[JURIST] Democratic Republic of Congo [JURIST news archive] Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba [campaign website, in French; Wikipedia profile] filed an anticipated challenge [JURIST report] to the results of last month's presidential run-off election [JURIST report] in the country's Supreme Court Saturday. Congolese military personnel and UN peacekeeping forces surrounded the high court building in downtown Kinshasa as a precaution against rioting. Officials announced Wednesday that Bemba lost the election to incumbent Joseph Kabila [BBC profile; PPRD party website, in French] by 16 percentage points. The challenge alleges seven different violations including ballot-box stuffing, irregularities in voter turnout, and the barring of election officials from some polling places.

Voting fraud [JURIST report] has been an issue [JURIST report] throughout the election. Over 30 people have died [NYT report] in election-related violence since the initial poll July 30. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] About 300 protesters demonstrated Saturday in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia [JURIST news archive], calling for a US retrial of Khalid Adem, a Ethiopian immigrant to the United States who earlier this month was convicted of circumcising his daughter [JURIST report] in 2001. In what was believed to be the first US case of its kind, a Georgia state court [Gwinnett County courts website] sentenced Adem to ten years in prison for sexually mutilating his then-two-year-old daughter with a pair of scissors. The Georgia General Assembly [official website] enacted a bill [text] to specifically criminalize the practice of female genital mutilation [World Health Organization backgrounder] in 2005, as the practice was not technically a crime in Georgia [JURIST news archive] at the time of the incident.

Female circumcision is performed in various cultures and religions to discourage promiscuity among women and denies women sexual pleasure, causes dangerous infections, creates deep emotional scars, and can even kill, according to opponents and human rights groups. The procedure is not specifically illegal in Ethiopia [US State Dept. backgrounder], but government policy there discourages "harmful traditional practices." Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Texas US District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr. sentenced former Enron [JURIST news archive] executives Michael Kopper [BBC profile] and Mark Koenig to 37- and 18-month prison terms [DOJ press release] respectively Friday for their role in the corporate scandal. The sentences for both men were reduced at the request of prosecuting attorneys in return for the defendants' testimony against other former Enron executives [JURIST report]. Kopper, a former Enron managing director and subordinate to former Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow [JURIST news archive], pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of money laundering in August 2002 for which he faced up to 15 years in prison. Koenig, Enron's former investor relations chief, pleaded guilty [DOJ press release] to aiding and abetting securities fraud in August 2004. He faced up to 10 years in prison.

As part of their plea agreements, both Kopper and Koenig agreed to return millions of dollars they had pilfered from the company. That money, along with the court-imposed $50,000.00 fine for each man, will be deposited in a fund for the victims of Enron's collapse. AP has more.

[JURIST] US District Judge Vaughn Walker [official profile] of the Northern District of California [official website] ruled Friday that he will allow a class action lawsuit [EFF case backgrounder; JURIST report] filed against the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive] to go forward while a prior motion to dismiss the case is on appeal. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) [advocacy website] brought the class action wiretapping lawsuit against AT&T [corporate website] in January, alleging that the company had unlawfully provided the National Security Agency (NSA) [official website] with access to its facilities and resources to unconstitutionally spy on "millions of ordinary Americans."

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] moved to dismiss the case in July, citing "state secrets" among other concerns. But Walker denied the motion [JURIST report] and ruled [order, PDF] instead that the case can proceed safely because broad media coverage of the surveillance program had neutralized any danger of disclosing state secrets. In early November, the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals [official website] agreed to hear an appeal [JURIST report] of the decision, prompting the DOJ to file a request [PDF] that Walker delay further proceedings on the rest of the case while the motion for dismissal is appealed, potentially all the way to the US Supreme Court. CNET News has more.

[JURIST] The US Department of Defense (DOD) [official website] announced Friday that it had released three detainees [press release] from Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] who Combatant Status Review Tribunals [DOD materials] had determined not to be enemy combatants [JURIST news archive]. The US Department of State [official website] said [press release] later that the government of Albania has agreed to accept and resettle the three, identified as an Algerian national, an Egyptian national, and an ethnic Uzbek born in the former Soviet Union. The State Department specified that they were "the last remaining Guantanamo detainees determined to be no longer enemy combatants," apparently ending the limbo in which a number of prisoners deemed eligible for release have found themselves. In May, Albania accepted for resettlement [JURIST report] five ethnic Uighurs who had previously been held at Guantanamo Bay but who the US refused to send back to China, their country of citizenship.

