[JURIST] Iraq's parliament [official website] adjourned abruptly Thursday following a heated debate about a draft law that would divide the country into autonomous regions. Sunnis oppose the plan because it would leave them without access to Iraq's oil as most Sunnis live in the central and western provinces of the country where oil resources are limited. Still, Shiite lawmakers, who proposed the draft plan [JURIST report] earlier this week, insisted on discussing the matter, which was not on Thursday's agenda. This infuriated Sunni leaders, who already share a tense relationship [BBC backgrounder] with Shiites. One Sunni bloc, the National Dialogue Front, threatened to withdraw from parliament [VOI report] if it adopted the bill.

Most members of parliament later agreed to delay a first reading [VOI report] of the proposal until Sunday. Many Iraqi leaders say they would like to amend the Iraq's constitution [JURIST news archive] before passing any new laws. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Four human rights experts appointed by the United Nations [official website] are heading to the Middle East to investigate possible abuses during the recent Mideast conflict [JURIST news archive] between Israel and Lebanon. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Representative on the human rights of internally displaced persons Walter Kälin, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health Paul Hunt and Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living Miloon Kothari will meet with government officials in those countries and visit areas where violence took place. The independent experts will submit their findings to the Human Rights Council [official website].

Earlier this month, the Council created a three-person panel [JURIST report] to look into Israel's conduct during the monthlong war. More than 850 Lebanese, mostly civilians, were killed during the conflict. Israelis have been accused of unlawfully targeting civilians [JURIST report] and have been warned along with Hezbollah guerrillas that they could be held liable for war crimes [JURIST report]. UN News Centre has more.

[JURIST] Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper [official website] Thursday urged [press release] members of the Canadian Senate's Special Committee on Senate Reform [official website] to support legislation [text] that would limit terms in the country's unelected Senate [official website] to eight years. Currently, senators appointed on a regional basis can retain their seats until the age of 75. Harper's appearance marked the first time a sitting Canadian prime minister has attended a parliamentary Senate committee meeting, although former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau testified before a committee considering the abortive Meech Lake constitutional accord [text] in 1987.

Senate reform [CBC backgrounder] has been a ongoing topic of political debate in Canada for decades. At Thursday's Senate committee meeting, Harper also discussed his plan to directly elect senators [JURIST report], which he hopes will start with Canada's next election. As a constitutional change, any adjustment of the Senate's composition would require the approval of seven of the country's ten provinces. The Globe and Mail has more.

[JURIST] A bill [text, PDF; JURIST news archive] designed to put the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive] on a sound legal footing failed to make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] Thursday. Sponsored by committee chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) [official website], the legislation [S.2453 summary] would have increased the secret warrant time limit from three to seven days, required progress reports from the US attorney general twice a year, and would have submitted the surveillance program for a one-time constitutional review. After Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI) [official website] criticized the bill at length and introduced four amendments, Specter voiced his displeasure at what he felt was a strategic move to filibuster the legislation.

US House and Senate lawmakers are considering other bills [JURIST report] relating to the controversial program, including one [summary] proposed by US Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) [official website]. Congress was faced with an urgent need to deal with the legal status of the surveillance program after a US District Court judge ruled [JURIST report] last month that it was unconstitutional and ordered the National Security Agency [official website] to immediately cease using warrantless wiretaps to intercept communications of suspected terrorists when one party to the communication is outside the US. AP has more.

9:24 PM ET - In a speech [transcript] Thursday, President Bush said he was confident that the federal court ruling on the NSA surveillance program would be overturned on appeal, but said that "a series of protracted legal challenges would put a heavy burden on this critical and vital program. The surest way to keep the program is to get explicit approval from the United States Congress. So today I'm calling on the Congress to promptly pass legislation providing additional authority for the Terrorist Surveillance Program, along with broader reforms in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."

[JURIST] A Senate Foreign Relations Committee [official website] vote on whether to confirm the nomination of John Bolton [official profile] as permanent US ambassador to the United Nations [official website] was postponed Thursday after Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) [official website] called for more information from Bolton. Senate Committee chairman Richard Lugar (R-IN) [official website] has not said when a rescheduled vote will take place. Democrats have criticized [JURIST report] Bolton, traditionaly a strong UN critic, for his reluctance and perhaps inability to work amicably with UN officials to push institutional reform. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) [official website] warned of a possible Democratic filibuster of the nomination in the Senate and has expressed his view [JURIST report] that Bolton lacks credibility [JURIST report] to serve as the US ambassador. Republicans remain optimistic that Bolton will be confirmed.

