[JURIST] US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile] Thursday rejected a call [letter, PDF; JURIST report] from thirty-one Senate Democrats to recuse himself from the ongoing investigation of Jack Abramoff [JURIST news archive] because he was too close to the President and other top officials associated with the lobbyist. In January, Gonzales similarly rebuffed a call from Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) [official website] and Ken Salazar (D-CO) [official website] for the appointment of a special prosecutor [JURIST report] in the case.

Gonzales told Fox News Radio that the career prosecutors handling the investigation were not motivated by any political agenda. A spokesperson for the US Department of Justice [official website] said all departmental guidelines were being followed and there was no need for Gonzales to recuse himself at this time.

Despite calls for information about the President's relationship with Abramoff, the White House has thusfar said little. Bush has admitted that Abramoff attended several White House functions, and apparently was photographed with him, but denies knowing him. According to the Washingtonian, Abramoff claims a closer connection. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Senate moved closer towards a long-term renewal of the USA Patriot Act [PDF text; JURIST news archive] Thursday, easily overcoming a filibuster [JURIST report] by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) [official website] in a 96-3 vote [roll call]. Sens. Jim Jeffords (I-VT) [official website] and Robert Byrd (D-WV) [official website] cast the only votes joining Feingold in his efforts.

Feingold has taken issue with a renewal provision of the Patriot Act dealing with the issuance of National Security Letters [JURIST report], a section of the bill Feingold wants to have expire after four years. Feingold also sought to amend the current legislation to force the government to notify the subject of a secret investigation within seven days, or obtain a court order upholding the secrecy of the search for a longer period, as the current bill being debated sets a 30-day requirement. Sixteen of the Patriot Act provisions [CRS backgrounder, PDF] are set to expire on March 10, following the most recent short-term extension vote [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Constitutional Court of Thailand [official website], the country's highest court, decided Thursday not to hear a petition [JURIST report] to impeach Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra [official profile], ruling 8-6 that the petition did not clearly state how the Prime Minister was personally involved in a deal where his family sold its controlling stake in telecommunications giant Shin Corporation [corporate website] to a Singapore state investment agency. The petition alleged that the prime minister violated a conflict of interest provision in Thailand's constitution [text] by managing the affairs of a company.

Public dissatisfaction with Thaksin peaked with the announcement of the impeachment petition. Many critics have demanded that the prime minister step down from office, saying his latest deal effectively transferred national telecommunications assets to Singapore, and that the Shin Corporation may have been guilty of insider trading and tax avoidance while completing the deal. Twenty-eight senators signed the petition to impeach the prime minister, who was re-elected to office last year. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] has sent a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) [official website] seeking to dissuade the committee from calling former Attorney General John Ashcroft [official profile] and Deputy Attorney General James Comey [official profile] to testify before the panel, saying their testimony would provide no new information on the NSA warrantless surveillance program. The DOJ warned that Ashcroft will be unable to provide confidential information regarding the NSA program, and will merely repeat what was already said by Alberto Gonzales in testimony before the committee [JURIST report] earlier this month.

Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] member Charles Schumer (D-NY) [official website] requested that Ashcroft and Comey appear before the committee [JURIST report] earlier this year after a New York Times report indicated that Comey, acting as Attorney General while Ashcroft was hospitalized, expressed reservations about the legality of the project and may have refused to authorize the program's continued existence. In response to Comey's hesitations, Alberto Gonzales, then serving as White House counsel, and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card [official profile] reportedly then went to the hospitalized Ashcroft for approval. It is unclear whether Ashcroft gave his approval for the surveillance program [JURIST news archive], or whether the White House continued without it. AP has more.

[JURIST] The UK Daily Telegraph [media website] has said that it will drop any further appeals in its legal battle with British MP George Galloway [BBC profile]. In January, the Telegraph lost its appeal [JURIST report] when a British appeals court upheld a lower court order [opinion text] requiring the newspaper to pay damages and legal costs to Galloway. The court found that the paper had libeled Galloway by suggesting he took money from former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein through the now-defunct UN oil-for-food program [JURIST news archive].

After losing that appeal, the final option left to the Telegraph was to petition the UK House of Lords [official website] for an appeal, but in a brief statement issued on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the paper announced it would decline to do so. Galloway continues to deny that he received any personal financial benefit from the oil-for-food program. BBC News has more.

Previously in JURIST's Paper Chase...

