A federal judicial panel on Thursday denied California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's request to stay an order to reduce the prison population in the state. The request stemmed from an August ruling mandating that California reduce its prison population by nearly 43,000 inmates in response to a lawsuit by two inmates alleging that overcrowding in California [...]

A spokesperson for the department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) said Thursday that the Canadian government will appeal a controversial decision by the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) to grant asylum to a white South African man who claims he faced persecution in his homeland because of race. The ruling was issued last week [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnists Judith Sunderland and William Bourdon of Human Rights Watch say that the French government needs to ensure that all suspects in police custody have the right to see a lawyer immediately, have access to a lawyer during interrogation, and are informed of their right to remain silent, regardless of the crime [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Thursday granted a request by Microsoft Corporation to stay an injunction that would have prevented the company from selling its popular word processing program Microsoft Word. The court ruled in a brief per curiam opinion that Microsoft had met its burden to stay the injunction. [...]

Sahar Aziz : "A recent ruling by a federal district court signifies an encouraging shift for Muslim charities in the United States. For many such non-profits, mere investigation by the Department of Treasury's Office for Asset Control (OFAC) into their humanitarian activities abroad has become a kiss of death. Under the USA PATRIOT Act, Treasury's [...]

Coleman v. Schwarzenegger, US District Courts for the Eastern and Northern Districts of California, September 3, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. More recent commentary available here. JURIST has more on California prisons.

The Russian Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the case of murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya should be returned to prosecutors for further investigation. The court overturned a lower court decision not to combine the case against Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, Dzhabrail Makhmudov, and Ibragim Makhmudov with an investigation against other suspects, including Rustam Makhmudov, the brother of [...]

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) made a number of missteps that could have uncovered the fraud committed by Bernard Madoff at an earlier date, according to an inspector general's report released Wednesday. The report indicated that between 1992 and 2008, six complaints were lodged with the SEC concerning Madoff's hedge fund operation. One [...]

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled Wednesday that Canada's Internet Hate Speech law unconstitutionally violates the right to free expression. The law, section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act , proscribed individuals or groups from: communicat telephonically or to cause to be so communicated, repeatedly, in whole or in part by means of the [...]

Lawyers for alleged al Qaeda media director Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al Bahlul on Tuesday appealed his conviction and life sentence for conspiring with al Qaeda, soliciting murder, and providing material support for terrorism. His Pentagon-appointed defense lawyers argued that his constitutional rights were violated because a supposed al Qaeda recruitment film he released is [...]