The UK Ministry of Justice announced temporary legislation on Sunday that will extend the time that defendants can be held in custody while awaiting trial. This temporary legislation is meant to decrease pressure on courts from a backlog of more than 43,000 cases due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, defendants can be held for 182 [...]

A Turkish court on Monday sentenced Abdulkadir Masharipov, a citizen of Uzbekistan, to 40 life sentences without the possibility of parole plus an additional 1,338 years for a deadly 2017 attack on a night club. After Masharipov’s attack that left 39 dead, the Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack as an act of [...]

Geert Wilders, a far-right anti-immigration and anti-Islamic populist who is leader of the opposition in the Dutch Parliament, was acquitted Friday in a Netherlands appeals court for inciting discrimination. The court agreed with an earlier decision to dismiss the offense of inciting hatred and dismiss a 5,000 euro fine. But the court upheld a conviction [...]

The US Department of the Treasury announced Friday that it added four new Venezuelan nationals to its list of specially designated nationals. The individuals are David Eugenio De Lima Salas, Reinaldo Enrique Muñoz Pedroza, Indira Maira Alfonzo Izaguirre and Jose Luis Gutierrez Parra. According to a Treasury press release, the individuals were added based on [...]

Judge Dolly Gee of the US District Court for the Central District of California ruled Friday that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) must end their practice of holding migrant children in hotels before they can be expelled from the US. On March 20, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) ordered the US borders with [...]

Seven UN human rights experts signed a letter to the Chinese government expressing concerns about whether China is complying with its international obligations for human rights standards. The letter, made public Friday, specifically questioned The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, or the [...]

Sitting in the Central Criminal Court in London Monday, British judge Vanessa Baraitser refused an application for adjournment of proceedings in Julian Assange’s extradition case until January 2021. In late June, the US Department of Justice issued an updated, superseding indictment, charging Assange, the founder and public face of WikiLeaks, with 18 counts related to [...]

As an immunocompromised individual, I was initially grateful when the PA bar exam moved online. Now, I wouldn’t have to worry about Covid-19 affecting my health during this crucial exam. This morning, though, that feeling was more-than-slightly altered when I saw a message from the PA Board of Law Examiners with health implications that were [...]

France’s highest court for administrative justice, the Conseil d’Etat, issued two orders Sunday declaring that face masks can be made mandatory in large areas with a high risk of COVID-19 contamination. In a press statement, the court said that “the wearing of the mask can be imposed so that this obligation is consistent and easy to [...]

Dictators, autocrats, and strongmen thrive on chaos in the beginning of their rise to power. At first they come to that power legally, within domestic law. Once in power the autocrat takes the law and uses it and bends it, eventually shaping it to his will. This is not an easy process and history shows [...]