonable search and seizure" protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [text]. In March, the US House of Representatives narrowly passed a controversial bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Security Act [JURIST news archive] that would extend government power to eavesdrop on individuals within the US under judicial oversight but not grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that had previously allowed the government to eavesdrop on their lines as part of its warrantless wiretapping program [JURIST news archive].

[JURIST] US Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) [official website] has criticized the Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) [official website] warrantless searches and seizures of travelers' laptops and other digital devices at the US border, calling the searches an unacceptable invasion of privacy [hearing materials]. The Supreme Court has held that reasonable suspicion is not necessary to conduct routine searches at the border, but searches of laptops and other digital devices are analogous to more invasive practices such as strip searches, said Feingold, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution [official website]. In his opening statement at a congressional hearing on this issue last week, Feingold said [speech text]:

Ideally, Fourth Amendment jurisprudence would evolve to protect Americans’ privacy in this once unfathomable situation. But if the courts can’t offer that protection, then that responsibility falls to Congress. Customs agents must have the ability to conduct even highly intrusive searches when there is reason to suspect criminal or terrorist activity, but suspicionless searches of Americans’ laptops and similar devices go too far. Congress should not allow this gross violation of privacy.