[JURIST] Ali Hamza Ahmad Sulayman al Bahlul [Wikipedia profile], a Guantanamo detainee from Yemen charged [charge sheet, PDF] with conspiring to commit murder, to attack civilians and civilian objects, and terrorism, boycotted [JURIST report] his military commission hearing again Thursday, this time on the grounds that the attorney appointed to defend him, US Army Major Tom Fleener [Wikipedia profile], is his enemy and cannot represent him. It was not immediately clear how the impasse would be resolved. Fleener voiced concern about violating legal ethics by forcing representation on al Bahlul and said he would try to go to Yemen to find him a lawyer.

Today's boycott occurs against the backdrop of continuing criticism of the military commission process [JURIST news archive]. Fleener himself has described the trials as "shams" and presiding judge Col. Peter E. Brownback has said he will review evidence [JURIST report] to determine whether it was obtained by torture before ruling on its admissibility. The US Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments March 28 in Hamdan v Rumsfeld [certiorari petition PDF; JURIST report], a case that challenges the President's authority to create military tribunals to try terrorist detainees. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Georgia Senate [official website] passed a bill Thursday that would allow Georgians to use deadly force when they feel threatened in public areas. Bill 396 [text PDF; sponsor's press release, PDF] extends Georgia's current law by extending the right to use deadly force beyond private property, saying that citizens have no duty to retreat even if it is possible to do so safely and grants criminal and civil immunity to people who do use deadly force so long as the weapon used is legal. In September 2005, Florida passed a similar law [JURIST report] despite significant opposition. A Michigan "shoot first" bill [text PDF], scheduled for a vote February 2006, was tabled after controversy. An NRA spokesperson told a Georgia Senate committee that the bill "restores self-defense and puts the government back on the side of honest citizens." Opponents of the measure fear it will open the door to more violence. The bill now heads to the Georgia House. AP has more. The Atlanta Journal Constitution has local coverage.

[JURIST] The US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee [official website] voted 12-1 Thursday to send a lobbying oversight bill to the full Senate, but the bill was stripped of a provision establishing an independent office with oversight over congressional ethics issues. The Lobbying Transparency and Accountability Act of 2005 [full draft text; advocacy group summary] as approved would expand the definition of a lobbyist to include grassroots lobbyists, demand quarterly expense reports of all lobbyists, and require the disclosure of all campaign contributions from lobbyists to candidates.

Bill co-sponsor Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) [official website] read a statement [text] supporting the inclusion of the oversight office provision within the text of the full Senate bill. He explained:

It would establish, as the Chairman has mentioned, an independent Office of Public Integrity with a full time executive director with investigative and subpoena powers and the staff to do a lot more than is done under the status quo. It would require lobbyists to report their activities on a quarterly basis, rather than semi-annually, and establish an electronic database of the information. Our proposal for the first time would require registered lobbyists to report all their campaign contributions, as well as other contributions that honor Members of Congress, all in the interest of full disclosure. And it would increase from one year to two the amount of time that must pass before a former Member of Congress or senior executive branch official could lobby his or her former colleagues. It would also bar Congressional staff from lobbying the entire Congress for one year.

[JURIST] The US Senate [official website] has approved a long-term renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act [PDF text; JURIST news archive] by a vote of 89-10 [roll call vote]. The vote was expected [JURIST report] after the Senate approved amendments to the USA PATRIOT and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005 [bill summary] which incorporate additional civil liberties protections: allowing recipients of Section 215 subpoenas for information in terror investigations to be able to challenge the accompanying gag order; eliminating a requirement that people who receive National Security Letters (NSL) [sample text, PDF; ACLU backgrounder] must provide the FBI the names of lawyers consulted about the NSL; and clarifying current law to ensure that libraries functioning in their traditional roles would not be subject to NSLs.

Sixteen provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire at the end of last year, but members of Congress were unable to reach agreement on the terms of the renewal, prompting instead two short-term extensions [JURIST report]. The renewal legislation will make 14 of the provisions permanent and extend the remaining two until 2009. The current legislation is set to expire March 10. The legislation approved today has already been approved by the House [THOMAS bill status] and will go to the President for signature along with another renewal-related bill still in process.

