JURIST - Paper Chase: Saturday, March 24, 2012

[JURIST] The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) [official website] announced [press release] on Friday that it filed a subpoena enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] against Wells Fargo & Company [corporate website] to force the company to hand over documents connected to the company's sale of nearly $60 billion in residential mortgage-backed securities to investors. The SEC is investigating Wells Fargo for potential fraud due to potential material misrepresentations or omitted material facts in a series of offerings between 2006 and 2008, as well as whether Well Fargo misrepresented to investors that the loans complied with the company's underwriting standards. Wells Fargo has allegedly failed to produce documents requested in a September 2011 SEC subpoena. The SEC is also investigating several other firms for whether they failed to disclose material facts to investors pertaining to weaknesses in offerings and has informed Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase [corporate websites] that they may also face charges [Bloomberg report].

Earlier this month Wells Fargo and the country's four other largest mortgage service providers reached a $25 billion settlement [JURIST report] with the Department of Justice, the Department of Housing and Urban Development [official websites] and 49 state attorneys general over mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure abuses. The settlement was initially announced [JURIST report] in February. The settlement does not prevent civil suits by individual homeowners or criminal charges pursued by federal or state authorities.

[JURIST] The Egyptian parliament met on Saturday to appoint the 100-member panel that will draft the country's new constitution. A significant struggle is expected between the Islamists and liberals to reduce over 1,000 nominations [Al Jazeera report] to 100 individuals to serve on the panel. Half the panel members will be current members of the parliament and half will be other prominent Egyptian social figures. At least 40 of the 50 seats reserved for members of parliament are expected to come from Islamist parties. The domination of the proceedings by Islamists has been extremely controversial. The leader of the liberal Justice Party walked out of Saturday's session after his proposal was rejected and there have been intense debates [JURIST report] among the parties over the composition of the constitutional panel.

The debate follows an Egyptian court ruling last month that the elaborate voting system in the parliamentary elections was unconstitutional [JURIST report]. The make-up of the constitutional panel could determine whether there will be an expansion of rights in the country. In January, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] called on Egypt's newly elected parliament to pursue an agenda to reform nine areas of Egyptian law [JURIST report] that impede freedom and restrict rights. Some of the suggested reforms included ending the state of emergency, reforming police law and expanding freedom of expression, strengthening the criminal penalties for police abuse, amending Egypt's definition of torture to be in line with international standards and allowing independent NGOs to operate lawfully in the country.

[JURIST] More than 20 Iraqi police officers were arrested and face interrogation Saturday following the escape of 19 detainees from a temporary prison in Iraq. The group of escapees, who were being held at the al-Tasfirat prison in the city of Kirkuk, included alleged al-Qaeda leaders [Al Jazeera report] and two men who had been sentenced to death. Most of the prisoners faced terrorism-related charges. The group allegedly escaped by drugging the guards and other prisoners [AFP report] before removing a ventilator in a bathroom and escaping through the opening. Iraq Deputy Interior Minister Adnan al Assadi alleged that some of the police officers may have been negligent in their guard duties or may have collaborated with the prisoners. Kirkuk provincial police chief Jamal Taher Bakr said he had started investigations into the escape and that one of the prisoners had been recaptured.

Iraq has recently come under fire for alleged poor conditions in its prisons. In February 2011, Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] reported that the Iraqi government was operating secret prisons [JURIST report], and suspects held in Iraqi custody had been systematically tortured since before the start of the Iraq War [JURIST feature] in 2003. In September 2010, AI reported that the Iraqi government was unlawfully detaining and torturing [JURIST report] thousands of detainees. In June, UN Special Representative to Iraq Ad Melkert urged the Iraqi government [JURIST report] to ratify the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Canada [official website] on Friday issued a decision [text] requiring sentencing judges to consider the history of oppression that Aboriginal offenders may have experienced when determining appropriate sentences. The court determined that sentencing judges should take into account certain negative factors affecting Aboriginal defendants:

When sentencing an Aboriginal offender, courts must take judicial notice of such matters as the history of colonialism, displacement, and residential schools and how that history continues to translate into lower educational attainment, lower incomes, higher unemployment, higher rates of substance abuse and suicide, and of course higher levels of incarceration for Aboriginal peoples. These matters provide the necessary context for understanding and evaluating the case-specific information presented by counsel. However, these matters, on their own, do not necessarily justify a different sentence for Aboriginal offenders.

The decision, which involved two cases in which Aboriginal men with long criminal histories appealed their sentences, allowed the court to evaluate whether Aboriginal offenders were being sentenced in accord with the court's 1999 case, R. v. Gladue [text]. The so-called Gladue principles [Justice Education backgrounder] require sentencing judges to take an individualistic approach to sentencing and to consider all of the factors that may have negatively impacted an Aboriginal offender to further the purposes of sentencing and rehabilitating the offender. The court on Friday determined that judges were not implementing the Gladue principles and ruled that the principles were not optional and must now be considered.

Friday's court decision may be seen as another attempt by Canada to address past wrongs committed against its Aboriginal people. In November 2010, Canadian UN ambassador John McNee announced [JURIST report] that the country had endorsed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [text, PDF], reversing the government's initial opposition to the declaration. The Canadian government described the move as one intended to strengthen relationships with indigenous communities. Other countries have also addressed the wrongs committed against native peoples. In January, a panel of Australian citizens proposed that the country's constitution recognize the Australian indigenous population [JURIST report], including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Although Aborigines make up almost three percent of the Australian population, they are not mentioned in the constitution.

[JURIST announcement] Over the past couple weeks, several people have asked why JURIST needs to raise funds. You can read all the details on these pages, but the most direct answer is that it all comes back to budget cuts. Due to general economic circumstances completely outside of our control, we are anticipating a significant reduction in funding (meaning several tens of thousands of dollars) from our primary benefactors for our next fiscal year. If not offset, this reduction has the potential to directly affect JURIST's ability to maintain its current operations. This fund drive is one of the efforts that we've recently launched to try to make up the shortfall.

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