The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday ordered the arrest of Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and 15 others over allegations of accepting bribes and approving power generation projects during his tenure as Minister for Water and Power. The court order states that Ashraf and the others should be arrested and produced before the court [...]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Tuesday in four landmark cases concerning the balance between religious freedom and equity laws protecting individuals from discrimination. In one case, the ECHR ruled in favor of a British Airways employee who had been instructed not to wear a crucifix at work. However, in two other cases [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in two cases . In Alleyne v. United States , the court heard arguments on whether to overturn Harris v. United States . Harris was a 5-4 splintered opinion that allowed a judge to be the fact-finder when increasing mandatory minimum sentences, as opposed to requiring the [...]

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Tuesday swore in Mohan Peiris, a retired attorney general and trusted aide to the Cabinet, to replace former chief justice Shirani Bandaranayake , who was removed from office Sunday. Rajapaksa dismissed Bandaranayake after parliament voted to impeach her in response to allegations of corruption and bribery. The impeachment vote [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, says that the ACA’s contraception mandate unduly infringes on the First Amendment…

The Russian State Duma on Monday rejected a petition challenging a recently passed bill that would prohibit US citizens from adopting Russian children. The petition asked the government to lift the controversial ban. A Russian newspaper company, Novaya Gazeta had collected more than 100,000 signatures via the Internet. However, the committee of parliament’s lower house, [...]

JURIST Columnist Haider Ala Hamoudi of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law says that, despite Islam’s proscription against collecting interest, and a constitutional provision prohibiting laws that conflict with such Islamic rulings, Iraq’s courts are unlikely to declare the nation’s new state-owned bank unconstitutional…

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported Friday that more than 2,000 have fled growing violence in the northern Myanmar state of Rakhine and Bangladesh aboard boats operated by smugglers in the Bay of Bengal. The UN agency has voiced grave concern of the lives of the refugees who have boarded boats operating by smuggler rings. [...]

The Philippines on Sunday officially began a nationwide 150-day ban on the carrying of firearms in public areas in preparation for congressional and local elections slated for mid-May. Only top-officials, military and police entities will be exempt from the law’s proscriptive scope, which punishes violators with up to a six-year jail term. According to media [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday called on authorities in Myanmar to drop charges against nine peaceful protesters who are facing criminal charges for demonstrating without a permit in Rangoon in September on International Peace Day. The demonstrators were calling for peace in Myanmar’s war-torn Kachin State . According to HRW, the protesters have been [...]