The Court of Appeals of Sri Lanka on Monday ordered parliament to drop the impeachment proceedings against Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, quashing a guilty verdict against her. This decision further fuels the dispute between the legislature and the judiciary, and raises international concern over the independence of the country’s judiciary. The decision quashed a report [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Faisal Kutty of the Valparaiso University Law School says that the global community must engage in a serious debate over the limits of free expression as it applies to the defamation of cultures and religions, and that in order to do so the extremists on both sides must face their own hypocrisy…

Dissident groups, such as the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, said Sunday that the Cuban government imprisoned more than 6,000 political activists last year. This is more than 2,000 more than were arrested in 2011. Most prisoners are released within a few days, but the groups claim this strategy is being used [...]

Libyan Justice Minister Salah Maraghni announced Saturday that the war crimes trials of Muammar Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi , and brother-in-law and former intelligence chief, Abdullah al-Senussi , will occur within the next month. Maraghni stated that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, former Prime Minister Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi and Gaddafi’s former spy chief, Abdullah al-Senussi will be [...]

An Egyptian court on Saturday acquitted former culture minister Farouq Hosni, who had served under ousted president Hosni Mubarak , on charges of corruption and illegal enrichment. Prosecutors alleged in September that Hosni had illegally acquired $3 million and had failed to account for $1.5 million. Hosni was referred to criminal court after an investigation [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee ruled Friday that a Tennessee law that restricts online sex advertising is unconstitutional. The law came in response to concerns of human trafficking in Tennessee and created criminal penalties for advertising commercial sex acts. Despite acknowledging that the state has an interest [...]

The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) on Friday filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase & Co. for the sale of $2.2 billion of faulty residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) to credit unions. The securities were sold by Washington Mutual bank and its subsidiaries which were ultimately acquired by JPMorgan in 2008. The suit alleges that the [...]

A Nepalese army officer was arrested and charged in the UK on Friday with two counts of torture during his country’s civil war in 2005. Colonel Kumar Lama, a 46-year-old officer currently serving in the UN mission in Sudan, was arrested at his East Sussex home by Metropolitan Police officers on Thursday. Lama appeared before [...]

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said Friday that it has received “credible reports” of armed groups in the Central African Republic (CAR) recruiting and including children in the country’s conflict. UNICEF reported that both pro-government and rebel forces have utilized children, and called for all groups to immediately stop involving children. They reported that [...]

The US Supreme Court granted certiorari in three cases on Friday. In Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl the court will consider whether the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) allows a non-custodial parent to block an adoption by their non-Indian partner. In this case, a woman put her baby, who was fathered by an American Indian, [...]