Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega Monday asked the US Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals to block his extradition to France, arguing in court filings that extradition would violate his prisoner of war (POW) status. Noriega will remain in a US federal prison until all appeals relating to the extradition request have been exhausted. Ultimately, the [...]

Pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. Tuesday agreed to pay $58 million to settle lawsuits brought by 29 states and the District of Columbia regarding Merck's allegedly deceptive advertising for the painkiller Vioxx . Under the settlement, Merck agreed to submit all future TV commercials for its drugs to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for [...]

The trial of former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and seven co-defendants resumed Tuesday, three weeks after a brief opening session and subsequent adjournment at the Iraqi High Tribunal in Baghdad. Some members of the defense's legal team were missing, but lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano told AKI that he did not "want to grant [...]

Pakistan's governing Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) will propose an amendment to the country's 1973 Constitution to restrict judicial and presidential power, Pakistan's News daily reported Tuesday. The proposed amendment would raise the mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court judges, limit the term of the Chief Justice to four or five years, and make judges that [...]

Military defense lawyers for the five Guantanamo Bay detainees allegedly behind the Sept. 11 attacks are attempting to delay their clients' arraignments, currently scheduled for June 5. They allege the US government has interfered with the defendants' rights to counsel by refusing to provide facilities for the review of classified evidence or to grant security [...]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit Tuesday upheld a district court ruling that the design of US paper currency discriminates against the blind in violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 . The court found that the plaintiff in the case, American Council of the Blind , had shown [...]

Jaber Elbaneh, a Yemeni-American on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists List for alleged participation in acts of international terrorism, was jailed in Yemen Monday after an appeals court upheld his ten-year prison sentence. Elbaneh was indicted by the US government in 2003 for conspiracy and providing material support to a terrorist organization, charges related to [...]

Doudou Diene , the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance, is visiting the US this week to gather first-hand information on issues of race relations . Diene's visit comes at the invitation of the US government. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called the fact-finding mission "a [...]

American Council of the Blind v. Paulson, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, May 20, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Farzana Hassan : "For those who think the veil symbolizes the oppression of Muslim women – think again. In an American court in August of 2006, the veil instead became a symbol of clear defiance to legal protocol and authority. Ginnah Muhammad, who refused to remove her face-veil to identity herself as the complainant in [...]