Philippines President Gloria Arroyo will move forward with plans for constitutional change despite last month's ruling by the nation's Supreme Court that her planned referendum on modifying the country's charter to abolish the upper house of Congress cannot proceed, according to presidential press secretary Ignacio Bunye. In a column to be published Monday, Bunye confirms [...]

News of the guilty verdict and death sentence handed down for Saddam Hussein Sunday has elicited mixed reactions in Iraq and abroad. About 1000 protestors marched in Saddam's home town of Tikrit, and gunmen clashed with police in parts of Baghdad. In the Shiite-dominated south, however, Iraqis celebrated by coming out on the streets, firing [...]

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met Sunday with representatives of nearly a dozen non-governmental organizations to discuss possible reforms to the controversial Article 301 of Turkey's penal code, which criminalizes the denigration of Turkishness, the Republic, and the foundation and institutions of the Turkish State. Members of organizations including the Turkish Union of Chambers [...]

Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian delivered a nationally-televised address Sunday denying allegations that he and first lady Wu Shu-chen have been embezzling money from state funds and pledging to resign if his wife is found guilty on embezzlement, forgery, and perjury charges laid against her Friday. The address was Chen's first public response to the embezzlement [...]

Giovanni Di Stefano : "Although Saddam Hussein CAN be sentenced to death the sentence CANNOT be carried out owing to an agreement between the UK/ITALY and the IRAQI Government witnessed by the US in 2004 which the Iraqi Government gave a written undertaking NOT to carry out the death sentence (capital punishment) on 11 detained [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Michael Kelly of Creighton University School of Law says that the trials of Saddam Hussein should continue and his death sentence in the Dujail case should be stayed at least until two other key proceedings against him are completed… Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death by hanging for his role in [...]

Saddam Hussein and two co-defendants were convicted and sentenced to death by hanging Sunday for crimes against humanity committed in the Iraqi town of Dujail . Hussein was charged with killing, torturing and illegally detaining Dujail residents, including 148 Shiites , after an unsuccessful attempt on his life there in 1982. Hussein's chief defense lawyer [...]

The judge presiding at the Libyan trial of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian physician for allegedly infecting over 400 children with the HIV virus announced Saturday that the verdict in the case will be rendered December 19. The six medical professionals have been held prisoner by Libyan authorities since February 1999. They were originally [...]

A top Pakistani judge has forbidden female lawyers to wear the Muslim hijab (veil) in his courtroom, according to the Saturday edition of Pakistan's Daily Times newspaper. The Times quotes Chief Justice Tariq Pervaiz Khan of the Peshawar High Court as telling veiled lawyer Raees Anjum, "You are professionals and should be dressed as required [...]

Thousands of lawyers working for political parties, government and interest groups are preparing to go into action across the United States Tuesday when Americans vote in mid-term elections. At stake is control of Congress and a series of key state ballot initiatives on hot-button legal and political issues. In the wake of the notorious 2000 [...]