The registrar of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Thursday rejected a petition seeking treason charges against former president Pervez Musharraf , finding that the applicant lacked standing and that the Supreme Court was not the appropriate forum for such a petition. The petition was filed by Senator Syed Zafar Ali Shah of the Pakistan [...]

Anna Mandel, Boston College Law '11, writes about her experience at the Latvian Constitutional Court…. In the United States, state and federal courts are not bound by the precedents or laws of other jurisdictions. For example, the Supreme Court of Texas is not bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court of California. While courts [...]

A judge in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday ordered the government to grant security clearance to lawyers on both sides of the civil suit brought by former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Richard Horn. In ruling on the government's attempt to exert privilege, Judge Royce Lamberth questioned the logic [...]

The popular social networking site Facebook announced Thursday that it would give users more control over the private information they share through their profiles. The changes were announced after discussions with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada , who in July released a report that was critical of Facebook's compliance with Canadian privacy [...]

Judges of the India Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to disclose their assets and make them available on the court's website. The decision, lauded by Indian political parties , legal authorities, and newspapers as a victory for accountability and transparency, was delivered by the 23 judges of the high court. The judicial watchdog group Campaign [...]

The UN Security Council should establish an independent criminal tribunal to investigate and prosecute those responsible for human rights abuses stemming from East Timor's 1999 referendum for independence from Indonesia, Amnesty International (AI) urged in a report Thursday. AI's report, based on a June visit to East Timor, claims that officials responsible for human rights [...]

The lawyer for former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohammed Jawad said Thursday that the Afghan citizen will sue the US government for compensation for mistreatment. Jawad, who was detained in 2002 under suspicion of throwing a grenade at US forces in Afghanistan, alleges continuous, widespread mistreatment including that US soldiers made insults towards Islam and behaved [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit Wednesday demanding access to documents related to the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) policy of searching travelers' laptop computers. The ACLU originally requested the documents in June under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and filed suit Wednesday in the US District Court for the [...]

Mali President Amadou Toumani Toure announced Wednesday that he will not sign a controversial law expanding women's rights, after objections by the country's High Islamic Council. The announcement followed a mass demonstration against the law by various Muslim groups on Sunday. Initially passed by the National Assembly , the law grants women greater inheritance rights, [...]

Chinese Vice-Minister of Health Huang Jiefu estimated Wednesday that 65 percent of organs transplanted in China are from executed prisoners , contradicting the official posture that China has maintained for years. Huang's statement coincides with an announcement that China is testing an organ donor system in 10 provinces. The program is a joint effort between [...]