Salafists, who adhere to an ideology that seeks to restore Islam to its original meanings and teachings, have played a significant role in recent conflicts in the Middle East. Earlier in August, there was speculation [BBC report] that Salafist cleric Mohammed Yursi Ibrahim would be appointed to the cabinet Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], possibly increasing tensions between Muslims and Coptic Christians in Egypt. In June, an Israeli missile strike killed two Salafist militants in the Gaza Strip [BBC report].

Last month Morsi ordered the release [JURIST report] of 572 people convicted in tribunals by the Egyptian military. Earlier in July, a few days after he was sworn in, Morsi issued a decree [JURIST reports] calling the dissolved Egyptian parliament back into session, despite a previous ruling by the country's Supreme Constitutional Court [official website] dissolving it due to its finding that one-third of its members were elected illegally [JURIST report]. The court suspended Morsi's decree two days later, after which Morsi vowed that he would respect the ruling [JURIST reports]. A court struck down [JURIST report] a government decree in June that restored broad arrest powers to Egyptian military officials. Days before its dissolution, the Egyptian parliament elected a new constitutional council after lawmakers finally reached an agreement [JURIST reports] on the political composition of the council. In April the country's Administrative Court effectively suspended [JURIST report] the work of the 100-member council responsible for drafting the country's new constitution after ruling in favor of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the formation of the panel.

Wells Fargo...[was], at a minimum, negligent in recommending the relevant asset-backed commercial paper programs without obtaining adequate information about them to form a reasonable basis for recommending these products and without disclosing the material risks of these products. As a result, Wells Fargo...violated Sections 17(a)(2) and 17(a)(3) of the Securities Act.

Wells Fargo [JURIST news archive] has been involved in many legal battles recently. Last month, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] dismissed a lawsuit against several banks, including Wells Fargo, that accused the banks of price-fixing [JURIST report]. In March, the SEC filed a subpoena enforcement action [JURIST report] against Wells Fargo 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. Earlier in March, 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.

If a tool used to transport contraband gives off a signal that can be tracked for location, certainly the police can track the signal. The law cannot be that a criminal is entitled to rely on the expected untrackability of his tools. Otherwise, dogs could not be used to track a fugitive if the fugitive did not know that the dog hounds had his scent. A getaway car could not be identified and followed based on the license plate number if the driver reasonably thought he had gotten away unseen. The recent nature of cell phone location technology does not change this. If it did, then technology would help criminals but not the police.

Government use of modern technology to monitor and locate citizens has created legal uncertainty recently. Earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union announced that their affiliates are sending approximately 375 requests for information in 31 states to reveal how law enforcement uses location data tracking on cell phones [JURIST report], arguing that the warrantless tracking of GPS signals is unconstitutional. In June lawyers for the US Department of Justice defended the warrantless use of GPS devices [JURIST report] on suspects' vehicles despite the Supreme Court ruling in Jones declaring GPS tracking to be a "search" under the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court concluded in Jones that the government's attachment of a GPS device to a vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle's movements, constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. Also in January, the Supreme Court of California ruled that law enforcement officers can legally search text messages [JURIST report] on a suspect's cell phone without a warrant incident to a lawful custodial arrest.

Ratko Mladic's trial has been making slow progress after being postponed numerous times. Last month the ICTY postponed [JURIST report] the trial due to health problems. The trial came to an abrupt end when the former commander complained that he did not feel well. The prosecutors and victims have expressed concern that Ratko Mladic could die before facing a sentence, much like former Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic [ICTY backgrounder; PDF] who died [JURIST report] in 2006 before the ICTY could issue a sentence against him. The ICTY resumed [JURIST report] the trial only three days earlier with the testimony of witness Elvedin Pasic, who was a juvenile at the time of the Bosnian civil war in the 1990s. In June the ICTY postponed the trial after suspending proceedings [JURIST reports] due to an error in disclosing documents to the defense lawyers. The trial had been already postponed indefinitely [JURIST report] in May due to allegations of prosecutorial misconduct related to evidence disclosure. Ratko Mladic's first appearance [JURIST report] before the ICTY was in June of last year when he contested charges against him while simultaneously asking for more time to review them. A day after, during his second appearance [JURIST report], he refused to enter a plea without lawyers of his choice representing him and he was removed from the court for disrupting the proceedings.

