[JURIST] Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf [BBC profile] should be subject to public sanctions, including a 30-year ban on holding public office, for her role in supporting the country's 1997-2003 civil wars, according to a final report [text, PDF] released Monday by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia (TRC) [official website]. Sirleaf testified before the TRC that she provided financial support to the National Patriotic Front of former president Charles Taylor [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] when it was preparing to oust then-president Samuel Doe. The report names 50 people, including Sirleaf, whom the TRC says were "political leaders and financiers of different warring factions," though the list is "by no means exhaustive." Consistent with an earlier version of the report released [JURIST report] Friday, the TRC recommended war crimes charges against nine people, including Taylor and Prince Y. Johnson [BBC profile], a senator elected in 2005, as well as a list of perpetrators who have shown remorse and should not be punished. Johnson's name had been removed [VOA report] from Friday's version of the report.

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. Taylor is currently on trial [JURIST report] 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] UK Secretary of State for Defence Bob Ainsworth [official profile] announced Monday that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) [official website] was prepared to establish an independent inquiry into the deaths of 20 Iraqis at a British base outside of Basra in 2004. In a letter read [BBC report] to the High Court of Justice [official website], Ainsworth admitted that the MOD had failed to disclose documents that showed that senior government officials were aware of allegations of torture, mutilation, and murder by British troops at Camp Abu Naji in May of 2004, and therefore hindered the on-going judicial review of a Royal Military Police (RMP) [official website] investigation. Six Iraqis alleging the mistreatment and killing of 20 Iraqis following a firefight near the town of Majar-al-Kabir brought suit seeking the creation of an independent inquiry into the incident. The MOD had urged reliance on the RMP report, which found no evidence of wrongdoing, saying that the lack of timely complaints by Iraqis discredited the allegations. However, documents made available to the court Monday by the MOD show that the Red Cross [official website] had documented the complaints within days of the incident. Lord Justice Scott Baker said that the MOD's lack of disclosure had rendered the nearly two year trial "a complete waste of time, at vast expense." Baker said he would stay the proceedings once the MOD provided more information about the proposed inquiry.

In September 2008, the MOD admitted [JURIST report] the unlawful abuse of nine Iraqi detainees at Camp Breadbasket, a humanitarian aid distribution center near Basra. Photographs of the abuse at Camp Breadbasket emerged during 2005 court-martial proceedings that resulted in the convictions of four soldiers who were sentenced to prison [JURIST reports] and dishonorably discharged. In July 2008, the MOD reached a settlement [JURIST report] with nine other Iraqis who were abused at the camp, agreeing to pay £2.83 million in compensation, in addition to apologizing and admitting liability. That settlement included the family of Baha Mousa [BBC report; JURIST news archive], a tenth man who died in custody. Later that month, a report released [JURIST report] by Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights found that UK soldiers may have used officially-banned tactics to interrogate Iraqi detainees.

[JURIST] The US-led Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF) [official website] announced Monday that it had begun construction [press release] of a training facility for Iraqi corrections officers (ICO) in anticipation of transferring control of MNF detention facilities to Iraqi forces. Military police commander Lt. Col. Bradley Graul said that the creation of the Tactical Operations Center at Camp Cropper "will not only enhance the continued care and custody of detainees, but it will begin the transition of United States transfer [sic] to the [Government of Iraq] while increasing their detention capabilities." More than 11,000 prisoners [JURIST report] currently held in three MNF camps at Camp Taji, Camp Cropper, and Camp Bucca are scheduled to be transferred by August 2010 in accordance with the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) [text, PDF]. Central Baghdad Prison, formerly Abu Ghraib [JURIST news archive], was transferred back to Iraqi control [JURIST report] in 2006 following the release of photographs depicting prisoner abuse by US military personnel.

In November, Iraqi human rights activists said they were concerned about the treatment of detainees [JURIST report] due to be transferred from US military custody to Iraqi authorities under the then-proposed SOFA. In August, the US military said that it has released more than 10,000 Iraqi detainees [JURIST report] over the past year. In November 2007, US military forces in Iraq released 500 detainees [JURIST report] at a joint ceremony with the Iraqi government at Camp Victory outside Baghdad.

