[JURIST] German lawmakers on Tuesday agreed to a draft law strengthening parliamentary involvement with the country's representatives to the European Union [official website], a step toward reforms necessary to Germany's ratification of the EU's Lisbon Treaty [EU materials; text]. The draft law would require [DW report] the government to fully inform the Bundestag [official website] about negotiations at the EU, and would allow parliament to issue non-binding guidance on issues before the EU. The Constitutional Court [official website, in German] ruled last month that such a law was necessary prior to ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, despite its compatibility with the German Basic Law [text]. The draft did not adopt [UPI report] a proposal by the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian affiliate of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) [party websites, in German] of Chancellor Angela Merkel [official profile], to make parliamentary decisions binding on the EU delegation. The Bundestag is set to vote on the draft law on September 8, with the Bundesrat [official website] to follow on September 18.

Efforts to ratify [JURIST news archive] the treaty in all of the 27 member countries required for approval have met some obstacles. Although the treaty has been approved in 23 countries, Irish voters rejected [JURIST report] the treaty last June, leading Czech President Vaclav Klaus [official website] to refuse to sign the measure, despite approval [JURIST report] by the Czech Senate [official website]. Last July, Polish President Lech Kaczynski [official website] refused to sign [JURIST report] the treaty despite parliamentary approval, calling it "pointless" in light of the Irish rejection. Ireland agreed in June to hold a second referendum [JURIST report] after EU leaders agreed to certain concessions [presidency conclusions, PDF].

[JURIST] The Obama administration should not re-sign and ratify the Rome Statute [text] and join the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website], according to a study [text] released Tuesday by the Heritage Foundation [advocacy website]. According to the report, the ICC lacks checks on its power, is a threat to national sovereignty, and could cause complications to military cooperation between the US and its allies. The report concludes:

While the International Criminal Court represents an admirable desire to hold war criminals accountable for their terrible crimes, the court is flawed notionally and operationally. The ICC has not overcome many of the problems plaguing the ad hoc tribunals established for Yugoslavia and Rwanda. It remains slow and inefficient. Worse, unlike ad hoc tribunals, it includes a drive to justify its budget and existence in perpetuity rather than simply completing a finite mission.

Its broad autonomy and jurisdiction invite politically motivated indictments. Its inflexibility can impede political resolution of problems, and its insulation from political considerations can complicate diplomatic efforts. Efforts to use the court to apply pressure to inherently political issues and supersede the foreign policy prerogatives of sovereign nations - such as the prosecutor's decision to consider Israel's actions in Gaza - undermine the court's credibility and threaten its future as a useful tool for holding accountable the perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

[JURIST] Australian rights group Civil Liberties Australia (CLA) [advocacy website] on Wednesday sharply criticized [press release] the government's proposed reforms [materials] to Australia's national security and anti-terrorism legislation. Last week, Australian Attorney General Robert McClelland [official website] released a 452-page discussion paper [text, PDF] detailing the proposed changes, including "providing police with new emergency powers to enter and search premises without a warrant where it is suspected, on reasonable grounds, that there is material relevant to a terrorism offence and there is a threat to public health or safety" and "extending the time available for police to re-enter a premises under a search warrant from one hour to 12 hours in emergency circumstances." CLA called these expanded powers "highly problematic," saying:

They would fundamentally undermine existing safeguards that require a judicial officer issuing a warrant. And it is questionable whether there is actually a need for enhanced powers. There is no evidence to suggest, for example, that police are unduly limited by the requirement to apply for a warrant before entering suspicious premises.

[JURIST] The Obama administration has notified Congress of plans to transfer six Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees out of the country, according to a Tuesday Miami Herald report [text]. The notifications were reportedly filed August 7, in accordance with a new law that requires risk assessments and notification of transfers. One of the six detainees is Mohammed Jawad [ACLU materials; JURIST news archive], who will be repatriated to Afghanistan. The other five have not been identified, but two are expected to be sent to Ireland, two to Portugual [JURIST reports], and the sixth to an undecided nation. Also this week, the Belgian Foreign Ministry [official website] announced it was sending a delegation [press release] to Guantanamo to interview a detainee who could be released to that country. There is also another foreign delegation traveling to Guantanamo this week.

These latest developments come as the Obama administration works toward closing the detention facility. The administration is exploring options for detainees who cannot be sent overseas, and, last week, federal and state officials toured a prison in rural Michigan [JURIST report] in anticipation that it could eventually hold Guantanamo detainees. Also last week, federal officials said that terrorism trials for some inmates could be held at a new high-security courthouse in Newport News, VA [Washington Post report] if the Obama administration sends cases to federal courts [JURIST report]. The Obama administration faces sharp opposition from members of Congress over plans to transfer Guantanamo detainees to US soil. In late July, US Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Charles Johnson and Assistant Attorney General for National Security David Kris [official profiles], both members of task force appointed by Obama to oversee the closing of Guantanamo, testified [JURIST report] in front of the House Armed Services Committee [official website] that the Obama administration is considering transferring more Guantanamo Bay detainees to the US as they urged Congress to pass proposed reforms to the Military Commissions Act of 2006 [text, PDF; JURIST news archive] and detainee policy.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] on Tuesday overturned the conviction [opinion, PDF] of former Brocade Communications Systems [corporate website] CEO Gregory Reyes for backdating stock options [JURIST news archive]. Citing prosecutorial misconduct, the appeals court overturned Reyes's 2007 conviction and sentence [JURIST reports] on conspiracy and fraud charges [complaint, PDF] for backdating stock options. The Ninth Circuit found that the prosecution had made a false assertion of material fact to the jury in the closing argument. The prosecutor told the jury that employees in the finance department did not know about the backdating, when employees had told investigators that they were aware of it. The court found:

Although the government's case was relatively strong, the jury took seven days to deliberate, and the case was complex and technical. Moreover, the prosecutor's statements were particularly prejudicial given that Reyes' defense rested on his delegating his responsibilities to others and reliance on them. At the end there was considerable focus on the issue of what the Finance Department knew. The prosecutor's false statements went directly to this issue. Moreover, the statements were made during closing arguments, both orally and visually, and closing statements from the prosecution "matter a great deal." Deliberate false statements by those privileged to represent the United States harm the trial process and the integrity of our prosecutorial system. We do not lightly tolerate a prosecutor asserting as a fact to the jury something known to be untrue or, at the very least, that the prosecution had very strong reason to doubt. There is no reason to tolerate such misconduct here.

[JURIST] Prominent Chinese human rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong has been charged with tax evasion, his lawyer said Tuesday. Xu is accused of failing to pay taxes [NYT report] on a $100,000 grant from Yale University earmarked for the legal research center of Xu's Gongmeng human rights group. Xu was taken into custody last month, shortly after Chinese officials shut down [JURIST reports] the legal research center. Human Rights in China (HRIC) [advocacy website] said Tuesday that Chinese officials had completely shut down [press release] Gongmeng's operations. HRIC executive director Sharon Hom said:

The legal prosecution of Xu Zhiyong and the shutdown of Gongmeng are not isolated incidents. Rather, these official actions reflect a policy of suppression of independent civil society organizations. The misuse of law and legal process to intimidate and control these organizations present a grave challenge to China’s legal reform and the growth of its civil society.

[JURIST] Russian human rights activists and journalists are suspending their work in Chechnya [JURIST news archive] in the wake of the recent violence, according to a Tuesday Moscow Times report [text]. Rights group Memorial [advocacy website, in Russian], which employed recently murdered [JURIST report] activist Natalia Estemirova [BBC obituary], closed its Chechen office soon after her death. Memorial, which has continued work in Chechnya through other regional offices, has reported that several of its staff, including Estemirova, were being followed by unknown persons [press release, in Russian] and had received threats. Last week, Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta [media website, in Russian] withdrew all of its reporters from Chechnya, saying that it was too dangerous for them to continue working there. Journalist Anna Politkovskaya [BBC obituary], murdered in 2006, was a Novaya Gazeta special correspondent working in Chechnya.

Last week, Chechen human rights activist Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband Alik Dzhabrailov were found dead in the trunk of their car. Saulayeva and Dzhabrailov were taken [Moscow Times report] from the office of her organization, Let's Save the Generation, which works to aid children affected by violence in Chechnya. Their deaths came less than a month after the death of Estemirova. Memorial has accused [press release, in Russian] Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov [BBC profile] of responsibility in Estemirova's death. Kadyrov has filed a defamation suit against Memorial and claims that the recent killings are an attempt by rebels to discredit him.

[JURIST] The US District Court for the Western District of Texas [official website] on Monday upheld [opinion, PDF] a University of Texas at Austin (UT) [academic website] affirmative action [JURIST news archive] policy of considering race in student admissions. The plaintiffs were two Caucasian females who were denied admission to UT. They challenged the admission policy, which allows race and ethnicity to be considered among several other factors. The plaintiffs argued that a Texas state law that requires UT to accept all students in the top ten percent of their high school class provides a diverse student body, such that it is unnecessary to consider race and ethnicity to achieve diversity. The court rejecting that argument, holding that UT's policy was consistent with the 2003 US Supreme Court [official website] ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger [opinion text; JURIST symposium]:

The Texas Solicitor General summarized this case best when he stated, "If the Plaintiffs are right, Grutter is wrong." Absent Texas' Top Ten Percent law and the effect it has on UT admissions, the Court has difficulty imagining an admissions policy that could more closely resemble the Michigan Law School's admissions policy upheld and approved by the Supreme Court in Grutter. But if the Plaintiffs are right, and if the Top Ten Percent Law somehow acts to make UT's consideration of race in admissions unconstitutional, then every public university in the United States would be prohibited from considering race in their admissions process because the same type of "percentage plan" which the Top Ten Percent law embodies could be established at any state university, and thus their failure to implement such a plan would constitute a failure to consider race-neutral alternatives. Grutter stands for exactly the opposite, as the decision explicitly permitted the consideration of race despite the existence and availability of race-neutral alternatives like percentage plans or lotteries. Consequently, as long as Grutter remains good law, UT's current admissions program remains constitutional.