To avoid initial opposition in the Senate [JURIST report], President Bush gave Bolton the job [JURIST report] on an interim basis last year through a recess appointment [Slate backgrounder] that expires when the new congressional session begins in January. The confirmation delay comes in the midst of several UN crises, including the aftermath of the Middle East conflict [JURIST news archive] and possible sanctions against Iran [JURIST news archive] for its nuclear program, both issues on which Bolton has been active as a vocal proponent of administration policy. AP has more.

[JURIST] Defense lawyer Badih Aref Izzat, representing a co-defendant in Saddam Hussein's trial [JURIST news archive], announced Thursday that his assistant had been found murdered in Baghdad. Abdel Monem Yassin Hussein is said to have been kidnapped on August 29 and was found five days later in a hospital morgue with three gunshot wounds. Izzat is defending intelligence officer Farhan Al Juburi, on trial along with Hussein and five other co-defendants, on genocide and crimes against humanities charges [JURIST report] in connection with the so-called "Anfal" operation [HRW backgrounder] that led to the killings of as many as 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq in the 1980s. The death follows a July hunger strike [JURIST report] by Hussein in protest at the earlier murder of three defense lawyers [JURIST report]. His defense team has already boycotted proceedings [JURIST report] to dramatize their call for greater security measures.

Hussein and his seven co-defendants are also charged with crimes against humanity [JURIST report] for allegedly killing, torturing and illegally detaining Dujail residents, as well as committing other inhumane acts, in response to an alleged 1982 assassination attempt on Hussein. The Iraqi High Tribunal is set to deliver a verdict on the Dujail charges on October 16, and Hussein is eligible for the death penalty [JURIST report]. Chief Judge Abdullah al-Amiri [JURIST report] has adjourned proceedings [JURIST report] until September 11, allowing time for the defense to file an appeal challenging the court's legitimacy. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals [official website] held Thursday in a 2-1 opinion [text; PDF] that state rules on participation in Ohio's primary elections make it prohibitive for minority parties to be included on the ballot. The court ruled that the requirement that parties must file petitions with signatures 120 days before the election "have a negative impact on minor parties and on political activity as a whole in Ohio" by violating the First Amendment [text] of the US Constitution and imposing "a severe burden on the associational rights of the LPO, its members, and its potential vote-supporters." The Libertarian Party of Ohio (LPO) [official website] filed the appeal after its 2004 lawsuit against Secretary of State Ken Blackwell [official website], who denied the Libertarian Party access to the ballot, was thrown out by a lower court. A dissent by Judge Griffin points out that "the challenged Ohio election regulations treat the LPO the same as any other political party. The primary election required by the Ohio Constitution and petition filing time requirements chosen by the Ohio General Assembly are not severe, but reasonable, in order to insure a fair, honest, and orderly election."

A federal judge on Friday issued an order [JURIST report] directing Ohio voters to ignore threats of criminal penalties on voter registration forms and instructions [PDF text], saying that new state registration rules which took effect in May after the February passage of the controversial HB 3 election reform bill [text] by the Republican-dominated Ohio Legislature may violate the First Amendment and unduly burden efforts to register voters. AP has more.

[JURIST] Leading Thursday's international brief, international NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] has said that the Sudanese government [official website in Arabic] has entered a prolonged campaign of randomly bombing civilian locations [press release] in the Darfur region [JURIST news archive] and asked the UN Security Council [official website] to initiate sanctions against key Sudanese government officials. Under Resolution 1591 [text, PDF], any entity or individual authorizing or practicing indiscriminate bombing of civilian locations in Darfur is subject to international sanctions. HRW called on the UN to activate these sanctions against Sudanese officials in control of military forces in Darfur. The Sudan Tribune has local coverage.

In other international legal news ...

• Leading AIDS activist Hu Jia was taken from his home in Beijing by police officials who refused to show a police summons authorizing Hu's detention. Beijing police officials have refused to answer calls directed to the local police station in question. Hu is one of China's leading human rights campaigners and has spent the last month under house arrest for protests carried out against China's One Child Policy [government backgrounder]. Hu alleged that earlier this year he was held for nearly a month without cause or arrest in order to keep him from organizing protests and warned that he was seeking advice on suing the Chinese government [official website] for unlawful detention. The International Herald Tribune has more.
  
