China's ruling Communist Party announced the firing of a top party leader on Monday for his involvement in a pension plan scandal . Shanghai Municipal Committee secretary Chen Liangyu has been under investigation since June for allegedly mishandling funds earmarked for social security accounts and for other corrupt practices. Critics say the dismissal indicates that [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Monday began the trial of a former deputy state prosecutor who later worked as an ICTR investigator under an alias by formally charging him with four counts of genocide, murder, extermination and other crimes against humanity. In the amended indictment , Simeon Nchamihigo is accused of ordering another [...]

Saddam Hussein was thrown out of court again Monday for failing to observe courtroom discipline in his genocide trial , his second ejection in as many sessions. The ousted Iraqi president was represented by eight court-appointed lawyers as his regular defense team carried out their threat to boycott the proceeding in protest at the behavior [...]

Lawyers for a former associate of former South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma Monday began their appeal of a corruption conviction against businessman Schabir Shaik that could help to clear Zuma's name and help to rehabilitate him as a potential presidential candidate. President Thabo Mbeki fired Zuma from his position last year when Shaik was [...]

Jordan's appointed Senate, the upper house of the National Assembly , amended a bill regulating mosques Sunday so as to require preachers to obtain written government permission before being allowed to lead services or teach the Quran. Unauthorized preachers would face up to a month in prison and a fine. The measure was presented as [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist David Scheffer, former US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues (1997-2001), now at Northwestern University School of Law, says that the new "compromise" language on detainee treatment included in the latest version of the military commissions bill strips whole categories of common Article 3 Geneva Convention violations from the federal War [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Benjamin Davis of the University of Toledo College of Law says that the overall theme of the "compromise" military commissions bill seems to be the highly-problematic creation of a unique legal regime for a specific group of human beings intentionally cut off from all other domestic and international legal processes… In this [...]

US Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) told CNN's Late Edition program Sunday that he believes the habeas corpus provision of the latest draft of the military commissions bill based on an agreement Thursday between Senate and White House negotiators may violate the US Constitution. Section 6 of the Military Commissions Act of [...]

A proposed federal shield law for journalists is on hold after the US Senate Judiciary Committee Friday postponed further consideration of the bill in the wake of strong opposition from Justice Department officials voiced in a hearing Thursday. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty argued that the Free Flow of Information Act of 2006 would impose [...]

The US Legal Services Corp. debated firing the inspector general currently investigating the federally funded program's use of funds for luxuries , the Associated Press reported Sunday. Meeting transcripts obtained by AP indicate that board members criticized Kirt West and warned each other to be careful of their actions in his presence. The board planned [...]