[JURIST] Members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] Thursday began hammering out an immigration reform bill in the face of several competing proposals that have bitterly divided lawmakers. Committee Chairman Senator Arlen Specter's Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 [draft text PDF] has come in for sharp criticism [letter] from the American Bar Association (ABA) [profession website], which opposes key provisions criminalizing the "unlawful presence" of aliens, eliminating or severely restricting judicial review now available to undocumented immigrants, and overturning Supreme Court precedent to expand the grounds for the indefinite detention of undocumented immigrants. One alternative reform proposal [bill summary] sponsored by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) would provide undocumented aliens with a path towards eventual citizenship, and another [press release materials] sponsored by Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) would require workers to return to their home countries before applying for permanent status.

Specter said Thursday that "emotions [were] at an all-time high" during the first day of debate; the issue reveals a split between conservative Republicans and others who are more socially or commercially tolerant of undocumented labor. President Bush proposed a temporary worker bill [JURIST report] last November, which was critized by many Republicans as providing "backdoor amnesty" for illegal workers. AP has more.

[JURIST] Libya freed 130 political prisoners [AI press release] on Thursday, among them 85 members of the Islamist opposition group Muslim Brotherhood [Wikipedia backgounder], some of whom have been held since 1998. In 2002, the now-abolished People's Court sentenced the Brotherhood members for treason for participating in unauthorized political activity, which is a serious crime in Libya. The court sentenced two of the prisoners to death, 73 to life in prison, and 11 to 10 years, while 66 were acquitted.

The prisoners began a hunger strike [JURIST report] in January protesting their incarceration. They were previously assured of their eventual release [JURIST report] by an influential and reform-minded son of Libyan leader Colonel Muhamar Gaddafi [BBC profile] last year, but the Libyan government waited until now to grant the releases. Aljazeera has more. BBC has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The Mississippi House Public Health Committee has approved a bill that would prohibit most abortions in the state, and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) [official website] has said that he plans to sign the legislation if both houses of the Mississippi Legislature [official website] approve it. The bill, which only allows exceptions to save a woman's life, would tighten Mississippi's already strict abortion laws that mandate a 24-hour waiting period, counseling, and consent from both parents for a minor.

Last week the South Dakota legislature passed a similar bill [JURIST report] that would ban abortions in the state except those saving a woman’s life. The Missouri Supreme Court [official website] on Wednesday upheld a state law [JURIST report] requiring doctors to wait 24 hours after consulting with a woman before performing an abortion. Last year, a federal judge ruled unconstitutional [JURIST report] a Mississippi statute banning abortions after the first trimester. AP has more.

[JURIST] An Italian parliamentary commission has concluded that the Soviet Union backed the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II [official website] by Mehmet Ali Agca [Wikipedia profile], in a report released on Thursday. The commission argues that the Soviets conspired to kill the pope because of his support for Poland's Solidarity labor movement [official website] and his role in defeating communism in Eastern Europe. The report accuses the Bulgarian secret service of participating in the plot as well, although several Bulgarians were acquitted on charges of involvement in the attempt in 1986.

Agca, who will remain in prison until 2010 [JURIST report] after a temporary release earlier this year [JURIST report], originally accused the Soviet Union of commissioning the assassination attempt, but later changed his story several times. CBC News has more.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Canada [official website] on Thursday unanimously overturned [decision text] a Quebec school board's ban on carrying Sikh ceremonial daggers at school, ruling that it infringed students' religious freedom under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [text]. Gurbaj Singh, 17, challenged the ban [CHRC factum] after a school prohibited him from carrying the dagger when it accidentally fell from his clothing in 2001. Sikhism [Wikipedia backgrounder] requires that Sikh males wear the ceremonial dagger, known as a kirpan [Wikipedia backgrounder], at all times, but they are forbidden to use it as a weapon. CBC News has more.