DOD reports that there are still approximately 430 individuals being detained at Guantanamo, including about 110 already been found eligible for transfer or release. AP has more.

[JURIST] Vice President Dick Cheney told [transcript; recorded audio] the Federalist Society [advocacy website] annual meeting in Washington Friday that the Bush administration plans to continue nominating conservative judges to the federal courts notwithstanding new Democratic control of Congress and expectations on both sides of the aisle that more moderate candidates might be put forward [JURIST report] after the mid-term elections. "Federal judges," Cheney declared:

are appointed for life and serve outside the democratic process. Therefore they have a duty to pursue no agenda or platform -- and to leave politics to those who run for office and answer to the people. As a great American put it, judges are to be "servants of the law, not the other way around." And those are the words of Chief Justice John Roberts, one of the many superb nominees chosen by President George W. Bush...Throughout our time in office, the President has selected judges who understand their role in the constitutional system. And I assure you, nothing that has happened in the last two weeks will change his commitment to nominating first-rate talent like John Roberts and Sam Alito.

[JURIST] US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff [official profile] warned [recorded audio] the national convention of the conservative Federalist Society [advocacy website] in a speech [transcript] Friday that international law was increasingly being used as a "rhetorical weapon" against the United States and urged members of his audience to "confront...the rise of an increasingly activist, left-wing, and even elitist philosophy of law that is flourishing not in the United States but in foreign courts and in various international courts and bodies."

Chertoff said that objections from privacy advocates, especially in the European Parliament, to proposed American uses of passenger record data [JURIST report] on air travelers coming from Europe to the US had lately prompted him to realize "how much of my ability to do my job in leading a department that protects the American people depends upon constraints that others want to put upon us based on their conception of either international law or transnational law." Citing rulings by the International Court of Justice against the US in 1986 (Nicaragua v. United States) and 1998 (Breard v. Gilmore) and a 2004 advisory ruling against Israel regarding its "security fence", he expressed general concern about what he described as "an increasing tendency to look to rather generally described and often ambiguous "universal norms" to trump domestic prerogatives that are very much at the core of what it means to live up to your responsibility as a sovereign state":

So what we see here is a vision of international law that if taken aggressively would literally strike at the heart of some of our basic fundamental principles: separation of power, respect for the Senate's ability to ratify treaties, and the Senate's ability to reject treaties, and respect for federalism and the importance of letting the state courts set their own rules to govern what they do....

[T]he fact is whether we like it not, international law is increasingly entering our domestic domain. The Supreme Court has begun to bring it through cases like Hamdan and Alvarez-MacHain, which allowed a very small opening but still an opening in the door under the Alien Tort Claims Act to international human rights law being a source of direct causes of action here in the United States.

Through various European and other kinds of domestic protection rules, they're trying -- there's an increasing effort to control our use of information in our own country to determined who comes in from outside, and, of course, international law is being used as a rhetorical weapon against us. We are constantly portrayed as being on the losing end, and the negative end of international law developments.

[JURIST] The Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) [party website, in Spanish; Wikipedia backgrounder] party of Bolivian President Evo Morales [official website; BBC profile] gained more power to rewrite the country's constitution over the objections of opposing political parties Friday when Bolivia's constitutional assembly [official website, in Spanish] approved a motion to make decisions by majority vote. The measure gives the MAS, which failed to receive [JURIST report] two-thirds of the assembly seats in July's elections, the power to easily adopt populist reforms into the amended constitution [current text], although a two-thirds vote will still be needed to approve the final constitutional draft. The MAS holds 137 of 235 assembly seats. Podemos, the main opposition party, represents wealthy landowners and supports greater state autonomy. AP has more. La Patria has local coverage in Spanish.

