The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) issued a ruling Tuesday refusing to exempt two Swiss Muslim students from compulsory mixed sex swimming lessons for religious reasons. The court explained that the students’ right to manifest their religion had been interfered with by the school’s requirement that they take mixed swimming lessons. However, the court [...]

The Supreme Court of Gambia has postponed until May the suit President Yahya Jammeh filed after he was defeated by Adama Barrow in the country’s general election. Chief justice Emmanuel Fagbenle said that the seven-member panel that will be overseeing the case will not all be available until May . Jammeh, who is backed by [...]

Liberty , a UK-based advocacy group, announced Tuesday that it had met its crowding funding goal to launch a legal challenge against recently passed surveillance legislation. Among other provisions, the Investigatory Powers Act allows the government to record the Internet history of every UK citizen for up to a year. Liberty is primarily concerned that [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday in Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman . This case focuses on the fees charged by credit card companies to merchants whenever customers pay with a credit card. Ten states have passed laws that forbid these credit card surcharges, but these laws also do not forbid merchants [...]

Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions began his confirmation hearing on Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the position of attorney general in the cabinet of President-elect Donald Trump . During the hearing, he was pressed by committee members as to his ability to be independent against Trump. He was also challenged on his prior support [...]

The Venezuelan Supreme Court on Monday annulled Parliament’s decision to begin impeachment proceedings against President Nicolás Maduro , ruling that the action went beyond Parliament’s constitutional power . The High Court reaffirmed a decision they had issued last November, in which it ordered the country’s parliament to “refrain from continuing the procedure of declaring ‘political [...]

A new report released Monday by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) shows that children in Afghanistan are bearing the brunt of the nutritional crisis, despite attempts at administering food aid. OCHA has concluded that currently there are 9.3 million people in the country in need of aid, an increase of [...]

The US Treasury Department announced on Monday that five Russian officials have been sanctioned for human rights abuses. The officials include Aleksandr Bastrykin, who serves as both chief public investigator and close aide to President Vladimir Putin. The Treasury Department had been investigating the officials for their connection to the 2009 matter of a deceased [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Stephen Cooper discusses the story of Benny King and the criminalization of addiction… Benny King is a gregarious, good-hearted, God-fearing 53-year-old black man from Alabama who shouldn’t be in prison. But he is. Mr. King is serving 14-months at the federal correctional institution in Jesup, Georgia, for violating conditions of his supervised [...]

The conditions on Greek Islands for asylum seekers has been labeled as “untenable” by the European Commission due to heavy snowfall in the region, said a spokesperson on Monday. The islands have seen a steady flow of refugees seeking asylum in the EU, the numbers nearing 16,000 people. The commission stated that they are aware [...]