The Canadian ruling comes in the context of international tension over the wearing of religious dress [JURIST news archive] in schools. Sikh turbans have been at the center of several disputes; a US-based Sikh group announced in January that it will use EU anti-discrimination law to challenge a new French law [JURIST report] banning religious dress, including Sikh turbans, in state academies.

[JURIST] A British judge on Thursday approved the takeover of a British shipping and ports company by the United Arab Emirates [government website] company Dubai Ports World [corporate website], a move which could lead to the Arab company taking control of operations of six major US ports. A US company, Eller & Co. [corporate website], had asked the court to block the takeover [JURIST report] because it would cost jobs, but a High Court judge in London denied the request and has approved DP World's takeover of P&O [corporate website]. BBC News has more.

Meanwhile, a US federal judge on Wednesday refused to grant an order for a full government investigation into the controversial takeover of port operations [JURIST news archive] by DP World. Judge Jose Linares said there was no need for a federal investigation because DP World voluntarily agreed to allow the US government a 45-day review of the takeover. The decision effectively denies New Jersey's request [JURIST report] for an injunction to force the federal government to investigate whether the takeover presents a security risk. Linares also denied New Jersey's request to access DPW documents used in an earlier federal review. The DPW takeover is controversial in the US, and critics, including members of Congress from both parties, say the US government is putting national security at risk by allowing the Dubai-based company to control the ports. President Bush has said that the deal does not place Americans in any danger. DPW agreed to the review in part to appease critics of the deal. BizWorld has more.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice [official website] Thursday sued [DOJ press release] the state of New York for violating the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) [text] by not developing voting systems that enable disabled voters easier access to cast their ballots and by not implementing a statewide computerized voter registration database. HAVA, which was passed in 2002, gave states three years to comply with the law's regulations and New York was one of numerous states that did not meet the set deadline [JURIST report] of January 1, 2006. The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division [official website] has asserted that it visited states in order to assess their HAVA implementation efforts and repeatedly requested that New York voluntarily come into compliance.

The government's suit, which follows an earlier threat to sue the state [JURIST report], alleges that the state accepted $221 million to aid in the mandated changes, including over $49 million to replace New York's current lever voting machines, but that the state did not use the money to meet the law's provisions. If New York does not update its machines by the September 2006 primary elections, it could lose the funding. The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York [official website], petitions the court to order the state to submit a plan on how it will come into compliance with the voter law. Read the DOJ press release.

[JURIST] A Ugandan military court-martial has reinstated firearms and terrorism charges [JURIST report] against defeated presidential candidate Kizza Besigye [BBC profile, JURIST news archive] after the military trial was postponed during elections [JURIST report]. Besigye's lawyers said Thursday that they will ignore the reinstated charges and that Besigye will not appear before the court-martial. Uganda's Constitutional Court has already dismissed the military charges saying that the army had no jurisdiction to try terror cases [JURIST report] or to run trials concurrent with the civilian High Court. The state has appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court. The chairman of the court-martial, Gen. Elly Tumwine, has also ordered Besigye to be brought before the court on March 15.

Besigye is already accused of treason and rape in civil court, where he is also scheduled to appear March 15. The opposition Forum for Democratic Change [party website] have said that the charges are part of an effort by the ruling party to extend current President Yoweri Museveni's 20-year rule. In last week's presidential elections [JURIST report], Museveni was re-elected by 59 percent of the vote. The FDC has said they will challenge the results in court [JURIST report]. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of Uganda [JURIST news archive]. Reuters has more. The Daily Monitor has local coverage.

[JURIST] A US Department of Defense [official website] official Wednesday defended the government's decision [JURIST report] in October to refuse access by UN investigators to detainees being held at the US prison base in Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], and reiterated that the operation of the facility is critical to information gathering in the war on terror. Brian Del Monte, deputy director of the Office of Detainee Policy, said that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) [official website] is the only external organization that is given clearance to visit the detainees, according to a mandate by the Geneva Conventions [ICRC materials]. A UN report [PDF text; JURIST report] released last month alleges prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay, but UN investigators never actually met with detainees and declined the Pentagon's invitation to tour the facility because they would not have been given access to interview those held there.

