A Turkish court released a Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) parliamentarian Thursday, according to a HDP statement . Parliamentarian Ayhan Bilgen is the former speaker of the HDP and has been jailed over allegations of terrorism. This release follows a “Conscience and Justice Watch” at the Constitutional Court to protest and demand action for those they [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Professor Pacifique Manirakiza of the University of Ottawa discusses the complexities behind investigations into the atrocities in Burundi and the need for a special tribunal to prosecute the crimes … In April 2016, the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda opened a preliminary examination focusing on the third term related atrocities [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an amicus curiae brief with the US Supreme Court Thursday in support of the Masterpiece Cakeshop, which was charged with discrimination for refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, citing their religious beliefs against gay marriage. The DOJ stated that a “custom wedding cake is [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled Thursday that Wyoming Statute § 6-3-414(c) and Wyoming Statute 40-27-101(c) are subject to First Amendment protections of free speech. The statutes, referred to as data-trespassing laws, define the crime of “civil trespass to access adjacent or proximate land” to occur if a person i) Crosses [...]

The Spanish Constitutional Court on Thursday suspended the Catalan independence referendum. The Catalan Parliament , the region’s ruling coalition, passed the referendum law on Wednesday despite recent tensions between the coalition and the Spanish government. The rapid action taken by the court forbids the Catalan Parliament from ignoring or avoiding the court’s suspension, appointing election [...]

New Mexico filed a lawsuit Thursday against big opioid producing pharmaceutical companies, alleging the corporations are responsible for the Opioid Epidemic flooding the state and specifically small rural communities. Filed in the First Judicial District Court for Santa Fe County , the lawsuit claims that major opioid manufacturers, including Purdue Pharma, Johnson and Johnson, Endo [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Sedef Asli Topal of the University of Szeged discusses the EU’s institutional framework using two popular approaches…The transformation of the European Union into “an ever closer union” in terms of political space is a topic of which has been widely discussed for the last three or four decades in the discipline of [...]

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that elected public board commissioners in a county in Michigan did not violate the US Constitution by opening their sessions with Christian prayer and asking attendees to join in. In a 9-6 decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit acknowledged that legislative prayer is part of [...]

New York’s highest state court, the Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday that the state constitution does not guarantee a right to physician assisted suicide. The claim was brought by three terminally ill patients against the New York Attorney General. “Physician assisted suicide” was defined as “the right of a mentally competent and terminally ill [...]

Judge Sidney Fitzwater of the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued a temporary restraining order on Wednesday prohibiting Dallas, Texas, officials from removing a statue of Confederate general Robert E Lee. The restraining order came after the Dallas City Council voted 13 to 1 on Wednesday to remove the statue immediately. [...]