[JURIST] The Court of Appeal of Fiji on Tuesday began considering a challenge to the legitimacy of the sitting government brought by ousted Fijian prime minister Laisenia Qarase [BBC profile; JURIST news archive]. Qarase appeals from a November High Court decision [text, PDF; JURIST report] holding that President Ratu Josefa Iloilo [official profile] had the authority to name new leaders after a 2006 military coup [JURIST report] removed Qarase from power. Qarase brought the original suit [JURIST report] in 2007, arguing that the coup was illegal because it supplanted his democratically elected government, and asked that he be reinstated. The High Court found that the President acted in line with the country's constitution [text] and characterized the appointment of new officials as a legitimate retention of power pending new elections.

In September, Qarase made additional charges that current prime minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama [BBC profile] and others who participated in the December 2006 military coup had committed treason [Fiji Daily Post report] by ousting Qarase's democratically elected government. Later that month, Qarase tried to make a statement [JURIST report] to police regarding the allegations, but they said they would not investigate the charges. Less than two days after the coup, a previous interim prime minister installed by the military characterized the coup as "illegal" [JURIST report], but defended it as necessary. Qarase's case was heard in the High Court by a three-judge panel led by Acting Chief Justice Anthony Gates, who was appointed [press release] after Bainimarama suspended former Chief Justice Daniel Fatiaki [JURIST report].

[JURIST] A judge from the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] on Tuesday granted a government motion [text, PDF] to set aside the conviction of former senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) [US Congress backgrounder] on corruption charges. The Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] filed the motion last week asking the court to set aside Stevens' October 2008 conviction and dismiss the indictment against him after admitting [JURIST reports] that it had failed to disclose relevant information to the defense in preparation for the trial. Calling the prosecution's behavior the worst "mishandling or misconduct" that he'd seen in his career, District Judge Emmet Sullivan appointed Washington lawyer Henry Schuelke III [professional profile] to investigate possible criminal contempt charges against the prosecutors, who had been found in contempt of court in February.

Stevens was convicted [JURIST report] in October on seven counts of making false statements relating to an alleged corruption scheme and for falsifying his Financial Disclosure Forms. Following his conviction, Stevens lost his re-election bid in November to Senator Mark Begich (D-AK) [official profile]. Stevens was charged [indictment, PDF; JURIST report] with accepting approximately $250,000 in gifts over an eight-year period from the founder of oil services and engineering company VECO Corp. [corporate website]. In 2007, former prosecutor Richard Convertino [JURIST news archive] was found not guilty [JURIST report] on obstruction charges brought by the DOJ [JURIST report] after a federal judge overturned [JURIST report] the guilty verdict in two terrorism cases due to prosecutorial misconduct.

[JURIST] The appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] on Monday dismissed [decision, PDF] the appeal of former Bosnian Serb leader and war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic [ICTY materials; JURIST news archive], in which he asserted that he is immune from prosecution. Karadzic alleged that US ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke [PBS profile] promised him in 1996 that he would not be prosecuted by the UN court if he gave up power. This decision upholds the December decision of the trial chamber, which held that there was no valid immunity deal [JURIST report] between Karadzic and Holbrooke and that even if such an agreement had existed, it would not be valid under international law. Holbrooke has denied Karadzic's allegations and prosecutors have found no documents that verify any such deal existed.

Last month, Karadzic for a second time refused to enter pleas [JURIST report] to 11 amended charges including genocide, murder, persecution, deportation, and "other inhumane acts," for war crimes allegedly committed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, including the 1995 Srebrenica massacre [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. Karadzic was originally indicted [text] by the ICTY in 1995, but had been in hiding under an assumed identity until his arrest last year [JURIST report].

[JURIST] Deputy International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] prosecutor Fatou Bensouda [professional profile] has called on world leaders to end all support for Sudanese president and war crimes suspect Omar al-Bashir [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], according to a Monday report [text] by the Associated Press. Bashir has come under increasing international pressure to comply with the ICC's warrant for his arrest and to retract a ban on several aid agencies [JURIST reports] operating in Sudan that he imposed after the warrant was issued. Despite these calls, many African countries and the League of Arab States [official website, in Arabic] have continued to support [JURIST report] Bashir, calling on the UN Security Council to exercise its power to suspend the charges [Rome Statute text] against Bashir. Bensouda said Bashir's actions since the warrant was issued have made the humanitarian situation in the Sudan worse.

Last month, ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official profile] said that Bashir's decision to expel the groups demonstrates that the ICC was justified [JURIST report] in pursuing the charges against him. Bashir has also threatened to expel [JURIST report] any remaining agencies, diplomats, and peacekeepers in Sudan. Human rights and other groups have previously urged Bashir [JURIST report] to allow the agencies to remain in the country, and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights [official website] spokesman Rupert Colville has said that his office may investigate [JURIST report] whether Sudan's removal of the groups itself is a possible breach of human rights law or a war crime.