In a panel discussion [event details; recorded video] with Del Monte at the Heritage Foundation, Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] advocacy director Jennifer Daskal asked why UN investigators were denied meetings with detainees if "there's nothing to hide," and questioned why so many individuals who reportedly have limited information to offer [National Journal report] are still being held. Del Monte responded that the National Journal report was based on a small sample of evidence taken from Guantanamo and that suspects like those being held are trained to lie about their level of involvement in terrorist activities. CNSNews has more.

[JURIST] The US Senate [official website] has voted to accept changes to legislation that would renew the USA PATRIOT Act [PDF text; JURIST news archive], setting the stage for a final vote Thursday to authorize the renewal legislation. In one of several votes Wednesday, the Senate voted 95-4 [roll call vote] to approve a series of amendments [bill summary] to the USA PATRIOT and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005 [bill summary]. The amendments reflect a compromise agreement [PDF summary; JURIST report] reached by four holdout Republican senators with the White House. Sixteen key provisions [DOJ report, PDF] of the Patriot Act were set to expire at the end of last year, but members of Congress were unable to reach an agreement [JURIST report] on a long-term extension before Christmas and instead have passed two short-term extensions [JURIST report] keeping the provisions in force until March 10. The US House of Representatives and the White House had backed the renewal proposal in December's conference report [PDF text], but Senate Democrats, joined by the four Republicans, refused to agree, calling for more civil liberties protections to be incorporated into the renewal.

Also Wednesday, the Senate voted 84-15 [roll call vote] to limit debate on the reauthorization bill, cutting off the filibuster from Sen. Russ Feingold (D-MI) [official website], who accepted defeat [floor statement; recorded audio] Wednesday, saying "the dye has now been cast." Before ceding the floor, Feingold read the text of several resolutions passed by states in opposition to the renewal of the Patriot Act, and also read the full text of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. After the Senate votes to approve the renewal legislation, expected Thursday, the bill will go to the US House of Representatives [official website], where approval is also expected. President Bush must then sign the bill before it can take effect.

The debate on the Patriot Act may not be over, however, as several senators, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) [official website], ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy (D-VT) [official website], and Feingold have announced plans to introduce legislation [Leahy statement] that would add further civil liberties safeguards to the Patriot Act and the Reauthorization Act. Specter has also said that he will hold additional committee hearings on the subject. AP has more.

[JURIST Europe] The 25-member European Union (EU) [official website] has issued a statement of support for a draft resolution [PDF text; JURIST report] proposing a new UN Human Rights Council to replace the generally-discredited Human Rights Commission [official website], which has been severely criticized for not preventing rights violators from using their membership to protect one another from censure. The US is opposed to the proposal [JURIST report] sponsored by General Assembly President Jan Eliasson [official profile]. US Ambassador John Bolton [official profile] has promised to vote against it unless certain amendments are approved; the General Assembly vote on the resolution, originally expected this week, has now been delayed [JURIST report]. The EU statement says that the current resolution meets "the basic requirements for the establishment of a Human Rights Council" and that the EU "could therefore accept this text as a compromise."

The current draft calls for an absolute majority vote in the UN General Assembly (GA) [official website] but Bolton is suggesting the addition of a two-thirds vote for approval. He also wishes to reduce the number of members for the new council from the proposed 47 members. In response, Eliasson has voiced concerns about the difficulty of re-negotiating the draft as most UN members are only backing the draft in its present form. The General Assembly President is still hoping for a resolution before the Human Rights Commission meets on March 13 in Geneva. Reuters 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.

[JURIST Europe] The 25-member European Union (EU) [official website] has issued a statement of support for a draft resolution [PDF text; JURIST report] proposing a new UN Human Rights Council to replace the generally-discredited Human Rights Commission [official website], which has been severely criticized for not preventing rights violators from using their membership to protect one another from censure. The US is opposed to the proposal [JURIST report] sponsored by General Assembly President Jan Eliasson [official profile]. US Ambassador John Bolton [official profile] has promised to vote against it unless certain amendments are approved; the General Assembly vote on the resolution, originally expected this week, has now been delayed [JURIST report]. The EU statement says that the current resolution meets "the basic requirements for the establishment of a Human Rights Council" and that the EU "could therefore accept this text as a compromise."

