Pakistan Supreme Court Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday Monday refuted arguments made by government lawyers that the Supreme Court of Pakistan should not "interfere with proceedings or assume jurisdiction" of the inquiry into alleged misconduct by ousted Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry because the SJC is a fully independent court that is capable of reviewing the legality [...]

US Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) , the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that he believed a "sizable number" of Republican members of Congress would join Democrats in a vote of no-confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales . In his appearance on CBS News' Face the Nation, Specter also said he had [...]

The White House over the weekend defended an immigration reform agreement reached Thursday with key Republican and Democratic senators which has drawn opposition from both aisles of Congress, threatening what President Bush called a "secure, productive, orderly, and fair" proposal. The deal has been derided by some Republicans as amounting to "amnesty" for up to [...]

Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany announced the resignation of Justice Minister Jozsef Petretei Sunday following the surfacing of multiple allegations of police corruption, including a high-profile case involving the alleged rape of a woman by five on-duty police officers in Budapest. Petretei's resignation still requires the approval of Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom . Public confidence [...]

Romanian voters Saturday rejected a referendum proposal to impeach reformist President Traian Basescu . Basescu was suspended by the opposition-dominated parliament last month for allegedly abusing his powers. Earlier this month, the Romanian Constitutional Court upheld an opposition-sponsored bill making it easier to remove the president by reducing the number of popular votes required for [...]

Australian Guantanamo detainee David Hicks was transferred to a maximum security prison near his hometown of Adelaide, South Australia Sunday to serve the remainder of his nine-month prison sentence. In March, a US military commission at Guantanamo Bay recommended sentencing Hicks to seven years in prison, but all but nine months of that were effectively [...]

The Texas Youth Commission (TYC) will release 226 inmates from its juvenile prison system after an investigation revealed that their sentences were improperly extended. Commission Special Master Jay Kimbrough, appointed early this month by Texas Gov. Rick Perry to investigate the TYC, formed a six-member panel in March to review extended sentences after inmate advocates [...]

Eric Linge, Pitt Law '09, files from Mumbai: India is a nation that takes religion seriously. Articles 25-8 of the Constitution guarantee citizens the fundamental right to religious freedom. Rickshaw drivers stick their arms up into the air when they pass by cows pulling shrines on carts down the road. And beginning two weeks ago, [...]

The US Army Court of Criminal Appeals (ACCA) issued a partial stay Friday in the court-martial of US Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada after the defense filed a motion to dismiss asserting that the February mistrial and that subsequent refiling of charges against Watada constituted double jeopardy and a second trial would violate Watada's constitutional [...]

A New York jury found the Long Island Diocese of Rockville Centre negligent in the hiring and retention of a youth minister who repeatedly molested two victims between 1999 and 2002 on Friday, and was ordered to provide $11.4 million in damages. Paul Mones, an attorney for the plaintiffs, characterized the decision as a powerful [...]