[JURIST] Kenyan Justice Minister Martha Karua [personal website] resigned Monday from the ruling coalition, claiming that the government had thwarted much needed judiciary reforms by appointing judges without her knowledge. Karua, the leader of the Narc-Kenya party and an outspoken critic of the government of President Mwai Kibaki [BBC profile], is said to have tendered her resignation [VOA report] despite pleas from party officials to stay on. Karua's move is widely seen as an attempt to position herself for a run at the presidency in 2012 [Capital report]. Shortly after Karua's resignation, medical services assistant minister Danson Mungatana, the second-highest Narc-Kenya minister, also resigned [Capital report] in solidarity.

Karua's resignation comes just after power-sharing negotiations appear to have broken down between Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) and the Orange Democratic Movement [party website] of Prime Minister Raila Odinga [Guardian profile]. The three parties, PNU, Orange Demoratic Party, and Narc-Kenya had come to a power-sharing agreement in 2008 after a violence-plagued election [JURIST reports] in 2007 that resulted in the death of more than 1,000 people. In March, the Kenyan parliament delayed [JURIST report] voting over a constitutional amendment to form a special tribunal to investigate the 2007 violence. Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, who mediated the power-sharing deal among the warring factions, gave Kenya until May to form a tribunal to investigate the violence before referring the case to the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website].

[JURIST] The Vermont Legislature [official website] on Tuesday voted to override Governor Jim Douglas' veto of a bill [text, PDF] legalizing same-sex marriage [JURIST news archive] in the state. Both the House [roll call vote; VPR audio] and Senate [roll call vote; VPR audio] surpassed the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto [text, PDF], which Douglas executed Monday [Burlington Free Press report], with votes of 100-49 and 23-5, respectively. New Hampshire appears to be the next state to tackle the controversial issue, as the House of Representatives passed a bill [JURIST report] legalizing same-sex marriage in March.

With the override, Vermont becomes the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage, joining Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Iowa [JURIST reports], and the first state to do so through a vote of the legislature. California had allowed [JURIST news archive] same-sex marriages until November 2008, when Proposition 8 passed 52-48. Vermont became the first state to offer civil unions to same-sex couples when then-Governor Howard Dean signed H.B.847 [text] into law in April 2000.

[JURIST] Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] was found guilty of committing human rights abuses during his 1990-2000 rule by a special court in Lima Tuesday. Fujimori, who maintained his innocence throughout the proceedings, was convicted on charges of approving the November 1991 killing of 15 people in Lima's Barrios Altos neighborhood [backgrounder] and the July 1992 kidnapping and murder of 10 people [MIT backgrounder] from Lima's La Cantuta University. In closing arguments [JURIST report] that began in January, the prosecution contended that between 1991 and 1992, Fujimori was aware of and approved the so-called "Dirty War" carried out by the Colina group against the Shining Path [BBC backgrounder] rebels. The defense maintained that although Fujimori regrets the killings, he was neither involved in the planning of the attacks nor did he give approval for them. Fujimori is now awaiting sentencing and could face up to 30 years in prison.

Fujimori is currently serving a six-year prison sentence after being convicted [JURIST report] in 2007 of abuse of authority in the last months of his rule. Fujimori was convicted of ordering a warrantless search in 2000 on the apartment of the wife of former Peruvian Intelligence Director Vladimiro Montesino [BBC profile]. Prosecutors alleged that the search was intended to uncover and confiscate documents that might incriminate Fujimori. Fujimori admitted to ordering the raid, but said that it was meant to find Montesino, who was wanted for money laundering.

7:00 PM ET: Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years [Reuters report] in prison and plans to appeal.

[JURIST] Austrian Interior Minister Maria Fekter [official website, in German] said Monday that the country would not accept released Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees from the US, according to a report [text] by the Associated Press. Fekter said the detainees could pose a security threat to the European Union (EU) [official website; JURIST news archive] during a meeting of EU leaders in Luxembourg. The leaders convened to discuss a request by US President Barack Obama [official profile] that EU member states consider accepting [JURIST report] the detainees in order for the military prison to be closed [JURIST report]. While each member country of the EU will individually decide whether to accept detainees, they must notify other countries because the 23 member countries share a passport free zone.

Earlier this month, French President Nicholas Sarkozy [official profile; JURIST news archive] said that his country would accept one detainee [JURIST report] in a symbolic effort to aid the closure of the detention center. Other countries such as Britain, Germany, Ireland, and Portugal [JURIST reports] have also said they would consider accepting released detainees. Other states have expressed reservations about accepting detainees, including Poland and Spain, while Italy [JURIST reports] and the Netherlands [AFP report] have said they will not accept detainees.