The current draft calls for an absolute majority vote in the UN General Assembly (GA) [official website] but Bolton is suggesting the addition of a two-thirds vote for approval. He also wishes to reduce the number of members for the new council from the proposed 47 members. In response, Eliasson has voiced concerns about the difficulty of re-negotiating the draft as most UN members are only backing the draft in its present form. The General Assembly President is still hoping for a resolution before the Human Rights Commission meets on March 13 in Geneva. Reuters 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.

[JURIST Europe] The 25-member European Union (EU) [official website] has issued a statement of support for a draft resolution [PDF text; JURIST report] proposing a new UN Human Rights Council to replace the generally-discredited Human Rights Commission [official website], which has been severely criticized for not preventing rights violators from using their membership to protect one another from censure. The US is opposed to the proposal [JURIST report] sponsored by General Assembly President Jan Eliasson [official profile]. US Ambassador John Bolton [official profile] has promised to vote against it unless certain amendments are approved; the General Assembly vote on the resolution, originally expected this week, has now been delayed [JURIST report]. The EU statement says that the current resolution meets "the basic requirements for the establishment of a Human Rights Council" and that the EU "could therefore accept this text as a compromise."

The current draft calls for an absolute majority vote in the UN General Assembly (GA) [official website] but Bolton is suggesting the addition of a two-thirds vote for approval. He also wishes to reduce the number of members for the new council from the proposed 47 members. In response, Eliasson has voiced concerns about the difficulty of re-negotiating the draft as most UN members are only backing the draft in its present form. The General Assembly President is still hoping for a resolution before the Human Rights Commission meets on March 13 in Geneva. Reuters 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.

[JURIST] The US State Department [official website] has asked Congress for $100 million for building prisons in Iraq, its only remaining large-scale reconstruction project in the country. State Department Iraq Coordinator James Jeffrey [official profile; budget briefing transcript] describes the exercise as creating “additional bed capacity of the Iraqi legal system.” Iraqis will eventually take custody of thousands of detainees currently held by the US, and money would also be allocated to increase the number of prosecutors and corrections advisers and provide protection for judges, said Jeffrey.

The initial goal of the US rebuilding program in Iraq, so far allocated over $20 billion dollars by Congress, was to fix the country’s failing infrastructure by putting money towards electricity and water projects, but significant funds were later diverted for security spending in the face of the Iraqi insurgency. Critics suggest that allocating more money to building jails in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal [JURIST news archive] would be a public relations mistake, and that the prisons are a dubious final monument to the US presence in the country. Total funds sought by the State Department for its Iraqi assistance programs in 2006 and 2007 amount to $4 billion [State Dept. breakdown and description, PDF]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST Europe] UK Prime Minister Tony Blair [official profile] told the British House of Commons Wednesday that he hopes the US will close its much-criticized detention camp at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], but measured his words by adding that the US had justifiably opened it in response to the September 11 attacks. He referred to what he called a "judicial process" that could provide a means of closing the camp, presumably referring to the adjudication of cases involving current detainees. Blair was sharply criticized last month in the wake of the release of a scathing UN report [text, PDF] on the prison after he said it was an "anomaly" that had to be "dealt with" [JURIST report] but did follow other world leaders in actually calling for it to be shut down. The Guardian has local coverage.

Also Wednesday, Blair’s wife Cherie Booth [Wikipedia profile], a human rights lawyer, condemned all practices that have incorporated torture in the name of the war on terror in a speech at Chatham House [press release], a British international affairs think-tank. Her remarks come in the wake of an Amnesty International report [official text] about the UK's human rights abuses in the fight against terrorism. Although Booth did not mention Guantanamo Bay specifically, she derided several practices that the US government has allegedly committed at Guantanamo, such as obtaining forced confessions from detainees through torture. The Independent has local coverage. AP has more.