  
• Eddie Makue, the head of the South African Council of Churches [official website] has released a copy of a private letter, which he sent to key parliamentary officials in South Africa, that calls for the South African government [official website] to create a single, unified code for handling the country's marriage system. The South African Constitutional Court [judicial website] ruled in a 2005 decision [judgment, PDF; summary] that the current definition of marriage was unconstitutional and gave the government until December 2006 to provide a new definition [JURIST report]. The current administration proposed a dual system of legislation for handling marriage and domestic and civil partnerships. Makue warned that separate systems of law have proven repeatedly to never be equal and that the government should focus simply on complying with the constitution and allowing individuals and religious faiths the freedom to exercise their faith as they wished. Makue also argued that the best way to keep legal treatment of individuals in South Africa equal would be to simply amend the Marriage Act [PDF text], rather than create a new legal system for a different "class" of people. South Africa's Mail & Guardian Online has local coverage.
  
  
• Indonesian Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono has said that, despite continued pressure from the Indonesian Parliament (MPR) [official website in Bahasa Indonesian] and the final approval of an amendment to the Indonesian Military Law, the structure for trying military personnel of all ranks in civilian courts, rather than military, would not be ready to implement within the two year time limit placed by the MPR. The law's amendment was a response to public perception that military tribunals were whitewash affairs for officers and enlisted personnel accused of misconduct and crimes against civilians. Under the amendment, any military person charged with crimes against an Indonesian civilian will be tried in civilian courts. Sudarsono argued that, while the government [official website in Bahasa Indonesian] was committed to the amendment, the criminal justice system in Indonesia was not prepared for the introduction of these trials and that the nation's Criminal Code has no provisions in place for implementing such trials, implying that the Criminal Code would need to be amended as well before the amendment could take effect. The Jakarta Post has local coverage.

[JURIST] The Bush administration has been "disappointed" with the work [statement, PDF] of the newly formed UN Human Rights Council [official website; JURIST news archive], according to US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Mark Lagon [official profile] during his remarks Wednesday at a hearing [recorded video] of the US House of Representatives International Relations Subcommittee on Africa [official website]. The new rights council was created [JURIST report] earlier this year to replace the highly criticized UN Commission on Human Rights, and the council has focused this summer on the denouncing Israel's handling of the conflict in Lebanon in special sessions in July and August.

US Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ) [official website] said the human rights body has so far ignored other issues [statement] ripe for its consideration, including the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and rights violations in North Korea, Zimbabwe, China, and Burma. The Washington Times has more. The State Department's Washington File has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The Defense Department's top military lawyers testified [recorded audio] Thursday before the US House Armed Services Committee [official website], urging Congress to reject White House proposals that would keep some evidence from suspected terrorists who face prosecutions. The Bush administration submitted [JURIST report] the Military Commissions Act of 2006 [PDF text; White House fact sheet] Wednesday, which among other things calls for classified information to be kept private, but military lawyers including Maj. Gen. Scott Black [official profile; prepared statement, PDF], Judge Advocate General of the US Army [official website], expressed concern that US soldiers captured abroad could face the same standards. Thursday's testimony echoed that given by some of the same military lawyers at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing [JURIST report] in July on the implications of the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ruling.

The lawyers said allowing suspected terrorists to see all evidence was a requirement of the Geneva Conventions [ICRC materials] and in line with the rights offered in other country's court systems. US Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) [official website], head of the House committee, alternatively argued that the disclosure of classified information could reveal intelligence sources to the public. President Bush Thursday urged Congress [speech transcript; Reuters report] to pass the military commissions legislation, saying that the sooner Congress acts the sooner detainees will be brought to justice. AP has more.

[JURIST] The European Court of Justice [official website] ruled [text] Thursday that Great Britain's rest period guidelines for workers are not in compliance with European Union [official website] law which mandates minimum daily and weekly breaks. Member countries of the EU are obligated to ensure workers receive 11 consecutive hours of rest in every 24-hour period and a 24-hour rest period in each seven-day work period. The court found issue with Britain's guidelines which mandated that employers give workers the opportunity for the breaks, but did not also call for employers to ensure the workers were actually taking the rest periods.

The European Court of Justice issued a statement [PDF] Thursday on its decision saying, "The guidelines are liable to render the right of workers to daily and weekly rest periods meaningless because they do not oblige employers to ensure that workers actually take the minimum rest periods." AFP has more.

[JURIST] The Florida Supreme Court [official website] plans to analyze newly proposed rules that would stop the practice of sealing certain court cases from public view in a system that Chief Justice Fred Lewis [official profile] said has "gone awry" Wednesday. A Miami Herald investigation [report] uncovered over 400 hidden negligence, malpractice, divorce, and criminal cases involving judges, lawyers, politicians, businessmen, and police officers in the Broward County Circuit Court [official website] since 1989. Lewis called on the Florida Association of Court Clerks and Comptrollers [profession website] to conduct a probe into the cases on the secret docket [PDF list], and the resulting proposals by the group would mandate public hearings before a judge could seal any court record and would require written explanations before making any information private.

