Mubarak stepped down after nearly three weeks of demonstrations [Al Jazeera report] protesting the Egyptian government and calling for his resignation. Mubarak's resignation left state affairs in the hands of the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which pledged to lift the country's emergency laws [JURIST report] that were in place for nearly 30 years once circumstances in the country improved. The Council also vowed to have a peaceful transition to power and promised not to prosecute "honourable people who refused corruption and demanded for reform." On Thursday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official profile] called for an end to violence against protesters [JURIST report] in various countries across the Middle East and North Africa [BBC backgrounder] currently embroiled in protests. During the three weeks of protests leading up to Mubarak's resignation, nearly 400 people were killed and 5,500 were wounded.

In 2008, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [official website] called for the establishment of special courts [JURIST report] to deal only with corruption charges, telling a convention of high-ranking justices and government ministers that, "apart from pendency and delayed justice, corruption is another challenge we face both in government and the judiciary." Singh said addressing these problems would increases both domestic and foreign confidence in the court system. Following the prime minister's remarks, Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan [official profile] told reporters that Singh did not mean that the judiciary itself was corrupt, but rather that it has to deal with a large number of cases brought by the Central Bureau of Investigation [official website], which alleged government corruption. Balakrishnan went on to say that allegations of judicial corruption were rare and dealt with swiftly when they did arise.

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] called on the Tunisian transitional government to investigate incidents of police violence against protesters and end police brutality [HRW reports; JURIST report], and the UN reported that at least 219 died as a result of the protests, including 72 killed in prison riots. In January, the Tunisian Constitutional Council officially announced that Ben Ali had permanently left the office of the presidency after he declared a state of emergency [JURIST reports] amid nationwide protests, banning public gatherings and allowing police to fire on anyone refusing to obey orders, and fled the country. Earlier that month, UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Navi Pillay [official website] announced that UN experts would be sent to Tunisia [JURIST report] to assess the human rights situation and meet with the country's interim leaders. Also, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon [official website] urged government leaders in Tunisia to initiate dialogue between all sides in an attempt to restore the rule of law [JURIST report]. The Tunisian Constitutional Council declared that the leader of the lower house of parliament, Foued Mebezza, would assume power as interim president [JURIST report] until elections are held, which Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi [Reuters profile] has promised will be within six months.

Recently, there have been several settlements resulting from the lawsuits against Countrywide for its role in the mortgage crisis. Earlier this month, the Superior Court of California County of Los Angeles [official website] approved [opinion, PDF] a $6.5 million settlement [JURIST report] between the state of California and two former Countrywide Financial Corporation executives, including Mozilo, accused of predatory lending. In June, Countrywide, reached [JURIST report] a $108 million settlement agreement [text, PDF] with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) [official website] in response to a lawsuit that charged it with collecting excessive fees from homeowners facing foreclosure.

Earlier this month, UK think tank Policy Exchange [think tank website] called for the UK to withdraw [JURIST report] from the ECHR in favor of a domestic high court. Senior UK judge Lord Leonard Hoffman wrote the foreword, saying the "Strasbourg court has taken upon itself an extraordinary power to micromanage the legal systems of the member states." The report, written by former government adviser Dr. Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, explains that the ECHR has gradually grown in power. It calls for the UK to try to negotiate reforms with the court to limit its jurisdiction, and, if unsuccessful, states "the UK should consider withdrawing from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and establishing the Supreme Court in London as the final appellate court for human rights law." The report suggests that, if the UK pulls out, a domestic court would be final arbiter on human rights issues, and there would be no right to appeal to the ECHR.

The brutality, perversity and cruelty exhibited by [Kasab] by committing multiple murders of innocent men, women, children, aged persons and policemen without provocation for a motive which has no moral justification makes this case a gravest case of extreme culpability. The conduct of [Kasab] shows that his mental age overrides his physical age. He has never shown any repentance, but has loudly proclaimed that he wants to [set an example] by his conduct.

Kasab filed his appeal in June after being convicted [JURIST reports] in May for his role in the attack, which was allegedly coordinated by Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) [CFR backgrounder]. He was sentenced to death after the prosecution sought the death penalty [JURIST reports], citing eight aggravating circumstances. Judge ML Tahiliyani, specially appointed in January 2009 to preside over the trial of the three suspects detained after the attacks, heard closing arguments [JURIST report] in the case last March. In January 2010, Tahiliyani denied [JURIST report] Kasab's request for an international trial after Kasab claimed that he would not receive a fair trial in India. In December 2009, Kasab withdrew his confession [JURIST report], claiming he was tortured and framed by police. Tahiliyani continued the trial [JURIST report] despite Kasab's confession, ruling that it was incomplete but should be entered into the record.

On Thursday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official profile] called for an end to violence against protesters [JURIST report] in Bahrain and elsewhere, referencing recent attempts to quell protests sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa. Ban said that he is "disturbed by all these violent means of trying to disperse demonstrators, the freedom of expression, freedom of access to information, particularly the journalists." In conjunction, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay [official profile], on Friday condemned violence by the security forces in Libya, Bahrain and Yemen against anti-government demonstrators as illegal and excessively heavy-handed. Pillay blamed the protests on decades of neglecting legitimate aspirations to realize civic, political, economic, social and cultural rights. Last week, Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci said the government will end the 19-year-old state of emergency laws [JURIST report] amidst growing protests in Algeria. Earlier this month, Iranian opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi was placed under house arrest [JURIST report] in relation to calls by Karroubi and fellow opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi [JURIST news archive] for rallies in support of the recent political reform movements in Tunisia and Egypt.

The DRC has been called rape capital of the world [BBC report] by senior UN officials. Members of the UN Security Council [official website] expressed "outrage" [statement] last August over a different mass rape in the DRC, calling for justice for the victims [JURIST report]. UN representatives alleged that Congolese rebel groups Mai Mai and the Democratic Liberation Force of Rwanda (FDLR) [GlobalSecurity backgrounders] raped between 150 and 200 women and children [NYT report] in a small cluster of villages in eastern DRC between July 30 and August 3 of last year. Human rights have long been a major concern in the DRC. In June, national police chief John Numbi was suspended [JURIST report] as part of the ongoing investigation into the murder of human rights activist Floribert Chebeya. In December 2009, HRW urged the UN Organization Mission in DR Congo (MUNOC) [official website] to stop funding military groups [JURIST report] in the country that are committing human rights abuses. In December 2008, Amnesty International reported that rape and sexual warfare have been employed [JURIST report] by both the DRC military and by rebel forces. In November 2008, MUNOC head Alan Doss [appointment release] condemned [JURIST report] the killing of civilians by militias in the country as war crimes. MONUC has been operating in DRC since 1999. The conflict in the DRC has claimed more than four million lives and has been ongoing since 1983. MONUC has overseen elections and continues to provide armed protection for civilians in certain areas, particularly the North and South Kivus provinces.