[JURIST] Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] Saturday announced the formation of a parliamentary committee to examine the revision of key terms of the Pakistan Constitution [text]. The revisions would include the elimination of the controversial 17th Amendment [text] and Article 58-2(B), which give the president extraordinary power over Pakistani elected bodies, including the power to dissolve the country's parliament and remove individual MPs. News of the formation of the committee [The News report] came in an address to a joint session of the parliament by Zardari, who invoked the memory of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto [JURIST news archive] in making the announcement.

The formation of the parliamentary committee comes towards the end of a month of political turmoil in Pakistan which culminated in the reinstatement [JURIST report] of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry Mohammed [JURIST news archive] of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani [BBC profile] announced early last week that the government would reinstate Chaudhry in response to recent protests by members of the lawyers' movement and opposition politicians and supporters. Reports first surfaced in mid-March that President Zardari had agreed to reinstate Chaudhry and other judges ousted by Zardari's predecessor Pervez Musharraf in November 2007 after his declaration of emergency rule. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] and his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) [party website] have actively campaigned [JURIST report] for Chaudhry's reinstatement. Throughout the period of his removal Chaudhry insisted that he was still chief justice [JURIST report] under the Pakistani constitution.

[JURIST] Crusading Spanish judge Baltazar Garzon [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] has asked prosecutors to examine [AFP report] the US lawyers reportedly behind the establishment of the Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detention center, Spanish media reported Saturday. Garzon's request comes after a criminal complaint [text, PDF, in Spanish] was filed last week [Publico report, in Spanish] in the Audiencia Nacional [official website] against six lawyers from the administration of former US president George W. Bush, including David Addington, John Yoo, and former attorney general Alberto Gonzales. The lawsuit, brought under Spain's universal jurisdiction statute, alleges that the six lawyers committed crimes against the international community, as well as crimes against persons and property protected during armed conflict, in violation of the Spanish constitution, as well as the Geneva Conventions [ICRC materials] and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment [UN materials].

Garzon, famed for indicting Osama bin Laden and former Latin American dictator Augusto Pinochet [JURIST news archives], is well known for his involvement in high-profile investigations of terror and human rights cases. Last October, he ordered [JURIST report] the exhumation of 19 mass graves in Spain, launching an investigation into the disappearances of tens of thousands of people beginning in the Spanish Civil War [BBC backgrounder], and continuing through the early years of the Francisco Franco dictatorship [BBC backgrounder]. Garzon has also called for the creation of a "truth commission" [JURIST report] to uncover Franco-era abuses.

[JURIST] Humans Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] Friday criticized [text] the resumption of activities by Syria's Supreme State Security Court (SSSC), and called for its dissolution. HRW called the court's activities a violation of the right to a fair trial in part because it does not follow procedural rules of Syria's criminal courts and does not allow defendants to appeal its verdicts. Sarah Leah Whitson [official profile], director of the Middle East and North Africa division of HRW, expressed dismay over the reopening of the court:

The resumption of business in this kangaroo court is a distressing signal that Syrian authorities have no interest in addressing their flawed justice system...Instead of revealing the fate of those detained in Sednaya and referring the accused to courts that can actually dispense justice, they decided to resume sentencing defendants in a court that rubber-stamps whatever the security services want.

[JURIST] A judge in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] on Friday ordered the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website] to release reports on the destruction of 92 videotapes [JURIST news archive] of high value terrorism suspect interrogations within the next 30 days or alternatively, explain why it should not do so. Judge Alvin Hellerstein [official profile] directed the CIA to disclose the reports along with a list of witnesses as part of the ongoing lawsuit [ACLU materials] brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] in an effort to access government materials on the interrogations under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [text]. The ACLU has argued that the destruction of the videotapes violated a 2004 order [ACLU press release] by Hellerstein which instructed the CIA to turn over all records pertaining to the treatment of detainees, and that the CIA should be held in contempt for failing to preserve the records. A criminal probe [JURIST report] into the destruction of the videotapes is currently ongoing.

Earlier this month, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] acknowledged the CIA destroyed [letter, PDF] 92 videotapes of terrorism suspect interrogations, in response to an August 2008 judicial order [text, PDF] that the CIA turn over information regarding the tapes or provide specific justifications on why it could not release the information. Additionally, the DOJ admitted in court documents [text, PDF], that twelve of the 92 videotapes destroyed by the CIA [JURIST report] contained evidence of "enhanced interrogation techniques." The ACLU brought its lawsuit [CCR backgrounder] after the October 2003 request filed by the ACLU under FOIA for information pertaining to US held detainees in overseas facilities received in answer only a set of media talking points used by the Department of State.