Last month a federal judge released an accused Somali pirate [JURIST report] after prosecutors failed to produce sufficient evidence to proceed to trial. That was the same week that the International Chamber of Commerce International Maritime Bureau (IMB) [official website] reported that the number of global pirate attacks fell sharply [JURIST report] in the first half of 2012, the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre [official website] (PRC) having received reports [materials] of 177 incidents in the first six months of this year, compared to 266 incidents for the same period in 2011. In May the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit [official website] ruled that the legal definition of maritime piracy [JURIST news archive] includes an armed attack to hijack a ship, even if the attempt is unsuccessful. Earlier that week a United Arab Emirates court sentenced 10 Somali pirates [JURIST report] to 25 years in prison. Also that week six accused Somali pirates went on trial [JURIST report] in a Paris court for taking 30 crew members hostage in 2008 on a ship in the Gulf of Aden. The US government in March handed over 15 suspected Somali pirates [JURIST report] it had captured in January to the Republic of Seychelles for prosecution. Italy ordered its first international piracy trial in February against nine Somali pirates, while France began its first international piracy trial [JURIST reports] in November.

In March of last year Chin rejected an amended class action settlement agreement that was reached in 2008 between Google and the plaintiffs, who brought the copyright suit [JURIST reports] in 2005. The settlement agreement stated that Google would pay $125 million to the authors and publishers of copyrighted works in exchange for the permission to display up to 20 percent of the work online. The court reasoned that the settlement agreement would allow Google too much freedom to exploit copyrighted works in the future. Chin's ruling came a month after he had postponed his decision [JURIST report] because he was not ready.

As we see two of the most prominent human rights lawyers in the UAE and a retired army colonel begin a hunger strike, the Emirates Centre for Human Rights calls on the international community to condemn the draconian response to legitimate citizen desires and demand that detainees are treated humanely.

Hunger strikes [JURIST news archive] have become a common protest tactic recently for prisoners in the Middle East. Last week, Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] urged Israel [JURIST report] to investigate the alleged mistreatment of two Palestinian prisoners currently on hunger strike. In June, a Bahraini doctor who was imprisoned for allegedly participating in an anti-government activity went on hunger strike to protest his sentence [JURIST report]. Earlier in June, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories called on Israel [JURIST report] to release two Palestinian detainees who had been on hunger strike for several weeks. In May, an incarcerated Bahraini human rights activist ended his hunger strike [JURIST report] because he felt he had raised awareness of the imprisonment of political activists.

Bemba's trial began [JURIST report] in November 2010. Earlier that month, appellate judges of the ICC ruled [judgment, PDF] that the trial chamber must review [JURIST report] Bemba's continued detention in The Hague. This decision overturned the trial chamber's July ruling [text, PDF]. Pursuant to Article 60 of the Rome Statute [text, PDF], chambers are obligated to review an accused person's detention once every 120 days. The preious month the ICC affirmed [judgment, PDF] a trial chamber ruling and dismissed [JURIST report] Bemba's appeal challenging the admissibility of his case before the court. The court also concluded that its jurisdiction over the case did not violate a Rome Statute provision that prohibits the ICC from hearing cases after a country has decided not to prosecute the person concerned. The ICC held that the order issued by the CAR did not constitute a decision not to prosecute. In April, Bemba's lawyers argued before the court that charges against him should be dropped [JURIST report] because he had been denied due process and the charges were illegal. In addition, defense lawyers claimed that Bemba lacked the financial resources [JURIST report] necessary to ensure a fair trial. Bemba was arrested [JURIST report] in Belgium in May 2008 after the ICC issued a sealed warrant for his arrest.

The principal legal issue presented here is whether the Attorney General may withhold that limited subset on the basis of "Executive privilege" where there has been no suggestion that the documents at issue implicate or otherwise involve any advice to the President, and where the Department's actions do not involve core constitutional functions of the President. ... Accordingly, the Committee asks this Court to reject the Attorney General's assertion of "Executive privilege" and order him forthwith to comply with the Committee's subpoena.

Operation Fast and Furious was a Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] investigation involving tracked guns that were permitted to travel from Arizona to Mexico in an attempt to stop weapons trafficking by high-level arms dealers. In June the DOJ announced that it will not prosecute Holder after the Oversight Committee voted to hold him in contempt of Congress [JURIST reports] for failing to fully comply with the committee's subpoenas. Upon being held in contempt Holder responded [press release], "Today's vote is the regrettable culmination of what became a misguided—and politically motivated—investigation during an election year," and stated he would continue to focus on the government's job of protecting the American people. Obama ultimately asserted executive privilege on the subpoenaed documents, effectively rendering the contempt charge moot. The DOJ submitted a joint staff report [report, PDF] to the committee in July 2011, discussing the effects of the admittedly failed operation in Mexico. The committee had originally begun investigating the operation [press release] through the DOJ's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives [official website] in April of that year.

