Despite the fact congress seems uncomfortable with funding President Trump’s wall on the southern border, the administration has constructed a legal wall against asylum seekers. First, there was the announcement of the ‘Zero Tolerance’ policy of criminalizing any individuals who comes to America in ways not considered correct. While it is intended to apply only [...]
In Janus v. AFSCME, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, overturned a 41-year old precedent and held that all union security clauses in public-sector labor contracts violate the First Amendment. A union security clause is provision in a contract between a union and an employer that obliges members of the union bargaining unit to [...]
The retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy this week represents the end of an era and the beginning of the entrenchment of a more conservative Supreme Court, probably for years to come. That much seems clear. But there are actually many more sides to Justice Kennedy’s retirement than that simple statement implies. Justice Kennedy was nominated [...]
Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement announcement yesterday rightfully set off shock waves across the country. For the past three decades, Justice Kennedy has gone from one of the more moderate justices who could sometimes swing an important vote, to the lone decider on monumental issues from gay marriage (siding with the liberals) to campaign finance and [...]
June 26th is the United Nations’ International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. Its purpose — to denounce the crime of torture and proclaim solidarity with its survivors — is in stark opposition to the policy of my government. As a former Chief Prosecutor of an international war crimes tribunal in West Africa, I walked [...]
US President Donald Trump traveled to Singapore to negotiate urgent nuclear matters, and not to discuss North Korean violations of basic human rights. Nonetheless, any such willful US indifference to these violations in another country, especially when they are as stark and egregious as they are in North Korea, represents a sorely grievous disregard for [...]
The latest victim in the war against the rule of law and the supremacy of God are Christian faith-based Canadian universities whose graduates require professional licensing by an administrative agent of the government. To understand the significance of the 2018 Trinity Western University (TWU) Supreme Court law society decisions, British Columbia and Ontario, the context [...]
One of the year’s most-watched Supreme Court controversies, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Limited v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission , was never likely to deliver the full faceoff between Religious Free Exercise and Anti-Discrimination Rights that many people expected. As I’ll explain more fully below, cake baker Jack Phillip’s claim to avoid administrative sanctions despite refusing on religious grounds to sell [...]
On May 8, 2018, the United States president announced that the U.S. was ceasing its participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“JCPOA”) and reinstating sanctions lifted through the JCPOA basis of a wind-down mechanism. Under the instruction of a President Memorandum, the Department of the Treasury, in particular, has taken some steps to [...]
In a recent opinion on March 15, 2018, the Pennsylvania Superior Court issued a statement about the use of social media evidence in court cases. The relevant case, Commonwealth v. Mangel, was a criminal case; however, the implications can be applied to civil cases related to personal injury as well. In fact, many courts and [...]
