[JURIST] A Washington, DC law [text, PDF] recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states or jurisdictions took effect Tuesday, following Congressional inaction on the matter. The Jury and Marriage Amendment Act of 2009, passed by the Council of the District of Columbia [official website] in May by a 12-1 final vote [JURIST report], was subject to Congressional review pursuant to the Home Rule Act [text, PDF] before becoming law. Councilman Marion Barry [official profile] cast the only dissenting vote. Although Congress was urged to oppose the law [AP report] by church leaders, they took no action. Last month, DC Superior Court Judge Judith Retchin upheld a denial of a referendum on the bill, ruling that it violated DC's Human Rights Act [materials]. Councilman David Catania [official profile] applauded the judge's decision [press release], saying that:

Both the Board of Elections and now the Court have stated very specifically that old court cases limiting marriage to heterosexual couples are no longer relevant. In addition, they have recognized the Council's march towards equal marriage rights as real and relevant. And finally, they have concluded that any action that would curtail those rights is a form of discrimination that is specifically prohibited by the Human Rights Act.

[JURIST] The American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary [official website] on Tuesday gave US Supreme Court [official website] nominee Sonia Sotomayor [WH profile] a unanimous "well-qualified" rating [letter, PDF]. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee [official websites], said [press release] that the positive assessment should aid Sotomayor in her confirmation hearings [JURIST report], scheduled to begin next week:

The American Bar Association's unanimous, well-qualified rating of Judge Sotomayor is further evidence of the outstanding experience she will bring to the Supreme Court. The ABA’s rating - an evaluation of integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament - should eliminate the doubts of naysayers who have questioned Judge Sotomayor’s disposition on the bench.

[JURIST] Iranian opposition leaders called Tuesday for the release [Ghalamnews report, in Persian] of persons detained for their alleged involvement in protests following last month's disputed presidential election [JURIST news archive]. The request was brought jointly by candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi [IranTracker profile; JURIST news archive] and Mehdi Karroubi and former president Mohammad Khatami, who also called for the government immediately to stop the allegedly baseless arrests of dissidents. The opposition leaders stressed the importance of ending what they called a newly formed security state, saying that the current situation would result in further political unrest. The country's police chief last week maintained [AFP report] that two-thirds of the people arrested during the protests have been released. Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei [official profile; BBC profile] on Monday warned Western nations [BBC report] to stay out of the country's internal affairs, claiming that relations with meddling countries would suffer.

Iran has been experiencing turmoil in Tehran and elsewhere since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] was declared the winner of the election in June. Last week, a conservative paper called for Mousavi and Khatami to be tried for treason [JURIST report] for their involvement in post-election protests. Also last week, the Iranian government barred the publication [press release, in Persian; JURIST report] of a newspaper linked to Karroubi, attempting to quash political dissidence. The country's Guardian Council of the Constitution [official website, in Persian] recently certified the contested results [press release, in Persian; JURIST report], officially sanctioning the re-election of Ahmadinejad. Authorities stated that those arrested would be dealt with [Reuters report] by the court system. Human rights groups have viewed the arrests as political repression [JURIST report], saying that Iranian forces are using the protests to "engage in what appears to be a major purge of reform-oriented individuals."

[JURIST] A German appeals court on Tuesday found [press release, in German] that suspected Nazi Waffen-SS [USHMM backgrounder] soldier Heinrich Boere is medically fit to stand trial for the 1944 murder of three Dutch civilians. The Cologne Higher Regional Court [official website, in German] overturned a lower court decision, which found that a heart condition and other medical problems rendered the 88-year-old Boere unfit to stand trial. Rejecting this assessment on appeal, the appeals court said that the trial process could be adapted to allow Boere breaks and limit courtroom hours to accommodate his medical condition. Dortmund state prosecutor [official website, in German] Ulrich Maass brought murder charges against Boere alleging the execution-style murder of three Dutch resistance fighters during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.

Boere was convicted in absentia [Reuters report] of the killings in 1949 in the Netherlands, which subsequently sought his extradition from Germany in 1980. In May, another accused Nazi, John Demjanjuk [NNDB profile; JURIST news archive], 89, was deported [JURIST report] from the US to Germany to stand trial for his alleged involvement in death camps during World War II. Demjanjuk's deportation marked the end a lengthy legal battle [Guardian timeline] centered around whether his age and health would permit him to stand trial. In 1988, Demjanjuk was convicted and sentenced to death by an Israeli court, though the sentence was vacated by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1993.

