JURIST - World Legal News

[JURIST] The UK Supreme Court [official website] ruled [judgment, PDF] Wednesday that the families of some British soldiers who were killed or injured in Iraq can sue the British government for damages. In its ruling, the Supreme Court stated that families claiming that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) [official website] did not fulfill its duty of adequately protecting a family member by providing appropriate weaponry or armored vehicles could launch damages claims [AP report] under theories of negligence and human...... [full story]

[JURIST] Chinese-owned mining companies in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are contributing to a culture of human rights abuses, Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] reported [text, PDF; press release] Wednesday. AI claims that those companies should be held accountable for the longstanding, ongoing human rights abuses related to child labor, on-site injuries, financial exploitation and the illegal detainment of workers in handmade jail cells. Although AI does not claim that the Chinese companies are the original source of such...... [full story]

[JURIST] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official website] on Tuesday urged [press release] the Hungarian government to revoke constitutional amendments that have recently come under fire for undermining the country's constitutional justice and for threatening the independence of the country's judiciary. Pillay's call to the Hungarian government came after the Venice Commission [official website] released a report expressing concern that the new constitution does not afford enough protection [JURIST report] for fundamental human rights. Pillay welcomed the...... [full story]

[JURIST] The US government on Monday released [text, PDF] the names and nationalities of 46 men who are classified for "continued detention" at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST backgrounder] detention center, ineligible for release, transfer or prosecution. The names were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act [official website] request submitted by the Miami Herald [report] and the New York Times. In the 2010 Guantanamo Review Task Force [PDF] the US government explained continued detention:48 detainees were unanimously approved for...... [full story]

[JURIST] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official website] on Tuesday commended the Turkish government's decision to delay government construction that was the source of widespread protests in the past month, urging authorities to work to defuse tensions [press release]. The future of Gezi Park [JURIST news archive], a rare green space in Istanbul, will be established by a court decision subject to a referendum, in lieu of further police-protester confrontations. The proposed development of the park sparked...... [full story]

[JURIST] The International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] on Monday postponed [order, PDF; press release] the confirmation of charges hearing for Congolese war crimes suspect Bosco Ntaganda [BBC profile] in order to give prosecutors more time to prepare their case. The hearing, which was scheduled to begin on September 26, will not start until February 10. At the hearing, the judge will decide whether there is sufficient evidence to support the prosecution's charges. Ntaganga is accused of recruiting child soldiers...... [full story]

[JURIST] The lawyer for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], the son of Libya's deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi [BBC obituary; JURIST news archive] on Tuesday accused Libyan officials [text, PDF] of defying the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] by announcing that Saif al-Islam's trial would begin in August. John Jones, Saif al-Islam's lawyer, fears that his client will be given the death penalty [AP report] in Libya, and will have no opportunity for appeal. Jones asked the...... [full story]

[JURIST] Hungarian prosecutors on Tuesday charged Laszlo Csatary, a 98-year-old Hungarian man, with the unlawful execution and torture of people in connection with the Holocaust. Slovakian authorities began the investigation [JURIST report] of Csatary in September after he was arrested on allegations of abusing and assisting in the deportation of thousands of Jews to concentration camps during the Holocaust. The arrest came after the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) [advocacy website], a Jewish human rights organization committed to finding and prosecuting...... [full story]

[JURIST] The International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] on Tuesday conditionally granted the request [press release] of Kenyan Vice President William Ruto [ICC materials; JURIST news archive] to be excused from parts of his upcoming trial. The Trial Chamber, however, will still require Ruto to be present for certain parts of his trial, such as for opening and closing statements and for presentations by victims. The Chamber also stated that this conditional grant is for the purpose of allowing Ruto...... [full story]

[JURIST] Senior Libyan Judge Mohammed Naguib was assassinated Sunday by an unidentified gunman outside of the courthouse in Derna. Chairman of the Court of Cassation in Green Mountain province Judge Abdel-Aziz Mustafa al-Trabelsi confirmed [LANA report; in Arabic] that his colleague was killed outright in the drive-by attack. This attack is the latest of an increasing number of threats and attacks on the judiciary in Derna, a city known to be an Islamic stronghold and which houses extremist Salafist militias...... [full story]

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