Secretary of Defense Ash Carter on Thursday announced a new policy that allows transgender individuals to serve openly in the military, effective immediately. The announcement , promised last week, lifted the ban that not only prevented transgender persons from serving in the military but also made a transgender identity grounds for discharge. The policy shift [...]

JURIST Guest Colomnist Graciela Jasa Silveira discusses potential legal and constitutional consequences as a result of Mexican President Peña Nieto’s initiatives to support same-sex family rights… Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto made public two bills to make-constitutional the right to marriage, and to amend federal family law to guarantee same-sex partners access to marriage and [...]

The US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana on Thursday struck down the state’s parenthood statute for violating the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment . Indiana Code Section 31-9-2-15, 31-9-2-16, and 31-14-7-1 provide that only birth mothers would be listed on a birth certificate, meaning that, where one [...]

The Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday overturned a man’s drug possession and trafficking conviction because he had been made to wait too long for his trial. The man, Shane Vassal, had waited three years before his three day trial was held, leading the court to the conclusion that he was denied the right to [...]

The New Mexico Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the exclusion of farm and ranch workers from the New Mexico’s Worker Compensation Act is unconstitutional. The court relied on legislative interpretation to hold that the exclusion of the farm workers served no purpose in the furtherance of the act, and that the discrimination against such [...]

A judge for the Federal District Court for Southern Indiana placed an injunction on a restrictive abortion law Thursday, just days after the US Supreme Court found similar Texas legislation to be unconstitutional. The Indiana law would have banned women from seeking abortion procedures when they are based on race, sex, or the potential for [...]

The Constitutional Court of Austria on Friday voided the results of Austria’s recent presidential election and ordered that the election be repeated in its entirety. The May 22 runoff saw Green Party-backed independent Alexander Van der Bellen defeat Norbert Hoffer of the nationalist Freedom Party (FPO) by only

The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit against Muhammed Fethullah Gulen, a prominent Muslim cleric and rival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan , saying the court lacked jurisdiction over the matter. The complaint was filed by Bunyamin Ates, Turgut Yildirim and Murat Ozturk setting forth six [...]

The Presidential Council for Civil Society Development and Human Rights on Thursday called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to reject a controversial collection of anti-terror bills. The Council, a government department under Putin, urged the president to veto the proposed laws due to what it views as unconstitutionality, legal uncertainty and inconsistency of certain provisions, [...]

In a unanimous ruling on Thursday, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected a settlement agreement between retailers and credit card issuers. Millions of retailers had reached a $7.25 billion antitrust settlement with Visa USA and MasterCard International in 2013. However, after determining that some of the merchants covered by the pact [...]