[JURIST] Retired Rear Admiral John Hutson [academic profile], formerly the US Navy's Judge Advocate General [official website], argued [prepared statement, PDF] Tuesday that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) [text, PDF] should be repealed rather than reformed. At a hearing [materials] before the Senate Armed Services Committee [official website], Hutson said that although he was an "early and ardent supporter of military commissions," the process created to try enemy combatants "did not live up to the traditions" of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) [text] and had become a "significant distraction for the military." Hutson said that if the goal of revamping the military commission rules is to ensure convictions of suspected terrorists "then it isn't really a court," but a "charade." Pointing to the successful prosecution of terrorism suspects in federal courts, Hutson said:

It is not only unnecessary, it is inappropriate for [the Department of Defense (DoD)] to operate a system of justice in parallel to [the Department of Justice (DoJ)]. The UCMJ and the courts-martial it creates are absolutely necessary to ensure our effective fighting force. But for some of the same reasons that the Posse Comitatus Act prevents the military from enforcing laws against U.S. civilians, we should resist the temptation of using the military to prosecute foreign criminals when DoJ can perform that critical function quite well.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of India [official website] on Monday rejected a bid to replace executions by hanging with lethal injections. The suit was brought by rights advocate Ashok Kumar Walia who maintained that hanging executions were cruel and painful [Times of India report]. Chief Justice Balakrishan and Justice Sathasivam [official profiles] questioned the allegation that hanging causes more pain than lethal injection, pointing out that hanging causes instant death by severing the spinal cord. The court also noted that the death penalty in India is rarely ordered and that other countries employ a variety of methods for executions. The presiding judges advised Walia to advocate for the abolition of the death penalty instead of a particular method.

The country's last exercise of the death penalty occurred in 2004 when a defendant was hanged for the rape and murder of a school student. Although executions in India are rare, the Asian Centre for Human Rights [advocacy website] reported last year that more than 7,000 people died between 2002 and 2007 while in the custody of Indian police. The advocacy group called for the country's National Human Rights Commission [official website] to create a special department [JURIST report] to investigate such deaths, many of which allegedly involved torture. In 2006, an Indian police officer was sentenced to death [BBC report] for killing a man in police custody. A 2004 survey [PTI report] found that 80 percent of Indian judges favored adding lethal injection as a method for carrying out executions.

[JURIST] Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] on Tuesday appealed [text, PDF] the court's decision [JURIST report] not to charge Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] with genocide. ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official profile] said that the evidentiary standards imposed by the Pre-Trial Chamber [official website] in advance of their March indictment was an improper interpretation of Article 58 of the Rome Statute [texts]. Moreno-Ocampo urged the Appeals Chamber [official website] either to order the Pre-Trial Chamber to issue an arrest warrant for al-Bashir on genocide charges under Article 6 [text], or to remand the case with instructions on the proper standard for determining whether "reasonable grounds" exist.

In March, the Pre-Trial Chamber issued an arrest warrant [text, PDF] for al-Bashir, charging him with seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The warrant has been controversial [JURIST news archive], with Egypt, Sudan, the African Union [JURIST reports] and others calling for the proceedings against al-Bashir to be delayed, and African Union leaders agreeing [JURIST report] last week not to cooperate with the ruling. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has previously urged al-Bashir to comply [JURIST report] with any ICC decision, but al-Bashir has said that that he and his government will disregard [Al Jazeera report] the ICC's ruling. Al-Bashir is accused of systematically targeting and purging the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa, three Arabic-speaking ethnic groups, under the pretext of counterinsurgency since 2003.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] on Monday affirmed [opinion, PDF] a ruling that a prisoner's First Amendment [Cornell LII backgrounder] rights are not violated if he is prohibited from writing material that encourages inmates to participate in work stoppages. Sing Sing prison inmate Prince Pilgrim brought the suit to challenge a New York state prison regulation [7 NYCRR § 270.2 materials] that prohibits inmates from leading, organizing, participating, or urging others to participate in a "work stoppage, sit-in, lock-in, or other actions which may be detrimental" within penitentiaries, alleging First Amendment and due process [Cornell LII backgrounder] violations. The district court originally granted summary judgment for the state facility and officials following a magistrate judge's determination that Pilgrim's document, titled "Wake Up!," urged prison disruption and that rules banning such material served legitimate governmental interests. The appeals court looked to precedent in upholding the district court decision, ruling that:

other cases have held that similar inmate activity within prisons is not protected by the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has held that "[i]n a prison context, an inmate does not retain those First Amendment rights that are inconsistent with his status as a prisoner or with the legitimate penological objectives of the corrections system," ... including "organized union activity within the prison walls." Work stoppages are deliberate disruptions of the regular order of the prison environment and are a species of "organized union activity." ... They are plainly inconsistent with legitimate objectives of prison organization. Entreaties to such activity...are not entitled to First Amendment protection where other less disruptive means of airing grievances are available. Accordingly, plaintiff's First Amendment retaliation claim fails as a matter of law.

