[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Sweden [official website, in Swedish] ruled [judgment, PDF, in Swedish] Tuesday that the Swedish government would have the final authority on granting extradition of an alleged Rwandan war criminal. The Republic of Rwanda requested extradition of Hutu Sylvere Ahorugeze for charges of genocide and crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the 1994 genocide [HRW backgrounder]. Ahorugeze argued that Swedish extradition law [text, PDF] and Article 6 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [text] prevented his extradition based on the danger of persecution, his refugee status in Denmark, poor health conditions, and the shortcomings of Rwanda's justice system. He maintained that he would be denied a fair trial in Rwanda due to the likely difficulty in obtaining witnesses for his defense. The court found that such extradition was allowed under both domestic and international law and that Rwanda's justice system, while flawed, has been continuously improving in recent years.

Ahorugeze had been living in Denmark for several years as a refugee before being arrested in Sweden. Last week, a Rwandan Hutu was convicted [JURIST report] under Canada's new Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act [text, PDF]. In April, the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) [official website] called on the Rwandan government to investigate reports of killings [JURIST report] during and after the uprising by the Rwandan Patriotic Army to end the 1994 genocide. In March, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon [official profile; JURIST news archive] pledged his ongoing support [JURIST report] for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda [JURIST news archive] (ICTR) and stressed that the international community must continue to combat genocide.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Pakistan [official website] on Tuesday lifted a ban [judgment, PDF] preventing opposition politician and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif [JURIST news archive] from participating in politics. The Supreme Court had barred [JURIST report] Sharif from holding elected office in Pakistan because of an earlier criminal conviction for "hijacking." Sharif was convicted of the offense for attempting to divert a plane carrying Army commander Pervez Musharraf [JURIST news archive] during a 1999 coup against Sharif that ultimately succeeded. The ruling was suspended in March [JURIST report] after the government of Sharif's political rival and current Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] petitioned the court to review the decision [JURIST report].

Earlier this year, Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) [party website] led a protest march [JURIST report] against Zardari and his Pakistan People's Party (PPP) [party website] as part of the Pakistan lawyers' movement [JURIST news archive]. In March, Zardari formed a parliamentary committee [JURIST report] to review key terms of the Pakistani Constitution, and reinstated [JURIST report] Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry [JURIST news archive], who was ousted in 2007 after then-president Musharraf declared a state of emergency rule.

[JURIST] An Egyptian court on Monday overturned the conviction of dissident Saad Eddin Ibrahim [professional profile] on charges related to defaming Egypt. Ibrahim, founder of the Ibn Khaldoun Centre for Development Studies [academic website], has been a prominent human rights activist and outspoken critic of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak [BBC profile]. A dual US and Egyptian citizen, he was accused of defaming Egypt by criticizing its human rights practices and politics, left the country, and was tried and convicted in absentia. The court held [Al Arabiya report] that the charges were without merit, reasoning that the charges should have been filed by the attorney general since they related to the country's international political standing and reputation. The decision overturns a two-year jail sentence [JURIST report] imposed against Ibrahim and will allow him to return to Egypt to see his family.

Last year, the US State Department [official website] criticized [JURIST report] Egypt's sentencing of Ibrahim and advocated the protection of civil and political rights. In October 2007, two journalists were convicted of libel in absentia [JURIST report] for writing a story about an illegal land transaction involving the Ministry of Religious Endowments at a secret auction. Under Egyptian law, citizens may file lawsuits against individuals who make statements that harm society, and the accused can face criminal punishment if found guilty. Mubarak previously pledged to decriminalize press offenses [JURIST report] in Egypt, but has yet to do so.

[JURIST] Delegates to Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) [official website] have recommended that a war crimes court be established to try individuals accused of committing atrocities during the country's 1989-2003 civil war. Thirteen representatives from each of Liberia's 15 counties met with the TRC during week-long Regional County Consultations to allow the committee an opportunity to gather popular feedback. In a press release [text] issued Friday, the delegates called for granting amnesty to children and others forcibly conscripted to fight and for "perpetrators who made full disclosures during the TRC Public Hearings of their actual roles in the conflict." The TRC, which was established [TRC mandate text] by the peace accord that ended the 14-year civil war to document and investigate human rights violations during the civil war, also endorsed the creation of a war crimes court [JURIST report] in January.

