[JURIST] An Argentinian court Friday sentenced retired general Jorge Olivera Rovere and retired colonel Jose Menendez to life sentences for crimes committed during the Argentine military dictatorship, commonly referred to as the "Dirty War" [GlobalSecurity backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. Rovere, who had authority over several detention centers during the dictatorship, was found guilty of four murders [Momento24 report] and responsible for 116 abductions and disappearances. He denied his involvement in all of the abductions and two of the murders. Menendez served as second chief of the Air Defense Artillery 101 between 1976 and 1979. Three others were acquitted during the proceedings.

During the "Dirty War," spanning between 1976 and 1983, an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people were forcibly kidnapped or "disappeared" in a government-sponsored campaign against suspected dissidents. In August, former Argentine general Santiago Omar Riveros was convicted of human rights abuses [JURIST report] and sentenced to life in prison. Riveros was found guilty of killing 15-year-old Floreal Avellaneda and detaining his mother during the dictatorship. Also in August, the Supreme Court of Argentina [official website, in Spanish] ruled that individuals cannot be required to submit blood samples [JURIST report] to test whether they were abducted as children during the Dirty War. Spanish police announced in July that they had arrested [JURIST report] Jorge Alberto Soza, wanted in Argentina on torture charges stemming from his service in the police force during the dictatorship.

[JURIST] US Attorney General Eric Holder reiterated the need for authorities to adhere to the rule of law when conducting investigations into potential terrorist activities in a speech [text] Friday on the role the Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] plays in investigating terrorism. Holder appeared to take issue with how such investigations were handled by the Bush administration, saying:

Let me be clear – we cannot and need not sacrifice our core values in order to ensure our safety. Adherence to the rule of law strengthens our security by depriving terrorist organizations of their prime recruiting tools and legitimacy. When we commit to operating within a Constitutional framework, we distinguish ourselves from the enemy we are acting to defeat. We have to lead not only by overwhelming strength, but also by good example. A few seem to have forgotten what, to me, is this most basic of American values and have lost touch with what truly distinguishes us as a nation.

[JURIST] Germany's constitutional court [official website, in German] on Thursday ruled [press release] that surviving partners in a registered civil partnership have a right to collect under the occupational pension scheme for civil service employees. The court found that affording such payments to surviving spouses in a marriage but excluding civil partners violated the equal treatment provision in Article 3.1 of Germany's Basic Law [materials, in German]. The complaint was brought by a civil servant in a registered partnership who was denied placement [Deutsche Welle report] in a tax class for married employees by a public insurer, resulting in a 74 euros a month difference in pension payments and excluding his partner the right to collect on the pension in the result of his death. The court reasoned that such unequal treatment required justification because of the effect it had on same-sex partnerships.

While Germany does not allow same-sex marriage [JURIST news archive], German law affords several rights [ILGA backgrounder] to registered same-sex partnerships including alimony and divorce, limited adoption provisions and pension rights that exclude federal civil servants. Belgium, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands all allow same-sex marriages while several other European countries allow partnerships with limited rights. Earlier this month, a Russian court refused to recognize [JURIST report] a marriage between two women. In August, Portugal's high court ruled [JURIST report] that the right to a same-sex marriage was not present in the country's constitution. In June, Ireland passed a bill that gave limited rights to same-sex partners. Last year, the European Court of Justice, spurred by a complaint from a German man, ruled that same-sex partners have a right to survivor pensions [JURIST report].