[JURIST] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] on Tuesday called for restraint [press release] from all sides and a respect for due process in the ethnic unrest in China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region [official website], in which the Chinese government says 156 were killed and more than 800 wounded on Sunday. Expressing her condolences to the victims of a "great tragedy," Pillay called the figures "extraordinarily high" and urged "Uighur and Han civic leaders, and the Chinese authorities at all levels, to exercise great restraint so as not to spark further violence and loss of life." Recognizing the government's responsibility to maintain order, Pillay noted that "it is vital that the authorities only resort to lethal force when it is strictly unavoidable in order to protect life" and that both Chinese law and international human rights norms require due process for the accused, including humane treatment, fair trials and proportionate sentences.

Pillay's remarks come two days after violence broke out [NYT report] between Han Chinese and Uighur residents of Xinjiang's capital Urumqi. The government says [Xinhua report] that the majority of those killed in the violence were Han residents killed by protesters, although the World Uyghur Congress and the Uyghur American Association [advocacy websites] say that many protesters were killed by authorities but not included in the official death toll. The Uighur population, which is Muslim, is opposed [BBC backgrounder] to China's restrictive bans on religious practice, and say that the recent influx of Han Chinese has disenfranchised the non-Chinese speaking Uighur population.

[JURIST] A federal appeals court on Monday ordered [text, PDF] an en banc rehearing of a patent case that challenges new US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) [official website] rules [text, PDF]. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [official website] will reexamine a previous ruling [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] that upheld three of the rules but rejected a fourth after all four were struck down [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] by a district court. The rules upheld would limit the number of times that someone can request a re-examination of a patent and require applicants with several claims to submit additional materials among other provisions aimed to address the "large and growing backlog of unexamined patent applications." The three-judge panel for the court rejected one rule [37 CFR § 1.78(d)(1)(i) text] that requires a person pursuing more than two continuation applications to file a petition showing that the added information could not have been provided previously, removing all references to the prior application if the requisite showing is not made. The panel ruled that this fourth rule was inconsistent with 35 USC § 120 [text], which entitles patent applicants to use the filing date of the previously-filed application. The original action was brought by plaintiffs Smithkline Beecham Corporation, doing business as GlaxoSmithKline [corporate website], and Dr. Triantafyllos Tafas [TradeVibes profile] against the PTO and the office's former director Jon Dudas [professional profile].

In addition to rules aimed at slowing down the influx of applications, the scope of patentable subject matter may affect the number of patents being filed in the future. In June, the US Supreme Court [official website] granted certiorari [JURIST report] in the controversial case of Bilski v. Doll [docket; cert. petition, PDF] to review the scope of patentable subject matter. In Bilski, the Court will rule on the rejection of a business method patent that sought to protect a method of hedging risks in commodities trading. The Federal Circuit narrowly defined [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] the "machine-or-transformation" test to be used in determining business method patent eligibility.

[JURIST] The prosecution warned the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) [official website; JURIST news archive] Monday that the trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor [case materials; JURIST news archive] at The Hague could take four years to complete due to the extensive list of defense witnesses. Taylor is charged with 11 counts [indictment, PDF] of crimes against humanity, violations of the Geneva Conventions [materials], and other violations of international humanitarian law, to which he pleaded not guilty. Taylor's defense is set to open their case [AP report] on July 13, with Taylor taking the stand in his our defense on July 14. Defense counsel defended the list of 256 witnesses by pointing that the prosecution had also named more than 200 witnesses, and that it did not intend to call all of them.

Last week, Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) [official website] urged that several one-time military and political leaders, including Taylor, be prosecuted [JURIST report] in a special Liberian court for war crimes. Taylor, who is the commission's top target, could be prosecuted by the commission if he is released [JURIST report] due to a lack of funds to continue the proceedings at the SCSL. In February, officials announced [JURIST report] that they expected the court to render a verdict by 2010, despite the SCSL's ongoing financial troubles. After complaints of prejudice in 2007, the SCSL increased [JURIST reports] Taylor's defense funding to $100,000 a month. Taylor claims to be indigent, but, in June 2007, a five-member UN investigatory panel found [JURIST report] that he retains control over millions of dollars hidden in African banks.