The Florida Supreme Court will review the suggested rules over the next few weeks. The rules may be adopted in whole or in part, or the judiciary could create their own rules, which may be implemented by an emergency order. The Florida public will also have the chance to give their opinion on the rules before a decision is reached by the court. The Miami Herald has more.

[JURIST] An Indonesian court Thursday sentenced Islamic militant Dwi Widiarto to 18 years in prison for his part in the October 2005 bombings [BBC report] of three restaurants in Bali which killed 26 people. Widiarto was charged with videotaping the three suicide bombers and meeting on three occasions with the suspected coordinator of the attacks, Noordin Mohammed Top [BBC profile; Wikipedia profile], who is a member of the militant group Jemaah Islamiyah [CFR backgrounder] with links to al Qaeda. Widiarto was also charged with creating a website giving instructions on how to eliminate foreigners in Jakarta.

Widiarto was charged along with three other men in the attacks and the Denpasar District Court has reached verdicts convicting all of them under anti-terrorism laws. The four were eligible for the death penalty, but prosecutors sought prison sentences [JURIST report] instead. Last week, the court sentenced another militant to eight years in prison [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] Amnesty International [advocacy website] on Thursday criticized Colombia [press release] for allowing attacks on human rights defenders, calling on the international community to provide more support for local activists in Colombia [JURIST news archive]. In a new report [text] released Thursday, Amnesty blamed the Colombian government for facilitating hostilities against human rights activists and highlighted an apparently coordinated effort by Colombian security forces and paramilitary groups to discredit activists. Amnesty also called on Colombian President Alvaro Uribe [BBC profile] to publicly recognize "the legitimacy of human rights activists," prosecute those responsible for human rights violations, and prevent the "use of unfounded criminal charges against human rights activists."

Though Amnesty says rights workers receive limited physical protections from the Colombian government, it argues that activists need guarantees that the government will respect their efforts to expose human rights violations in the country, particularly in remote areas with a weak government presence. Several activist groups and individuals have been threatened politically and physically, and Amnesty argues that the government undermines the work of the activists by not investigating threats and effectively silences some activists. Earlier this year, the International Federation for Human Rights and the Geneva-based World Organisation Against Torture [advocacy websites] cited Colombia in a study [text, PDF; JURIST report] detailing the thousands of activists around the world that were subject to murder, assaults, imprisonment and other forms of repression in 2005. AP has more.

[JURIST] Rights activists on Thursday called for more information from the US government regarding secret CIA prisons where high-value terror suspects have been detained, saying that though US President George Bush's acknowledgement [JURIST report] Wednesday of the prisons' existence was welcome, more information needs to be disclosed. Manfred Nowak [DOC profile], the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture [official website], called the transfer of 14 high-value terror suspects [DNI profiles, PDF] to Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] from secret detention centers an "improvement," but pointed out that there may be many more detainees being held in undisclosed locations. The London-based rights group Liberty [advocacy website], meanwhile, on Thursday called on the UK government [press release] to "come clean" on any involvement with the US regarding the secret prisons. AP has more.

Also Thursday, EU lawmakers urged European countries which housed the prisons to step forward with any information they may have. Wolfgang Kreissl-Doerfler [official website, in German], a member of the European Parliament [official website] committee investigating the allegations [official website; JURIST report], stressed the importance of EU countries or those seeking membership to reveal their participation, including Poland and Romania, both accused of being involved [JURIST report]. Members of the committee are planning to visit Poland, Romania, Great Britain, and Germany as part of their investigation. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger [official website] on Wednesday vetoed the Free Curriculum Act [text, PDF], a bill designed to add protections against discrimination in schools by prohibiting teaching or textbooks that "reflect adversely" on students based on their sexual orientation. The bill passed both the state Senate and Assembly [roll calls] last month. Schwarzenegger argued that existing law already "provides clear protection" against discrimination in schools because it bans discrimination of students based on sex, ethnicity, religion, disability and sexual orientation.

Bill sponsor California Sen. Sheila Kuehl [official website], a Democrat who was the first lesbian elected to the California legislature, countered [press release] that existing laws protect against discrimination in school activities and programs, but fail to protect against discrimination contained in "textbooks and instructional materials." AP has more. The San Francisco Chronicle has local coverage.

