[JURIST] UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling [official profile] on Monday urged banks to cut back on bonuses immediately instead of waiting for legislation following an agreement reached at last week's G-20 summit. In a speech to the Labour Party [party website] conference, Darling said [FT report] that he hoped banks around the world would all cut back on bonuses but acknowledged that British legislation would not be in place until after this season's round of bonuses. Darling also introduced a new Fiscal Responsibility Act [WSJ report] that will require the government to reduce the country's deficit, which currently stands at £800 billion. Specific plans for reducing the deficit will be laid out over the next several weeks in the Pre-Budget Report.

The US has also been taking steps to increase financial industry oversight. Earlier this month, US President Barack Obama [official website] stressed the need for stronger financial industry regulations [JURIST report] in a speech [transcript] marking the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings. In July, the Obama administration sent Congress [JURIST report] draft legislation [press release and materials] that would put the Federal Reserve [official website] in charge of regulating the largest financial firms. The proposed legislation would create an eight-member Financial Services Oversight Council to pinpoint risks in financial markets and would establish a National Bank Supervisor and Resolution Authority. It would also create within the Department of the Treasury [official website] an Office of National Insurance, the director of which would be charged with identifying gaps in industry regulation that could lead to crises in the insurance or financial systems.

[JURIST] Zimbabwe's Supreme Court dismissed charges Monday against ten people, including rights activist Jestina Mukoko [advocacy website; JURIST news archive], who had been charged with conspiring against President Robert Mugabe [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. The court held that Mukoko, who is the director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) [advocacy website], was tortured by security forces [BBC report] and denied access to legal and medical assistance [Zimbabwe Times report] in violation of her constitutional rights. The court ruled [Zimbabwean report] that since Mukoko's rights were violated, she cannot be tried in connection with the crimes for which she was held. The judge said that the full judgment will be made available at a later date.

In May, Mukoko was released on bail, one day after a court forced her back into custody after ruling she had been improperly released on bail [JURIST reports] in March. Mukoko was held without charges from December through March. Mukoko was hospitalized [Zimbabwe Times report] for the treatment of injuries sustained during her detention and remained under medical care after her release from police custody. While in prison, it was reported that Mukoko was forced to ingest poison [JURIST report], an allegation that sparked a world-wide protest against Zimbabwean police methods. During her detention, Mukoko was denied bail [JURIST report] by Zimbabwean lower courts, but another court ruled that Mukoko could appeal her detention [JURIST report] to the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe under the Zimbabwe Constitution [text, PDF].

[JURIST] Israel has threatened to deny the Palestinian Authority (PA) [IMEU backgrounder] permission for a second cellular phone provider to operate in the West Bank unless the PA drops its request that the International Criminal Court [official website] investigate Israel for possible war crimes, Haaretz [media website] reported [text] Sunday. The PA has contracted with Wataniya Mobile [corporate website] to provide service in the West Bank and faces a $300 million penalty if it does not receive Israel's approval by October 15. According to the report, Israel is using the impending deadline to pressure the PA into dropping its request [JURIST report] that the ICC investigate Israel for possible war crimes committed in December and January during Operation Cast Lead [Global Security backgrounder]. Israeli officials, according to Haaretz, feel betrayed by the PA, claiming that the PA urged Israel to take a strong stand against Hamas and then appealed to the ICC when Israel did so.

Israel recently rejected [JURIST report] a UN recommendation that the country establish an independent investigation into its actions during Operation Cast Lead. The recommendation came from a report [text, JURIST report] released earlier this month that found both Israeli and Palestinian forces had likely committed war crimes during the conflict. Israel refused to cooperate [JURIST report] in the investigation. Although the PA appealed to the ICC in February, the court ruled [JURIST report] it must first consider whether the PA is similar enough to a state under international law to appeal to the court.

[JURIST] A new Constitutional Court of Qatar [CIA backgrounder], established to hear disputes over matters of constitutional interpretation, became functional [Peninsula report] Sunday. The court will act primarily to ensure that legislation complies with the country's constitution [text], which took effect [JURIST report] in 2005, but will also be an appellate court for disputes over lower courts' interpretations of the law. Those seeking review of a court decision will be given 60 days to bring the matter to the court. The court has also been given the authority to decide jurisdictional issues in lower courts and to appoint a court to hear a specific issue.

The Constitutional Court had been set to begin operation last October, but was delayed due to administrative problems. Constitutional courts are relatively uncommon in the Middle East. Egypt has a Supreme Constitutional Court [official backgrounder] that has a similar function to Qatar's new court.

[JURIST] Only about one out of every four individuals charged with terrorist activities has been prosecuted because federal agencies do not agree on what constitutes a terrorist, according to a study [text; press release] released Sunday by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) [official website] at Syracuse University. The study looked at thousands of records from the Administrative Office of the US Courts (AOUSC), the National Security Division (NSD), and the Executive Office for US Attorneys (EOUSA) [official websites], each of which keep independent records on terrorism cases. The TRAC report, which covered cases from the last five-and-a-half years, demonstrated an apparent disconnect between the agencies' definition of a terrorist because the various lists had few names in common. The report also showed that US attorneys had declined to indict approximately 67 percent of cases that had been recommended for prosecution over that time period, that rate being as high as 73 percent in 2008. A spokesperson for the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website], of which the NSD and EOUSA are part, disagreed [AP report] with the findings, saying the report uses different information than the DOJ.

Terrorism investigations are still a main concern of the federal government. Earlier this month FBI Director Robert Mueller [official profile] addressed [JURIST report] the FBI's role in leading the new specialized interrogation group to question top terrorist suspects as well as many other topics in a wide ranging oversight hearing [materials; recorded video] before the Senate Judiciary Committee [official website]. Mueller said that the new interrogation panel [JURIST report] will be a "joint effort" between the FBI and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website]. In August, the New York Times reported [text; JURIST report] that eight years after 9/11 [JURIST news archive], counterterrorism efforts continue to dominate the operations and budget of the FBI. The report said that since the attacks, the bureau has doubled the number of agents it assigns to counterterrorism efforts and has created specialized "threat squads" to investigate possible threats.