[JURIST] US President Barack Obama [official profile] said Monday that a renewed commitment to the rule of law should be part of a "reset" in US relations with Russia during an official visit to Moscow. In an interview [text] with Russian opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta [media website, in Russian], Obama applauded the "courageous initiative" of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev [official profile] "to strengthen the rule of law in Russia," and that he saw "no reason why we cannot aspire together to strengthen democracy, human rights, and the rule of law as part of" US-Russia relations. Although he said he had not personally been following the trials of former Yukos Oil [JURIST news archive] executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky [defense website; JURIST news archive] and his business partner Platon Lebedev [defense website], who were convicted and jailed in 2005 on fraud and tax evasion charges, Obama said that "making sure that all those accused of crimes have the right to a fair trial and that the courts are not used for political purposes" is an essential part of the rule of law. The interview came in advance of Obama's summit with Medvedev to sign [VOA report] a replacement for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty [text] on arms control, which is set to expire in December. Medvedev also granted Novaya Gazeta an interview [text] in April, his first interview with a Russian newspaper since taking office in March 2008.

Last month, the Council of Europe (COE) [official website] urged substantial reforms to correct systemic problems [JURIST report] in the Russian legal system, including the prevalence of political prosecutions and a lack of judicial independence. Also in June, Khodorkovsky called [JURIST report] for "preventative judicial reforms," saying that putting an end to corruption and political pressure should be a governmental priority. In March, Khodorkovsky criticized [JURIST report] amendments signed into law in January by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev [official profile], allowing trials for treason and terrorism to be adjudicated without juries [JURIST report]. Medvedev himself acknowledged the need for judicial reform [JURIST report] in December, saying that transparent courts would restore faith in the justice system and prevent people from seeking redress in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website].

[JURIST] Turkish military officials on Sunday sent President Abdullah Gul [official website, in Turkish] a letter urging him not to approve a law that would allow prosecution of military personnel in civilian courts during peacetime. Members of the General Staff [official website, in Turkish] said that the law runs counter [Hurriyet report] to Article 145 [text] of the Turkish Constitution, which outlines the responsibilities of the military justice system. Gul's Justice and Development Party (AKP) [party website, in Turkish] supported the measure in parliament, which passed the law as part of reforms necessary for accession [JURIST report] to the European Union (EU) [official website]. Former Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk said that the law was unconstitutional and questioned the circumstances under which it was passed by parliament last month. AKP Deputy Bekir Bozdag [official profile, in Turkish] said that the law is constitutional [Cumhuriyet report, in Turkish] and serves to protect the political sphere from military influence, not inject politics into military affairs.

Constitutional reforms are an issue for Turkey's accession to the EU since its constitution was written under military rule and limits freedom of expression and religion. In May, secular judges in Turkey warned [JURIST report] the ruling AKP that proposed constitutional amendments were going too far in promoting an Islamist agenda. Earlier this year, a report [text, PDF, in Turkish] by advocacy group Tesev [advocacy website] argued that Turkish property rights still fell short [JURIST report] of those required to join the EU. Last year, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso [official profile] addressed the Turkish parliament [JURIST report] to applaud the government's efforts to reform a controversial provision of the Turkish penal code [JURIST report] but stressed that further efforts would be necessary.

[JURIST] A federal bankruptcy judge on Sunday approved [opinion, PDF] the sale of assets held by General Motors (GM) [corporate website] to a new, government-backed company. Judge Robert Gerber of the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] granted a motion [text, PDF] seeking the court's approval for sale of the automaker under US Bankruptcy Code § 363 [11 USC § 363 text] to Vehicle Acquisition Holdings, a company set up by the US Department of the Treasury [official website] expressly to facilitate the sale. Under the terms of the Master Sale and Purchase Agreement [text, PDF] filed in June, the US government would retain a majority interest in the restructured company, with the balance held by the Canadian government, the United Auto Workers (UAW) [union website], and institutional investors. The motion was opposed by unsecured GM bondholders, non-UAW unions, and potential tort litigants who argued that the plan was unnecessarily quick and failed to account for their interest in the existing GM. Likening the restructuring plan to preventing the "death of the patient on the operating table," Gerber said:

As nobody can seriously dispute, the only alternative to an immediate sale is liquidation — a disastrous result for GM's creditors, its employees, the suppliers who depend on GM for their own existence, and the communities in which GM operates. In the event of a liquidation, creditors now trying to increase their incremental recoveries would get nothing.