The Hungarian Parliament [official website, in Hungarian] approved the law [Reuters report] in December, amid protests and criticism. In 2008, the Constitutional Court of Hungary [official website] struck down [JURIST report] two proposals passed by the country's parliament to criminalize hate speech as unconstitutional infringements on the freedom of expression. The court held that the extremist speech that the amendments sought to prevent was not a danger to society because it was already marginalized. The first bill would have allowed recovery in cases where a person's ethnic group, rather than the individual person, was insulted. The second bill would have designated national, ethnic, racial or religious insults as misdemeanors punishable by up to two years in prison.

The California decision represents a split from a 2009 decision [JURST report] by the Ohio Supreme Court [official website] holding that police must obtain a warrant before searching data stored on a cell phone. The US Supreme Court [official website] denied certiorari on that case but the split may force it to rule on the issue [San Francisco Chronicle report]. In June, the US Supreme Court ruled [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] unanimously in City of Ontario v. Quon [Cornell LII backgrounder] that an employer's search of private text messages on a work-issued device does not violate the Fourth Amendment if the search is motivated by a legitimate work-related purpose and is not excessive in scope.

The blasphemy laws were introduced in 1986 as a way of protecting Muslim beliefs from insults. In response to repeated calls for repeal, Pakistani Federal Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti [official profile] has said the laws may be amended to prevent misuse, but they will not be repealed. Advocacy groups such as Human Rights Watch [JURIST report], as well as LHC advocate Saroop Ijaz [JURIST op-ed] have called for the laws to be repealed. In February, Bhatti told the Agence France-Presse that he has been speaking to various political parties [JURIST report] in Pakistan and that his government is committed to doing away with laws [AFP report] that are discriminatory to minorities. Bhatti made the comments at an interview with the AFP in Washington, DC, where he met with various lawmakers and officials during the National Prayer Breakfast. Bhatti discussed a proposed change in the law that would force judges to investigate blasphemy cases before they are docketed.

Last week Karzai approved the Supreme Court's plan to review the last September's parliamentary elections which were marred by irregularities and accusations of fraud. In November, the Afghanistan Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) [official website] disqualified 21 candidates [JURST report] for electoral fraud after finding widespread voting irregularities in 12 provinces. Of the disqualified candidates, 19 had either won or were leading in their districts, seven of which were incumbents, and two were second place finishers in districts where the first place finisher was also disqualified. In October, the IEC invalidated 1.3 million votes [JURIST report], nearly a quarter of the 5.6 million votes cast nationwide, due to findings of fraud. The IEC found that the 2,543 polling stations where the votes had been cast did not follow IEC procedures. The 2009 presidential election [JURIST news archive] of Karzai was also marred by fraud allegations.