• UK appeals court upholds oil-for-food libel judgment favoring MP
• US Senate subcommittee refers UK MP Galloway to DOJ for possible prosecution
• UK MP Galloway received 18 million barrels of Iraq oil allocations, UN report says
• British MP denies new US allegations in oil-for-food scandal
• Accused British MP questions US justice, denies oil-for-food allegations
• Senate probe accuses UK, French politicians of taking oil-for-food kickbacks

[JURIST] US District Judge Henry Kennedy on Thursday ordered [PDF opinion] the US Department of Justice to respond to a FOIA request [PDF text; JURIST report] filed by the Electronic Information Privacy Center (EPIC) [advocacy website] and produce documents related to the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive]. Among the documents lawyers for EPIC requested were the guidelines used by government officials to decide whether to monitor an individual's phone or email communications.

The court's order gave the Justice Department 20 days to fulfill the advocacy group's request. In the accompanying opinion, Judge Kennedy reasoned that the attention given to the surveillance program by the media and many private citizens suggests that public interest will be well served by timely production of the relevant documents. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] British legal experts and politicians are bracing for a major confrontation between the upper and lower houses of Parliament when the Terrorism Bill [text; Home Office backgrounder] comes before the House of Lords again on February 28 after Wednesday's Commons reinstatement [JURIST report] of a "glorification of terrorism" offense that was first nixed [JURIST report] in the Lords in late January. Members of the Labour Party government of Prime Minister Tony Blair are expressing optimism about their chances on the issue after a series of recent Lords reversals on this and other legislation, but prominent members of the upper chamber insist that they will draw the line. Liberal Democrat peer and legal affairs critic Lord Thomas of Gresford [party profile] told the BBC Thursday:

The purpose of the criminal law is to create a framework within which people can regulate their conduct and know what the penalty will be.

It has to be very well and clearly defined. Now, what on earth does glorification mean and what is the impact of the use of such a word upon the legislation?

[JURIST] The United States has dismissed as a "discredit to the UN" a report [PDF text; press release] released Thursday by UN special rapporteurs making up the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the UN Commission on Human Rights [official website] calling on the US to immediately close its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], saying that UN investigators did not fully examine the facts. The report, a draft of which was leaked [JURIST report] earlier this week, also recommended that those indefinitely held at Guantanamo Bay be either released or put on trial, and called on American authorities to refrain from any practices that "amount to torture."

Addressing the UN report in a press briefing Thursday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said [press briefing transcript]:

First of all, the UN team that was looking into this issue did not even visit Guantanamo Bay. They did not go down and see the facilities. They were offered the same kind of access that congressional leaders, who are responsible for oversight of these matters, have been provided. Yet, they declined to go down there.

I think that what we are seeing is a rehash of allegations that have been made by lawyers representing some of these detainees. We know that these are dangerous terrorists that are being kept at Guantanamo Bay. They are people that are determined to harm innocent civilians, or harm innocent Americans. They were enemy combatants picked up on the battlefield in the war on terrorism. They are trained to provide false information. And al Qaeda training manuals talk about ways to disseminate false information and hope to get attention.

But the International Committee for the Red Cross has been provided full access to the detainees. The military treats detainees humanely, as directed by the President of the United States. And the United Nations should be making serious investigations across the world, and there are many instances when they do, when it comes to human rights. This was not one of them. And I think it's a discredit to the UN when a team like this goes about rushing to report something when they haven't even looked into the facts. All they have done is look at the allegations.

[JURIST] US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile] repeatedly stressed his personal and institutional commitment to the protection of civil rights in a speech [text] to Justice Department staff Wednesday setting out the Department's priorities for the coming year. First on his formal list was the fight against terrorism, followed by initiatives on violent crime, drug trafficking, cyber crime, civil rights, and public and corporate corruption.

It was civil rights, however, that seemed to resonate most powerfully through the speech, with Gonzales reminding listeners at the outset that after taking office last year he attended a swearing-in ceremony for new citizens in New York and promised them to work hard protecting their newly acquired right to vote. Emphasizing his personal commitment, he later explained:

Because of the struggles of my parents and grandparents, I care deeply about civil rights in America today, about the African-American family that is denied the right to vote, or the Mexican-American couple who can't get decent housing. I care about applying the law to everyone equally so that everyone has an equal opportunity to pursue the American dream.

[JURIST] Newmont Mining Corporation [corporate website; JURIST news archive] agreed on Thursday to settle a civil suit brought by Indonesia for $30 million, ending one of two significant legal battles between the two parties. The settlement comes after Indonesia decided it would not appeal the ruling that dismissed [JURIST report] the $133 million suit [JURIST report] brought against Newmont alleging that the company polluted the area near its operation.