Morales, elected last year [JURIST report] following weeks of protests from leftists demanding constitutional changes, is the first indigenous president to be elected in Bolivia [JURIST news archive], and has been an outspoken advocate for the poor and for policies more favorable to the majority indigenous Indian population [JURIST report]. The constitutional assembly convened [JURIST report] in August and will submit its adopted draft to a nationwide referendum by the end of 2007.

[JURIST] The UN General Assembly Third Committee [official website] on Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs has approved a draft resolution [PDF] calling for an end to politically motivated condemnations of countries for human rights violations. The resolution, adopted Thursday, says that human rights protection should be "guided by the principles of universality, non-selectivity, impartiality and objectivity and should be not used for political purposes". The measure was approved by a vote of 77-63 vote and will next be presented to the General Assembly for a final vote.

The resolution was sponsored by Belarus [JURIST news archive; Foreign Ministry press release] and Uzbekistan [JURIST news archive], both of which been accused of extensive human rights violations in the past. China, Cuba, North Korea, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Sudan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Zimbabwe were co-sponsors. The United States along with many European countries oppose the resolution, saying it favors nations that are long-term rights violators. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) [official website] has opened a full criminal investigation into former Republican congressman Mark Foley [Congressional profile] in connection with his sexually explicit computer messages to young male pages disclosed [JURIST report] earlier this year. The FDLE began preliminary investigations shortly after Foley stepped down on September 29 and announced the start of its full probe Thursday. The FBI [official website] has also been examining the emails and IMs for violations of federal law. Foley has denied having any sexual contact with minors [attorney statement, PDF].

Foley may be criminally liable under Title XLVI, Chapter 847 s. 847.0135(3) [text; legislature website] of the Florida Statutes, which makes seducing a child through the Internet a third degree felony. The US House Ethics Committee [official website] has launched an inquiry [JURIST report] into allegations that senior Republican leaders knew of Foley's conduct as early as 2002 but took no action. BBC News has more. The Miami Herald has local coverage.

[JURIST] The Dutch government [official website] announced after a cabinet meeting Friday that it will introduce legislation [press statement, in Dutch] to ban the Muslim full-length burqa [Wikipedia backgrounder] veil as well as other face coverings like ski masks in public places "as soon as possible" after the country votes in a national election scheduled for Wednesday. Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk [official profile] told Dutch media that the legislation would be brought in for security reasons and to promote the integration of Dutch society. She has noted in the past that the government cannot enforce a total ban under current law because of religious freedom statutes. No European country currently imposes a comparable total prohibition on Muslim veils, although headscarves and other religious symbols [JURIST news archive] have been banned in French public schools and German public school teachers are prohibited from wearing them. Dutch Muslim leaders immediately criticized the move as promising an unconstitutional act targeting Muslims, with the leader of Dutch Muslim organization CMO [backgrounder, in Dutch] saying it would be a "big law for a small problem" as he estimated that only some 30 Dutch Muslim women wear burqas.

Verdonk, known domestically as the "Iron Lady" for her tough anti-immigration initiatives, first floated the burqa ban [JURIST report] last year, and a majority of lawmakers endorsed a ban [NOS report] in December. Muslims currently make up about 6 percent of the Dutch population; the country has traditionally been distinguished by its openness, but in recent years it has become much wary of immigrants, setting up detention centers for asylum-seekers, requiring newcomers to learn Dutch, and adopting a more vigorous deportation policy. Tensions rose in 2004 when outspoken Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh [JURIST news archive] was assassinated by a Islamic militant. AP has more.

[JURIST] A close associate of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki [official website, in Arabic] told AP Friday that al-Maliki was unaware of a controversial plan by Shiite Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani [Wikipedia profile] to arrest [JURIST report] Sunni leader Harith al-Dhari [Aljazeera profile], head of the powerful Association of Muslim Scholars [association website, in Arabic; GlobalSecurity backgrounder] and a vocal critic of the majority-Shiite government, on charges of incitement of terrorism and violence. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also indicated that the prime minister did not plan to act on the warrant. AP has more.

Al-Dhari, believed to be in Jordan when the warrant was issued, has declared the warrant illegal [AP report] and encouraged fellow Sunnis to abandon their government posts in protest.