The TRC held its first public session in January 2008, after beginning its work in October 2006 and stalling [JURIST reports] due to lack of funding in June 2007. Former Liberian president Charles Taylor [JURIST news archive] is currently on trial in the The Hague before the Special Court for Sierra Leone [official website] for crimes against humanity. In January, Taylor's son, Charles Arthur Emmanuel, was sentenced [DOJ press release; JURIST report] to a 97-year jail term by a US federal district court for committing torture in Liberia.

[JURIST] The California Supreme Court [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Tuesday that constitutional challenges to Proposition 8 [text, PDF], which amended the California Constitution [text] to prohibit same-sex marriage [JURIST news archive], lacked merit and that the amendment stands as lawful. The proposition, which took effect in November, 2008 after voter approval [JURIST report], amends the California Constitution by stipulating that "[o]nly marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Article II § 8 [text] of the state constitution provides that, in addition to a proposal by two-thirds of each legislative house, a constitutional amendment may be proposed by "an initiative petition signed by voters numbering at least 8 percent of the total votes cast for all candidates for Governor in the last gubernatorial election." Once an amendment is proposed, Article XVIII § 4 [text] provides that an amendment becomes part of the state constitution if it is approved by a majority of voters. At issue was whether the amended language qualifies as a constitutional revision, which could not be lawfully proposed or adopted as liberally as an amendment. In making this determination, the court looked to the historical background of the amendment and revision provisions as well as the subsequent case law defining it. Drawing on this precedent, the court held that it must examine the meaning and scope of the constitutional change and the qualitative and quantitative effect that the change will have on the basic governmental framework in the preexisting provisions of the state Constitution. In applying that analysis, the court held that:

Taking into consideration the actual limited effect of Proposition 8 upon the preexisting state constitutional right of privacy and due process and upon the guarantee of equal protection of the laws, and after comparing this initiative measure to the many other constitutional changes that have been reviewed and evaluated in numerous prior decisions of this court, we conclude Proposition 8 constitutes a constitutional amendment rather than a constitutional revision. ... As a qualitative matter, the act of limiting access to the designation of marriage to opposite-sex couples does not have a substantial or, indeed, even a minimal effect on the governmental plan or framework of California that existed prior to the amendment.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] issued three opinions on Tuesday. In Montejo v. Louisiana [Cornell LII backgrounder; JURIST report], the Court decided 5-4 to overturn [opinion, PDF] its 1986 decision in Michigan v. Jackson [text], which found that the Sixth Amendment required that police cease interrogations after a suspect had invoked his right to counsel, ruling that the Fifth Amendment provides adequate protection. Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia found that under other precedent:

a defendant who does not want to speak to the police without counsel present need only say as much when he is first approached and given the Miranda warnings. At that point, not only must the immediate contact end, but “badgering” by later requests is prohibited. ... [I]t is hard to see why it would not also suffice to protect that same choice after arraignment.

That New York strongly favors a rule shielding correction officers from personal damages liability and substituting the State as the party responsible for compensating individual victims is irrelevant. The State cannot condition its enforcement of federal law on the demand that those individuals whose conduct federal law seeks to regulate must nevertheless escape liability.

[JURIST] US President Barack Obama [WH profile] on Monday announced [press release] Sonia Sotomayor [official profile] as his nomination for the US Supreme Court [official website]. Sotomayor, currently a justice for the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website], would replace Justice David Souter [official profile, PDF; JURIST news archive] when he retires [JURIST report] at the end of the current term, if she receives Senate majority approval. Obama said that after "deep reflection and careful consideration," the decision to nominate Sotomayor was based a variety of qualities including intelligence, recognition of judicial limitations and experience. Highlighting the importance of respecting precedent, Obama defined the judicial role as that of interpreting law and not making it. Obama also stressed the importance of Sotomayor's varied experience as a corporate litigator, prosecutor, and trial judge, quoting Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in saying "the life of law has not been logic, it has been experience." Discussing the importance of bipartisanship, Obama pointed out that Sotomayor was originally appointed as a judge by George H. W. Bush and then appointed to the Second Circuit by Bill Clinton. Sotomayor addressed the press, saying:

I find endless challenges in the complexities of the law. I firmly believe in the rule of law as the foundation of all our lives. For as long as I can remember, I have been inspired by the achievement of our Founding Fathers. They set forth principles that have endured for more than two centuries. Those principles are as meaningful and relevant in each generation as the generation before. It would be a profound privilege for me to play a role in applying those principles to the questions and controversies we face today

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] on Tuesday granted certiorari [orders list, PDF] in Merck & Co. v. Reynolds [docket; cert. petition, PDF], in which the Court will decide when the statute of limitations begins to run in a securities fraud case under the "inquiry notice" standard. Investors brought a class action suit against the drug maker Merck & Co. [corporate website] in November 2003, alleging that it had deliberately concealed information about the safety record of its painkiller Vioxx [JURIST news archive]. The case was dismissed by US District Court Judge Stanley Chester in April 2007 after he determined that investors were on "inquiry notice" of the alleged fraud in September 2001 when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) [official website] released a warning letter [text] about the painkiller. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the case [opinion, PDF] in September 2008, finding that Chester had "acted prematurely in finding as a matter of law that [the investors] were on inquiry notice of the alleged fraud."

Merck pulled Vioxx from the market in September 2004 after a study showed that it could double the risk of heart attack or stroke if taken for more than 18 months. The price of Merck stock jumped by almost 10 percent following news of the class action dismissal.

[JURIST] US military lawyers for Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainee Mohammed Jawad [ACLU materials, JURIST news archive] asked the Supreme Court of Afghanistan [official website] Monday to demand his release from the facility. The lawyers have petitioned the Afghan high court because the planned closure of Guantanamo [JURIST news archive] has allegedly delayed the case [AP report] in the US. Jawad's lawyers argue that his Guantanamo imprisonment is illegal because Afghan law did not allow for his extradition, and they hope that their court petition creates enough political pressure to elicit a response from the US. The military lawyers have also found new information regarding Jawad's age, maintaining that he is even younger than previously thought. Although there are no documents to prove either assertion, Jawad's lawyers have maintained that he was only 16 or 17 at the time of his imprisonment while the US government has stated that Jawad was 18. The new information suggests that Jawad may have been born in 1991, which would have made him 11 years old at the time of the alleged attack on US troops in 2002.

The delay of Jawad's case has been contested before. In April, a federal judge ruled [JURIST report] that Jawad's habeas petition should not be delayed. The judge based the ruling on the Boumediene v. Bush [opinion, PDF] decision, which calls for the prompt adjudication of Guantanamo detainees' habeas cases. The US Court of Military Commission Review (USCMCR) [official website] in February granted [order, PDF; JURIST report] a government request [motion, PDF] for a 120-day continuance on an intermediate appeal in its case against Jawad. Jawad's trial was initially delayed [JURIST report] in December to give prosecutors more time to appeal the exclusion of his confession, which was deemed to have been coerced. The original military prosecutor of the case quit the military commission in September citing conscience reasons. Jawad has been charged [charge sheet, PDF; JURIST report] with attempted murder and intentionally causing serious bodily injury for his alleged role in a December 2002 grenade attack in Kabul that injured two US soldiers and an Afghan translator. In May 2008, Jawad moved [JURIST report] to have all charges against him dismissed, alleging that he has been tortured in US custody and subjected to the so-called "frequent-flier program," in which certain inmates are moved between cells at two to four hour intervals in an attempt to cause physical stress through sleep deprivation.

[JURIST] Representatives of the New Zealand Law Society (NZLS) and the Law Council of Australia (LCA) [official websites] said Monday that the Fijian government's plan to take over the issuance of legal licenses threatens to disrupt the rule of law in the country. In a decree [text, PDF] issued Friday, the government of Fijian Prime Minister Commodore Josaia Voreqe "Frank" Bainimarama [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] said that licenses to practice law in Fiji would be granted by the chief registrar of the court, a government employee, rather than by the Fijian Law Society [official website], an independent bar association that had been issuing licenses for 12 years. NZLS President John Marshall called the move "very disturbing" [press release] because:

An independent legal profession is a vital element of the rule of law. The legal profession represents individuals in claims against the State and defends them in criminal cases brought by the State. Lawyers must be independent of State interference to be able to represent clients freely and fearlessly. ... We are very concerned to learn that the Fiji Government, through the Chief Registrar, will now decide who should hold a practising certificate.