Related criminal charges filed against Newmont's top local executive [JURIST report], American Richard Ness, are still pending, however. A verdict in that trial is expected later this year. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Australian Parliament ended a de facto ban on the so-called "abortion drug" RU-486 (also known as Mifepristone) [Wikipedia backgrounder] on Thursday by removing the need for approval by the Health Minister to use the drug. Tony Abbott [official website], a strong anti-abortionist, had refused all applications for its use.

Last week, the Australian Senate voted 45-28 to end the approval requirement [JURIST report], and the measure [bill text, PDF] cleared the House without a formal count. The Therapeutic Goods Association [official website] will now handle requests from doctors to prescribe the drug. BBC News has more. The Sydney Morning Herald has local coverage.

[JURIST] The Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) and Maoist rebels [BBC backgrounder] are violating international human rights laws [OHCHR press release, PDF], according to a new report [text] released by the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [official website] Thursday. The OHCHR-Nepal report outlines the investigation of activities in Nepal since last April and reveals conflicts in populated areas that have posed dangers to civilians, particularly when combatants used local schools in their battles. Ian Martin, the OHCHR representative in Nepal [JURIST news archive], said that children, in particular, have been put at risk by being used as combatants within Maoist rebel movements and by indiscriminate bombings by security forces.

The report urges the United Nations [official website] to prevent any members of the RNA who have been involved in human rights violations from serving in UN peacekeeping missions around the globe. The new report will be a point of discussion next month during a meeting of the 62nd Session of the Commission on Human Rights [OHCHR backgrounder] in Geneva. Last month, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, called [press release; JURIST report] for both sides in the ongoing conflict to respect international humanitarian and human rights law. Thursday's Financial Times has more.

[JURIST] Iraq's Interior Ministry Thursday announced an investigation into claims that a police death squad has been operating in Iraq, either working for, or claiming to work for the ministry itself. The US military says it recently detained 22 men in police uniforms [Chicago Tribune report] who were about to kill a Sunni man. Maj. Gen. Joseph Peterson, the US officer in charge of civilian Iraqi police training teams, said the men were highway patrol officers. The announcement follows a statement Wednesday by Iraqi human rights minister Nermine Othman that over 100 Iraqis were tortured in Interior Ministry buildings last year [AP report]. In December the rights ministry helped uncover an Interior Ministry facility [JURIST report] containing hundreds of prisoners in which many showed signs of abuse.

Allegations of torture and death squads orchestrated by the Shiite-dominate Interior Ministry have surfaced in the past and were denied [JURIST report]. Human Rights minister Othman said squads may be getting help from the inside: "I think there are many people inside the Interior Ministry involved with these deaths or giving the uniforms of colleagues to criminals. In November, former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said that abuses under the new government were as bad as they had been under the Saddam Hussein regime [JURIST report]. AP has more. Othman expects prosecutions [AP report] of some low-level interior and justice ministry employees.

[JURIST] Rene Preval [Wikipedia profile] became the president-elect of Haiti [JURIST news archive] Thursday after the interim government and the Provisional Election Council (CEP) [official website] reached an agreement allowing him to exceed the necessary 50.1 percent of the majority of votes in the country's February 7 election [JURIST report; BBC backgrounder]. The agreement subtracted approximately 85,000 blank ballots from the total number of votes cast, giving Preval 51.15 percent of the votes, rather than the 49.76 percent [CEP partial total, PDF] he had when the blank ballots were included in the total. A result less than 50 percent would have forced a runoff with the second-place candidate, who received less than 12 percent of the vote.

Earlier this week, a Haitian television station reported the discovery of thousands of ballots [AP report] which were thrown out at a garbage dump near the capital. Some of them were cast in favor of Preval, and UN officials expressed concern because the bags were only supposed to include blank and annulled votes. Preval had previously alleged fraud in the election [JURIST report] and on Wednesday, government officials announced plans to form a commission [JURIST report] to review the election results. The agreement, announced early Thursday morning, makes the commission moot and ends a period of electoral uncertainty that had already been plagued by demonstrations and violence [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) [official website], chairman of the US House Judiciary Committee, has complained of bias in a recent report of the Congressional Research Service [official website] on the NSA domestic spying program [JURIST news archive]. In a letter [PDF text] written last week he said that a CRS study [PDF] released in early January suggesting that the legal justification for the program was not "well-grounded" [JURIST report] was "based on an incomplete analysis of the law" and noted that members of Congress "rely on CRS to provide objective analysis of legislation and legal matters."