[JURIST] Medical professionals violated codes of medical ethics by participating in and assisting in ill-treatment of Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees, says a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross [official website], made public Monday. The report [text, PDF], which was written in 2007 based on interviews of fourteen detainees, alleges that doctors and psychologists in Guantanamo at times stopped waterboarding and other forms of ill-treatment, and at other times modified the severity of the treatment to allow it to continue. The portion of the report on the role of medical professionals concludes:

any interrogation process that requires a health professional to either pronounce on the subject’s fitness to withstand such a procedure, or which requires a health professional to monitor the actual procedure, must have inherent health risks. As such, the interrogation process is contrary to international law and the participation of health personnel in such a process is contrary to international standards of medical ethics. In the case of the alleged participation of health personnel in the detention and interrogation of the fourteen detainees, their primary purpose appears to have been to serve the interrogation process, and not the patient. In so doing the health personnel have condoned and participated in ill- treatment.

[JURIST] A US immigration judge on Monday revoked a stay of deportation issued Friday for accused Nazi prison camp guard John Demjanjuk [NNDB profile; JURIST news archive]. The stay had been ordered Friday [AP report] after Demjanjuk filed a motion to reopen his case. On Monday, the judge ruled [AFP report] that the stay had been ordered in error and revoked it, saying that the motion to reopen the case should have been filed with the Board of Immigration Appeals [DOJ backgrounder]. Demjanjuk was recently charged with 29,000 counts of accessory to murder [JURIST report] by German prosecutors for his alleged involvement at the Sobibor [Death Camps backgrounder] concentration camp. The stay of deportation ordered on Friday suspended his deportation to Germany pending an appeal of the original case that ordered his expulsion from the US. Demjanjuk's lawyers had argued that deportation would subject Demjanjuk to mental and physical pain that would amount to torture because of his deteriorating health and Germany's intent to place him in prison. Last week, a German official denied [JURIST report] that deporting Demjanjuk to Germany to face trial was equivalent to torture.

Demjanjuk has fought a lengthy legal battle over his alleged involvement with Nazi death camps during World War II. In May, the US Supreme Court denied certiorari in Demjanjuk v. Mukasey [order, PDF; JURIST report], ending the appeals process for his deportation order. Demjanjuk was appealing a 2005 ruling [JURIST report] by then-US Chief Immigration Judge Michael Creppy ordering his deportation. Demjanjuk had previously lost an appeal to the BIA. The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit denied Demjanjuk's petition for review [text, PDF] in January 2008. In 1988, Demjanjuk was convicted and sentenced to death by an Israeli court which found that he was a notorious guard from Treblinka nicknamed "Ivan the Terrible." The sentence was vacated by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1993, and Demjanjuk returned to the US.

[JURIST] A group of 17 Chinese Uighur [JURIST news archive] Muslims held at the Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detention center filed a petition for certiorari [text, PDF] with the US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] Monday, asking the Court to order their release. The petition seeks the Court's review of a February decision by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in Kiyemba v. Obama [opinion, PDF; JURIST report], which reversed a district court ruling [opinion and order, PDF; JURIST report] that would have freed 17 Uighurs who have been held by the US since their detention following the September 11 attacks. The certiorari petition asks the Court to overturn the DC Circuit Court's decision because it is in conflict with the Court's decision in Boumediene v. Bush [opinion, PDF; JURIST news report], which allowed Guantanamo detainees to challenge their detention by writ of habeas corpus. In the petition, lawyers for the Uighurs ask the Court to grant certiorari, saying:

In the decision below (“Kiyemba”), a panel majority of the court of appeals held that Article III courts are powerless to remedy indefinite and illegal Executive detention of prisoners within their habeas jurisdiction. If allowed to stand, the decision would eviscerate this Court’s landmark decision in Boumediene v. Bush ...

In this case, the Executive presented for payment, and the Kiyemba majority honored, the “blank check” the Court forbade five years ago. ... Notwithstanding Hamdi, Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004), and Boumediene, the panel majority inverted the Court’s decree that the Executive cannot “switch the Constitution on or off at will.” Boumediene 128 S. Ct. at 2259. Indeed, the Executive has construed Kiyemba in precisely this way, contending in recent filings that habeas proceedings brought by prisoners approved for transfer should be stayed because, after Kiyemba, no court can relieve a Guantánamo detainee’s imprisonment.

The Great Writ requires the jailer to identify in a return to the petition the law that justifies imprisonment. Kiyemba reverses this burden. Under Kiyemba, the jailer needs no legal authorization to deny freedom, and the prisoner needs the express authorization of Congress to claim it. And while these Petitioners are aliens, the question whether it is for the prisoner to justify release or the jailer to justify imprisonment arises from every detention. It would be hard to overstate the importance of the question presented in this case—to the rule of law and to the public. The question is fundamental, and there is every need for this Court’s immediate intervention.