A Russian court on Wednesday freed one member of the controversial feminist rock collective Pussy Riot . The Moscow City Court freed Yekaterina Samutsevich after accepting her argument that she had been removed from the cathedral so quickly that she had barely had time to remove her guitar from its case and never had a [...]

An Alaska Superior Court judge on Monday upheld a state law that requires women under the age of 18 to notify their parents if they intend to get an abortion. Judge John Suddock held that the law is constitutional but struck down a provision that would have imposed civil liability on doctors who provide abortions [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two related cases on Tuesday. In Tibbals v. Carter , the court considered the “right to competence” in habeas corpus cases and whether a federal district judge can order an indefinite stay of a habeas action under precedent set in Rees v. Peyton . In Tibbals, the [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Paul Johnson, Anniversary Reader at the University of York, argues that the European Court of Human Right’s recent decision in X. v. Turkey helps to advance the rights of gays and lesbians in Europe…

Libyan government lawyers on Tuesday urged International Criminal Court (ICC) judges to allow Saif al-Islam to be tried in Libya, promising a fair trial for the son of former leader Muammar Gaddafi . Libyan officials spoke during a hearing before the ICC, which is set to decide whether Saif al-Islam will be tried in Libya [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, says that the University of Texas at Austin’s race-conscious admissions policy must be disallowed because the policy only has a minimal effect on the composition of the student body and the university’s justifications for the policy can hardly satisfy strict [...]

Egypt President Mohammed Morsi announced on Tuesday a general pardon issued in August for most people detained or convicted for crimes committed during and in support of the Egyptian Revolution . The pardon applies to all citizens who were arrested between January 25, 2011 and June 30, 2012. It does not apply to those convicted [...]

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) sent a letter to the members of the Egyptian Constituent Assembly on Monday urging them to amend Egypt’s draft constitution to comply with international treaties. HRW said that international human rights treaties ratified by Egypt should have clear supremacy over domestic law because the Vienna Convention on the Law of [...]

The Supreme Court of the Philippines on Tuesday supended a cybercrimes law that became effective last week. The suspension will be for 120 days while the court considers whether provisions of the law violate civil liberties. With the suspension, the court also ordered the Philippines government to respond within 10 days to the 15 petitions [...]

A UK immigration tribunal has ruled that man who says he was paid to kill civilians in Sudan may remain in the UK indefinitely. The 27-year-old man, whose identity has not been revealed, is being allowed to remain in the UK for his own safety . Immigration officials had originally rejected the man’s request to [...]