Sensenbrenner has asked CRS to respond by February 20 to alternative reports by two conservative experts. Robert Alt [faculty profile], a fellow in legal and international affairs at Ashland University, said [PDF] of the original CRS study that it "read like a brief. It had some of the same marks as something an advocate might distribute." John Eastman [faculty profile], a professor of law and director of the Claremont Institute at Chapman University pointed out [PDF] that CRS works for the legislative branch and that "a truly neutral assessment of the contending constitutional positions is in order." The Hill has more.

[JURIST] Leading Thursday's international brief, the civilian criminal trial of Ugandan opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye [BBC profile] and his 22 co-defendants has been postponed until after the upcoming national elections in Uganda. Ugandan Deputy Director for Public Prosecutions Simon Byabakama Mugenyi was forced to ask for a continuance after Besigye's defense lawyers challenged the government's indictment as 'fundamentally flawed' and legally insufficient to sustain a trial. The indictment is vague in reference to whom Besigye is supposed to have committed treason [JURIST report] with and, since Ugandan law requires specific names for a valid charge of treason, Besigye's lawyers argued the indictment failed to set out a valid criminal charge. Once the prosecutor asked for a delay to prepare a response, the court held that the upcoming elections would be too much of a distraction and ordered a recess until March. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of Uganda [JURIST news archive]. Uganda's Monitor Online has local coverage.

In related news, The Ugandan Army and police forces have defied a court order to release Besigye's co-defendants who are able to meet their bail requirements. Under Ugandan law, criminal defendants may be released once bail has been met, but defendants in military courts-martial are detained until and during trial. At a hearing held Thursday, High Court Justice Vincent Kagaba ordered 14 of the 22 men released if they could make bail, but once the men left the prison, they were immediately detained by soldiers and police officers who returned them to a detention facility pending the general court-martial. Military officials have indicated that they will proceed with the court-martial [JURIST report] even though the Ugandan Constitutional Court [judicial website] has said the military proceedings are invalid [JURIST report]. The men's defense lawyers were told to "not even think about" continuing their appeal for the defendants' release. Uganda's Monitor Online has local coverage.

In other international legal news ...

• The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) [party website] has forced a major concession from the Sudanese government [official website] as six "presidential decrees" dealing with topics from national security to NGOs were withdrawn and scheduled to be presented as legislation. The SPLM challenged the decrees as legislative in nature rather than executive and argued that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir [BBC profile], a member of the ruling National Congress Party, was trying to use the decrees as a method to get around parliamentary debate on important issues. The six decrees are now scheduled to be presented to the Sudanese parliament as legislation, allowing debate and amendment to adjust some of the provisions, including details of an NGO bill that international NGOs warned would almost completely cut aid to the Darfur region [JURIST news archive] of Sudan. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of Sudan [JURIST news archive]. The Sudan Tribune has local coverage.
  
  
• One of the leaders of the Seven Party Alliance in Nepal, K. P. Oli, has said that it is too late for any effort on the part of King Gyanendra [official profile] to resolve the current antipathy between the opposition political groups and the ruling monarchy. Oli made his remarks in response to a call by US Ambassador to Nepal James F. Moriarty for cooperation and negotiation between the two sides of the current simmering conflict in Nepal over Gyanendra's seizure of absolute control [JURIST report] last February. Oli said that only a complete relinquishing of absolute powers by the monarchy will allow Nepal to return to a peaceful state and rejected calls to exclude the Maoist forces from involvement in the push for a new government. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of Nepal [JURIST news archive]. NepalNews.com has local coverage.

[JURIST] In an interview [transcript] on the Fox News Channel Wednesday, US Vice President Dick Cheney [official profile] said that while he may be called as a witness [Reuters report] in the CIA leak case [JURIST news archive] and therefore could not comment specifically on it, he does have authority under executive order to declassify government secrets. The comment has increased speculation that Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [CBS profile], could try to shift blame to him as part of his defense. Libby has been charged [PDF indictment; JURIST report] with obstruction of justice, making a false statement and perjury in connection with the investigation into the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald [official website] last week filed court documents that show that Libby testified to a federal grand jury that he had been authorized by 'superiors' to leak intelligence information [JURIST report]. Libby's lawyers have so far denied reports that they will try to shift blame to anyone else. AP has more.

