The Council of European’s Committee of Ministers on Wednesday issued an interim resolution formally notifying Azerbaijan that it must release opposition political leader Ilgar Mammadov or face legal action. Mammadov was arrested on February 4, 2013, and sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of resisting arrest and organizing mass disorder after criticizing the [...]

Turkey’s 35th Heavy Penal Court in Istanbul on Wednesday released eight of the eleven Amnesty International (AI) human rights activists on bail pending trial for charges related to assisting the terrorist organization Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) . Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty stated of the release: “Today, finally, we celebrate that our friends and [...]

The US District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday denied a motion for preliminary injunction to require the Trump administration to continue to pay insurance subsidies necessary for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) . The legal problem in this case, as summarized by judge Vince Chhabria is as follows: The Affordable Care [...]

The Supreme Court of Virginia agreed on Tuesday to hear an appeal filed by an advocacy group that challenges a decision from earlier this year that upheld the constitutionality of 11 state legislative districts. The plaintiffs, joined by OneVirginia2021 , a non-profit organization aimed at “fair redistricting”, sued the state on the grounds that the [...]

The Iowa Supreme Court on Monday temporarily blocked a law that enacted a 72-hour waiting period before a woman could get an abortion. The bill was passed in the Iowa house in April and signed into law by former governor Terry Branstad right before he left office in May to assume his new role as [...]

A bipartisan group of US senators introduced the USA Rights Act on Tuesday that would overhaul aspects of the National Security Agency (NSA) warrantless internet surveillance program. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act , which is set to expire at the end of the year, is used by US intelligence officials to combat [...]

The Supreme Court of Kenya ruled Wednesday that it was unable to hear a case in which the petitioners are seeking to delay the upcoming presidential election. The court was unable to hear the case because it did not have the required quorum of justices present. There are a total of seven judges on the [...]

The US Senate on Tuesday approved HJ Res 111 , which cancels a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule related to arbitration agreements. The canceled CFPB rule, 82 FR 33210 , prevented providers of specified consumer financial products and services from requiring consumers to sign arbitration agreements that barred them from participating in class action [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday ruled 6-3 that a 17-year-old unidentified, undocumented immigrant has the right to obtain an abortion. A week earlier, the same court through a three-judge panel temporarily blocked a lower court ruling permitting the teen immigrant to have an abortion, noting that it [...]

Russia on Tuesday vetoed the UN Security Council’s resolution to extend the UN Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapon (OPCW) investigation into the Syria chemical-weapons attack. In February Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that the Syrian government conducted “coordinated chemical attacks” on rebel-controlled portions of Aleppo. In the same report, HRW alleged that Russia [...]