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

[JURIST] The former head of the Human Rights Office [official website] at the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq [official website] has told the BBC that extra-judicial killings and torture have become "endemic" in Iraq, and that up to 75% of bodies in the Baghdad morgue show signs of torture or execution. John Pace, a diplomat from Malta, said that most of the killings were connected to Shiite militias directed by Bayan Jabr, a prominent member of the the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq [FAS backgrounder].

Pace also said that staff at the Baghdad mortuary face regular threats aimed at stopping autopsies and suppressing evidence, and that morgue director Faik Amin Bakir had fled the country after submitting a report identifying more than 7,000 killings caused by death squads, some of which operate within the Iraqi police. BBC News has more. The Guardian has additional coverage. In an interview with the Times of Malta last week, Pace said the US was "aware" of torture taking place in Iraq prisons, estimated that in December 400 of 780 bodies brought into the Baghdad morgue had gunshot wounds or wounds caused by electric drills, and said that non-existence of law and order has left Iraqi society without any protection.

[JURIST] China's new Law on Public Security Administrative Penalties [text in Chinese; press release] took effect Wednesday, creating 165 new offenses and setting maximum penalties ranging from 200 yuan ($25 US) to 15 days detention for Chinese citizens all the way to deportation for foreigners. The new offenses include repeatedly sending pornographic cellphone messages and disturbing public order at public events. This is the third revision of China's public security rules; originally issued in 1957, they were previously revised in 1986 and 1994. Chinese officials say the higher financial penalties reflect increases in Chinese personal income, 8.6 times higher today than that in 1986. The law was passed last August but not immediately implemented. China Daily has more. Shanghai Daily has background coverage.

Wednesday also saw the implementation of the previously approved [JURIST report] Regulation on AIDS Prevention and Control, which bans discrimination against HIV and AIDS patients. The RAPC is the Chinese government's first legal declaration on AIDS. CRI has more.

[JURIST] For the first time since the Guantanamo Bay war crimes tribunals convened in August 2004, a presiding military judge has said that he will examine potential evidence to determine if it was obtained through torture before ruling on admissibility. Presiding judge Col. Peter Brownback discussed the issue at a pre-trial hearing [JURIST report] for detainee Ali Hamza al Bahlul [charge sheet, PDF; DOD materials], who has admitted to being a member of the terrorist organization al Qaeda. Bahlul is charged with making recruiting videos and serving as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden [JURIST news archive]. Brownback addressed questions raised by Bahlul's military lawyer, Army Maj. Tom Fleener, and asserted that although he personally does not believe evidence obtained from torture should be acceptable, he will still exercise careful consideration of the evidence.

The military commissions [JURIST news archive; DOD materials] have many critics [Reuters report], including Fleener, who has described the trials as "shams." Preliminary hearings in Bahlul's case continue despite a pending ruling [JURIST report] from a US Supreme Court [judicial website] case examining whether President George W. Bush [official profile] possessed the authority to create military tribunals to try terrorist detainees. Bahlul refused to participate [AP report] in Wednesday's hearing, saying that he would not receive a fair trial. At a hearing [JURIST report] in January, Bahlul held up a sign reading "boycott" in Arabic, and though he attended part of proceedings Wednesday, he told Brownback that his presence did mean that he had abandoned his intention to boycott the trial. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The six men convicted in October 2004 of committing sexual abuse [JURIST report] against women and underage girls on the British possession of Pitcairn Island [government website] over a period of 30 years have lost their latest appeals. Appearing before a specially-constituted Pitcairn Court of Appeal [Wikipedia backgrounder] in Auckland, New Zealand, the men had asserted that English law did not apply to their case as Pitcairn Island never ratified or approved the British legal system. The islanders - half the island's able-bodied male population - will now appeal to Judicial Committee of the Privy Council [official website], the highest appeal court for current and former British colonies, later this year. Pitcairn Island was originally settled by descendants of Fletcher Christian who led the 1789 mutiny against Captain William Bligh on the HMS Bounty. AFP has more.