The fact that the University's consideration of race produced measured rather than drastic increases in the inevitable—and salutary—result of the University's structuring of its admissions policy so that race is but one factor within an individualized, holistic assessment of all kinds of diversity. These modest effects confirm that the University is not operating the policy as a quota, and that it has designed the process to minimize the impact on non-minority students.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit [official website] ruled last year that UT's admissions policy did not violate [JURIST report] Fisher's rights to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment and federal civil rights statutes, affirming a lower court decision. The appeals court concluded that UT could rely on race as one of the "special circumstances" that the Supreme Court upheld in the 2003 case Grutter v. Bollinger [LII backgrounder] used to evaluate student applicants because race is one of many factors the university considers.

Tymoshenko is reportedly suffering from a spinal condition which causes her debilitating pain. Earlier this month, a Ukrainian appeals court postponed [JURIST report] the appeal hearing challenging Tymoshenko's corruption conviction and seven-year sentence. This marked the third postponement in that case. The appeal was last postponed in June [JURIST report]. The new date was set to August 16 following the request of the prosecution. In May, the ECHR ended an investigation [JURIST report] into the health care conditions of Tymoshenko, finding that the Ukrainian government provided her with adequate care. She previously alleged that prison guards were beating her [press release, in Ukrainian], and refused to be treated [JURIST report] by prison doctors for back problems, believing they were under the direction of political rival President Viktor Yanukovych. Tymoshenko has already been sentenced to seven years in prison on corruption charges. Ukrainian prosecutors have also indicated that she will face charges [JURIST reports] in a 1996 contract killing.

We ... find that the EPA's objections to the emissions caps of the Flexible Permit Program rely on standards not found in the CAA or its implementing regulations. The EPA's explanation for its objection is unsatisfactory because it provides no insight into how the emissions caps interfere with [any] applicable requirement of the CAA. The EPA acted arbitrarily and capriciously, and in excess of its statutory authority.

The EPA has been forced to deal with several defeats over the past year. Two weeks ago, the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that the EPA violated several environmental statutes when it issued regulations on coal mining in the Appalachia region. In October a federal judge similarly ruled [JURIST report] against the agency regarding its process for granting permits used by coal companies for mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia. There, the court ordered that the EPA's 2009 guidelines be set aside so that all pre-2009 guidelines could be restored. In an out-of-court defeat last September the US House of Representatives [official website] passed [JURIST report] the Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act 2011 [text, PDF], a bill that essentially blocks a number of proposed EPA regulations aimed at reducing emissions.

The victims filed a class action lawsuit [JURIST report] in March 2011. The suit was brought on behalf of all individuals who were subjected to experimentation in Guatemala or were infected to be used as vehicles to infect test subjects for the venereal disease experiments. The complaint alleges that the PHS conducted the human medical experiments in Guatemala to test whether penicillin could also be used as a prophylaxis immediately following exposure to the syphilis bacteria. The plaintiffs sought relief under the Alien Tort Statute [28 USC § 1350], the Fifth Amendment and the Eighth Amendment [materials]. Evidence of the PHS program [report] was discovered by Professor Susan Reverby [academic profile]. US President Barack Obama [official website] apologized [BBC report] to Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom for the testing. Reverby's study shows that the PHS infected more than 700 people in Guatemala with syphilis and gonorrhea. The patients were prisoners and people suffering from mental health problems and were unaware they were being tested.

[M]any aspects of the law have failed to keep pace with cultural and technological advances that mean information about trials can be easily published on the internet. This poses particular problems since, once material gets onto the internet, the original publisher can very easily lose control of it and any precautions he or she takes to minimize impact on a trial may be ineffective.

Contempt of court laws have drawn significant controversy around the globe. On Friday the Supreme Court of Pakistan [official website] ordered Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf [BBC profile] to appear before the court by the end of the month or risk contempt of court charges. Last week the government of Pakistan announced that it will petition the high court to review its decision nullifying [JURIST reports] the Contempt of Court Bill 2012 which was passed to shield the country's new prime minister from contempt charges. The bill was passed by the upper [AFP report] and lower houses of the national parliament and signed [JURIST reports] by President Asif Ali Zardari [official website] last month. The legislature and the president approved the law in order to protect the new PM from possible contempt of court proceedings for failure to reopen the investigation against Zardari. In June, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] convicted Serb nationalist politician and war crimes suspect Vojislav Seselj [official website, in Serbian; JURIST news archive] of contempt of court and sentenced him to two years in prison [JURIST report].

In the 5-4 Supreme Court decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court concluded that the extreme overcrowding of the California prison system is causing inmates to receive inadequate medical care in violation of the Eighth Amendment [text]. In August 2009, a special panel of federal judges ordered [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] California to reduce its prison population by about 46,000 inmates or construct more facilities to handle the prisoners. After the court's decision, it was apparent that California would be unable to build the prisons and would have to release prisoners. The court found the inability of the prison system to provide the "basic sustenance" of medical care is an Eighth Amendment violation that the courts must remedy.