[JURIST] The US Justice Department [official website] filed a motion Wednesday requesting US District Judge Simeon T. Lake III defer a ruling on vacating the criminal record [JURIST report] of former Enron [JURIST news archive] CEO Kenneth Lay [Houston Chronicle profile; JURIST news archive] until former Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling [Houston Chronicle profile] is sentenced on October 23. Lay and Skilling were convicted of fraud and conspiracy charges [JURIST report] in May but Lay died of a heart attack [JURIST report] before his sentencing hearing. DOJ attorneys filed its motion to allow Congress time to consider a bill drafted by DOJ lawyers that would remove the "doctrine of abatement" from the criminal code, a vehicle that allows federal courts to throw out convictions of criminal defendants that die pending an appeal and generally hinders efforts to collect civil penalties from the families of deceased defendants. The DOJ wants Congress to pass the law in an effort to recover more than $40 million from Lay's estate.

Federal agents did not seize any of Lay's assets under a forfeiture order [motion text, PDF] that was filed days before Lay's death [Washington Post report], and if the court dismisses the conviction, the federal government will have no means of seizing property controlled by the Lay estate to compensate victims of the Enron collapse. Instead, victims will have to pursue civil remedies against Lay [JURIST report] in order to recover money lost when Enron declared bankruptcy in 2001. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] US District Court Judge Ewing Werlein has set either February 5 or September 4, 2007 as the trial date for three former British bankers [JURIST news archive], known as the Natwest Three, who face fraud charges related to the Enron scandal [JURIST news archive]. Defense lawyers argued for a late trial date in order to allow sufficient time to complete their investigations both in the UK and in the US, but Werlein set the February date in case the defense completes their preparation earlier than expected. In a pretrial conference Wednesday, Werlein also denied a defense motion to have him removed from the case because of a possible conflict of interest as a result of his association with his former law firm Vinson & Elkins [official website], which had represented Enron prior to its 2001 collapse.

David Bermingham, Giles Darby, and Gary Mulgrew were extradited to the US [JURIST report] to face seven counts of wire fraud [indictment, PDF] each for allegedly entering into a secret agreement with former Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow [Chronicle profile] to defraud National Westminster Bank of $19 million while keeping $7 million for themselves. All pleaded not guilty and have been living in the US [JURIST reports] since July 13 on a $1 million bond that requires their presence in the US pending trial. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] An amendment to the FY 2007 Department of Defense Appropriations bill [HR 5631 summary] which would prohibit the US military from using cluster bombs in proximity to civilians was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 70-30 [roll call] on Wednesday. The Cluster Munitions Amendment [PDF text], introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) [official website] and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) [official website], would also restrict the sale of cluster bombs to purchasers who agreed to avoid civilian targets. In a press release [text], Feinstein stated that "unexploded cluster bombs fuel anger and resentment and make security, stabilization, and reconstruction efforts that much harder," while Leahy commented [press release] that the US "used massive numbers of cluster munitions in the invasion of Iraq, including in densely inhabited areas, and innocent civilians paid and continue to pay a terrible price."

This vote comes after the US State Department's [official website] Directorate of Defense Trade Controls [official website] opened an investigation [JURIST report] last month into whether Israel used cluster munitions [FAS backgrounder; Cluster Munition Coalition advocacy website] in Lebanon during the most recent Middle East conflict [JURIST news archive] in violation of several US-Israel agreements restricting the use of the weapons. Cluster munitions are considered by many to be inaccurate weapons designed to spread damage indiscriminately and could therefore be considered illegal [backgrounder] under multiple provisions of Protocol I [text] of the Geneva Conventions (1977). AP has more.

[JURIST] US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) [official website] said Wednesday that negotiations in Congress to implement comprehensive immigration reform [JURIST news archive] will be streamlined to focus on border security and worksite enforcement. Both houses of Congress have passed immigration reform bills and the two versions must be reconciled and voted on before a final bill can be presented to President Bush for his signature. The Senate bill [S 2611 summary], passed in May [JURIST report], would set millions of illegal immigrants on a path to potential citizenship and would authorize a temporary worker program, while the more restrictive House version [HR 4437 summary], passed last year [JURIST report], makes unlawful presence in the US a felony subject to deportation and could punish humanitarian groups aiding illegals. The House of Representatives held several hearings on immigration reform [JURIST report] throughout the summer in an effort to address concerns with the legislation [JURIST report] passed by the US Senate.

Frist said Wednesday that "it would be next to impossible to pass a comprehensive bill that includes dealing with the diversity of 12 million people here in the next three weeks" and House leaders are due to meet Thursday to discuss a plan to pass measures for stricter border security and increased spending on border agents before the November 7 break for congressional elections. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) [official website] responded [press release] to Frist's comments by calling for a "solution to our broken immigration system" and criticizing Republicans' failure to "pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill to protect our borders." Critics warn that only comprehensive legislation can deal with the 12 million illegal immigrants [JURIST report], with nearly 850,000 new illegal immigrants coming to the US each year since 2000. Reuters has more.