The US District Court for the Eastern District of California declared California’s SB 50 to be unconstitutional on Thursday because it regulated the federal government’s right to sell federal property in violation of intergovernmental immunity. The judge wrote that under the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity “a state law is invalid if it ‘regulates the United States directly or discriminates [...]
Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled against an absolute ban on the recreational use of marijuana Wednesday, finding it unconstitutional. This ruling allows lawmakers to regulate the marijuana industry. In Mexico, the Supreme Court is required to rule five times on the same issue before the ruling becomes a binding precedent—this most recent case was the fifth [...]
The US Supreme Court agreed Friday to review a decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on a 93-year-old World War I Memorial that has been the subject of a separation-of-church-and-state controversy since 2012. The “Peace Cross” is a 40-foot-tall Latin Cross built in 1925 in Bladensburg, Maryland, to honor 49 [...]
A federal judge ruled Friday that the “exact match” requirement for voter identification in Georgia will not apply to Tuesday’s midterm election as it “places a severe burden” on prospective votes. US District Court Judge Eleanor Ross for the Northern District of Georgia imposed the emergency injunction to this specific issue, arising from a lawsuit [...]
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled 7-1 on Friday that two Canadian electric companies, Hydro-Quebec and Churchill Falls Corporation, had no obligation to renegotiate a contract from 1969. Churchill Falls Corp. brought the suit, claiming that the contract should be renegotiated due to changes in the electricity market which occurred after the signing. Under the current contract, Hydro-Quebec receives [...]
Chief Judge Daniel Hovland of the US District Court for the District of North Dakota on Thursday rejected a request by Spirit Lake Sioux Tribe to prevent the enforcement of a voter address rule requiring a residential street address in order to vote. The challengers sought to enjoin the enforcement of the North Dakota Century [...]
Former Peruvian presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori was ordered Wednesday to be held in preventive detention for three years by the Peruvian National Criminal Court until the corruption probe into her party and her campaign is finished. Fujimori had spent a week in police custody earlier in October before being released on appeal. The judge from the [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday that North Korean officials committing sexual violence against women is so common that it has come to be accepted as part of ordinary life. “Sexual violence in North Korea is an open, unaddressed, and widely tolerated secret,” said Kenneth Roth, HRW’s executive director. “North Korean women would probably say [...]
Abraham Edgardo Ortega, the former executive director of financial planning at Petróleo de Venezuela, SA pleaded guilty Wednesday in US federal court to conspiring to commit money laundering. In a hearing in a Florida district court, Ortega admitted to accepting over $17 million worth of bribes as payment for allowing a ring of former Venezuelan officials and [...]
Meaza Ashenafi, a prominent East African women’s rights activist, has been appointed President of Ethiopia’s Federal Supreme Court, becoming the court’s first female head. She has worked as a judge and legal adviser in Ethiopia since 1992. In 2014, Ashenafi was the subject of a documentary film called “Difret,” in which as a lawyer she [...]