[JURIST] Recently released photographs and video showing the apparent abuse of prisoners by US personnel at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison [JURIST news archive] show clear violations of international humanitarian law, a spokeswoman for International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) [official website] said Thursday. The previously unpublished images [JURIST report], shown on Australian television [program transcript] Wednesday, were taken around the same time as the Abu Ghraib photographs made public in 2004 and depict blood-soaked prisoners who appear to have been tortured. The Pentagon has confirmed [AFP report] that the new images match those uncovered during the 2004 investigation, according to a Defense Department official. The Red Cross has previously criticized US practices at Abu Ghraib, saying that in some instances the abuse of Iraqi prisoners was "tantamount to torture" [ICRC report, PDF; JURIST report]. Reuters has more.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari [BBC profile] has condemned the abuse [AFP report] shown in the new photos, but said that those involved had already been punished. The original Abu Ghraib photographs led to the jailing of several US soldiers including Charles Graner [JURIST report], who appears in some of the new images, and Lynndie England [JURIST news archive]. Iraq's human rights minister, however, has called for US-led forces in Iraq to turn over all Iraqi inmates held in US-managed prisons [Reuters report]. Meanwhile, in Australia, the producer of SBS television's Dateline program defended the decision to broadcast the photographs [AFP report] and videos. Mike Carey dismissed criticism from the Pentagon that the pictures could increase the danger to American soldiers, saying that his team, as journalists, had a responsibility to air the images. The Sydney Morning Herald has local coverage.

[JURIST Europe] Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov [official profile in Russian] Wednesday told the Duma [official website in Russian], Russia's lower house, that Russian society was to blame for instances of military conscript abuse and hazing that have scandalized the country. He particularly faulted television and the media for contributing to a "decline of traditional values" and pointed to a "culture of abuse" that starts as early as kindergarten. Without specifying exact figures he did, however, say that abuse-related crimes in the military had decreased by 25 percent in 2005.

The abuse issue was brought to the fore by the recent case of Russian serviceman Andrei Sychev, who was tortured and permanently maimed [JURIST report] by his commanding officers while at a tank-training academy. Ivanov was sharply criticized for the government's very slow response to the crime. Two weeks ago a Russian military court convicted a senior officer in the country's elite missile corps of modern-day slavery and contracting out conscripts under his command [JURIST report] for personal gain. One possible solution for the conscript abuse, Ivanov has suggested, would be to lower the mandatory term of Russian military service from two years to one. He told the Duma Wednesday that officers would be disciplined and even dismissed for concealing crimes. The Moscow Times has local coverage.

Angela Onikepe is an Associate Editor for JURIST Europe, reporting European legal news from a European perspective. She is based in the UK.

[JURIST Europe] The European Union (EU) [official website] is voicing reservations about human rights in Belarus [government website] in the wake of a growing number of reports of abuses there. At the European Parliament [official website] in Strasbourg on Wednesday, Austrian State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Hans Winkler [official profile] commented that next month's elections in the country are unlikely to bring "sweeping change" and said that Austria, as current president of the EU [official website], was concerned. Belarus President Alyaksandr Lukashenka [official website; BBC profile] is running for a third term in the upcoming March 19 elections and has faced significant criticism for attempting to silence opposition [JURIST report].

Belarus recently amended its criminal code [JURIST report] to severely restrict political dissent and protest. EU foreign ministers have promised to impose visa restrictions and economic sanctions [MosNews report] in the event that the elections are discovered to be rigged. Radio Free Europe has local coverage.

Angela Onikepe is an Associate Editor for JURIST Europe, reporting European legal news from a European perspective. She is based in the UK.

[JURIST Europe] Microsoft [corporate website] responded Wednesday to European Commission (EC) [official website] complaints of non-compliance [JURIST report] with orders from a 2004 EC antitrust ruling to produce technical data by insisting in a 75-page report that the EC had ignored significant evidence [Microsoft press release] relating to the release of source code material. The software giant accuses the EC of contributing to the problems by not clearly stating its "requirements and concerns" and by not reviewing previous documents submitted by Microsoft. Microsoft also provided the EC with two independent expert reports purported to have examined Microsoft's technical documentation.

Microsoft continues to face daily fines of up to €2 million ($2.38 million US) daily. The EC ruled in 2004 that Microsoft was abusing its dominant position in the computer industry and ordered it to share its source code with other software developers. The software company was fined a record €497 million ($613 million US). BBC News has more.

Angela Onikepe is an Associate Editor for JURIST Europe, reporting European legal news from a European perspective. She is based in the UK.