[JURIST] The US Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] has scheduled a hearing [notice] for Friday, March 31 on a resolution [text, PDF] introduced by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) [official website] censuring President Bush for allegedly breaking the law with his warrantless domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive]. Feingold introduced the censure resolution [JURIST report] in early March, but it received only a lukewarm reception [JURIST report] from fellow Senate Democrats. Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) [official website] says he wants to explore the issues surrounding the proposed censure, but does not intend to turn the session into a political forum, adding that he believes the censure proposal is baseless. Feingold had said that if the Judiciary Committee did not deal with the resolution "expeditiously", he would reintroduce it in the full Senate.

Some Republicans insist that the censure plan indicates that Democrats will attempt to take action against President Bush if they gain control of either the House or the Senate in the upcoming 2006 Congressional elections. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] A judge in Mississippi Friday issued the first federal ruling on insurance litigation related to the Hurricane Katrina disaster [JURIST news archive], denying a request from Allstate Insurance Co. [corporate website] to dismiss a case brought by homeowners claiming that Allstate representatives falsely led them to believe that flood damage would be covered by their hurricane insurance policy, and that a separate flood insurance policy was unnecessary. US District Judge L.T. Senter [official profile] held that a trial would be necessary to determine the facts; if a jury believes the homeowners, Allstate will be liable for the damages that homeowners believed were covered. Senter also determined that damages caused by wind and rain must be covered under the hurricane insurance policies, even if the jury determines that flood damages are not covered.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood [official website] is bringing a similar class-action suit [press release, PDF] in Mississippi state court and said he was optimistic about the federal court decision, although it will have no effect on the state suit. From Jackson, Mississippi, NBC affiliate WLBT has more.

[JURIST] The Federal Election Commission (FEC) [official website] Friday proposed new rules [draft text, PDF] that would require federal political candidates to pay for internet advertisements out of funds regulated by federal campaign laws, but would otherwise leave most online political activity free from government regulation. Recently, a federal appeals court ordered [opinion text, PDF] the six-member FEC to create regulations that extend campaign finance and spending limits regulations online, saying that the previous definition of “public communication” impermissibly excluded all internet communications. The new definition includes only advertising on another person’s website. The FEC stated that the rules:

are intended to ensure that political committees properly finance and disclose their Internet communications, without impeding individual citizens from using the Internet to speak freely regarding candidates and elections.

[JURIST] The former UN Chief Prosecutor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone [official website] who signed the indictment [PDF text] of ex-Liberian president Charles Taylor in 2003 Saturday hailed Nigeria's promise to hand over the former warlord [JURIST report], telling JURIST that "This is a great day for the people of Africa and for justice for the tens of thousand of victims" of Taylor's military adventures in Sierra Leone. In the 1990s Taylor armed the Revolutionary United Front [NPS backgrounder], a group vying for control of the country's lucrative diamond mines that engaged in a bloody rampage of killing, kidnapping and mutilation against civilians. Crane's March 3, 2003 indictment charged Taylor with 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity and was initially unsealed on June 4, 2003 as Taylor arrived in Accra, Ghana to allegedly begin the peace process to end the Liberian civil war. Last week Crane publicly added his voice to Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's call for Nigeria to hand Taylor over to Liberia, writing in a JURIST op-ed that the time had come "for justice to begin in West Africa."

A Taylor spokesman in Nigeria nonetheless insisted Saturday that African leaders who had helped to negotiate the eventual peace agreement had agreed that Taylor could not be tried, saying, according to Reuters "There are many African leaders whose countries have a conflict situation, like Sudan, Uganda, Congo... They may no longer have faith in an African solution and they may not agree to step down voluntarily as President Taylor did." Nigeria has consistently declined to hand Taylor over to the Special Court directly, but had suggested that it would respond to a Liberian request to have him transferred home. If Taylor is brought before the Special Court he would be the first African head of state to appear before an international war crimes tribunal, and only the second leader in history after ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, who died earlier this month in the fifth year of his trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A federal magistrate has ordered the Bush administration to stop blocking a private attorney from meeting with Salim Muhood Adem, one of the 490 detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive]. Adem, a Sudanese national arrested in Pakistan, asked for a lawyer in late 2004 by having another prisoner request help through his own attorney. Murray Fogler was named attorney for Adem through the Center for Constitutional Rights [advocacy website], but the government insisted on written authorization from Adem before allowing Adem’s attorney to meet with him. Complying with the government’s demand proved difficult without face-to-face contact because the nonlegal military mail system can take months to deliver a letter, which is subject to review and censorship. The government barred Fogler from using the military’s swift delivery system for legal mail, refusing to acknowledge Fogler’s authority to represent Adem. Kay wrote:

It appears that attempts to inform detainees of their rights in writing have been, at best, fraught with difficulty. Furthermore, the Protective Order clearly provides that counsel for Adem may meet with him twice before they are obliged to provide evidence of authority to represent him. Considering the lack of any possible prejudice to the Government from allowing Adem to confirm his desire for representation in person rather than in writing and weighing the importance of Adem's right to counsel, which he has been attempting to exercise for over a year, Respondents are ordered to comply with the Protective Order and allow Adem's counsel to meet with him in person as soon as possible.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Nepal [official website] has upheld an ordinance issued by King Gyanendra [official profile; BBC profile] that permits detention of suspected terrorists without charge or trial for up to a year. A 2-1 majority of a three-judge panel ruled Thursday that preventative detention provisions were permissible and constitutional under the umbrella of national security interests. Gyanendra's Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Control and Punishment) Ordinance 2061 (TADO) [excerpts] renewed and in some respects tightened the controversial Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Control and Punishment) Act (TADA) [Asia Pacific Human Rights Network backgrounder, PDF] that had previously expired in October 2004.

The single justice who dissented said that the preventive detention provision conflicted with Articles 12 and 15 of the Nepal Constitution [text] and was therefore void. Indo-Asian News Service has more. The Kathmandu Post has local coverage.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] responded Friday to Democratic questions [PDF text] and Republican questions [PDF text] from members of the House Judiciary Committee [official website] regarding the Bush administration's domestic surveillance [JURIST news archive] program, maintaining that National Security Agency (NSA) [official website] warrantless wiretapping of suspected terrorists is legal and satisfies the requirements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [text]. The DOJ responses did not reveal much new information, but did indicate that information collected by NSA surveillance could be introduced in courts and that ordinarily confidential conversations between lawyers and their clients, and doctors and their patients, could be monitored so long as the program's general criteria are satisfied. The government declined to answer several of the submitted questions in the name of national security.

In response to the DOJ statements, top House Judiciary Committee Democrat Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) [official website], criticized the government's responses as overly evasive and the American Civil Liberties Union [advocacy website] renewed its criticism [press release] of the government's refusal to disclose many details of its warrantless wiretapping program. AP has more. Raw Story has additional coverage.

[JURIST] Riot police and demonstrators clashed Saturday in the Belarus [JURIST news archive] capital city of Minsk as thousands of citizens gathered again to protest alleged election fraud in last Sunday's presidential elections [JURIST report] in which current President Alexander Lukashenko [official website; BBC profile] was reelected. Opposition politician Aleksander Kozulin was reportedly beaten and detained by police as he was leading the march, although opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich [campaign website; Wikipedia profile] denied reports that he himself had been arrested.

Election protests have been ongoing since last weekend. Police detained hundreds of demonstrators and shut down an election protest camp [JURIST report] in October Square Friday, leading protestors to move their opposition rally to a park Saturday and then on to a jail where fellow demonstrators are being detained following their recent arrests. BBC News has more. AP has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The Nigerian government said Saturday that it would allow the transfer of ex-Liberia president and fugitive war crimes indictee Charles Taylor [JURIST news archive] to Liberian authorities. According to a statement: "President Olusegun Obasanjo has today, 25 March, informed President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf that the government of Liberia is free to take former President Charles Taylor into its custody."

Liberia formally requested Taylor's transfer [JURIST report] earlier this month, with current president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf saying that if Taylor were handed over he would immediately be put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity [indictment, PDF] before the UN-supported Special Court for Sierra Leone [official website]. Saturday's statement did not specify exactly when, how, or where Taylor's handover would actually take place.

Taylor has been living in exile in Nigeria since 2003 after leaving Liberia in the wake of a peace deal that ended a bloody civil war. David Crane, the former UN chief prosecutor who signed Taylor's Special Court indictment, has said Taylor essentially "destroyed two West African nations, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and was individually criminally liable for the murder, rape, maiming, and mutilation of over a million human beings". BBC News has more.

ALSO ON JURIST  Op-ed: Handing Over Charles Taylor: It's Time [David Crane, ex-Chief Prosecutor, Special Court for Sierra Leone]

[JURIST] US District Judge Leonie Brinkema issued an order [PDF text] late Friday quashing a subpoena [JURIST report] that had been issued for Transportation Security Administration lawyer Carla Martin [Wikipedia profile] in the sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui [JURIST news archive]. Brinkema did not specify why she canceled Martin's court appearance that was scheduled for Monday, though Martin's lawyers had reportedly sought to block her appearance [AP report].

Martin has been accused of coaching witnesses [JURIST report] and disclosing the government's case in violation of a sequestration order [PDF text]. AP has more.