[JURIST] UK Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer [official profile] on Wednesday backed a proposal to allow police officers to question terror suspects after they have been formally charged. Following a speech [text] defending the UK Human Rights Act [text; backgrounder; JURIST news archive], Falconer implied in response to questions that the post-charge questioning proposal could also extend to serious criminal offenses besides terrorism. Current UK laws prohibit police officers from questioning terror suspects after they have been formally charged. Last year, in the wake of several controversial court rulings, Falconer hinted that the government might introduce legislation [JURIST report] that would prevent the Human Rights Act from interfering with public safety matters.

Falconer also hinted at proposals that will further restrict the civil liberties of suspects, including a renewed effort [JURIST report] by Britain's Labour party government to extend the maximum amount of time that police can detain terror suspects before charging them. The terror detention limit has been an ongoing subject of controversy since 2005, when the House of Commons inflicted its first defeat [JURIST report] on the Blair government by cutting back its proposal for a 90-day period to the present 28, an extension over an earlier 14. The move towards greater restrictions results in part from the investigation into last summer's foiled transatlantic airplane bombing plot [JURIST report] and other high profile terror cases. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The Ecuador Congress [official government website] voted Tuesday to hold a referendum on whether Ecuador should form a constitutional assembly to rewrite its constitution [text, in Spanish]. The vote is seen as a victory for the reform agenda of President Rafael Correa [official website, in Spanish; BBC profile], who wants to change the constitution to restrain powerful political parties [JURIST report], increase government accountability, and hold regional, rather than national, elections. Critics, however, fear that Correa will use the assembly to expand presidential power. The referendum will be held on April 15. AP has more.

A self-described member of the "Christian left" and founder of the Alianza PAIS party [party website, in Spanish], Correa aligned himself with the Ecuadorian Socialist Party [party website, in Spanish] during last year's elections to overhaul the nation's economy to fight poverty. Correa is the most recent example of South America's shift to the left, already manifested in the administrations of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales [JURIST news archive]. In November, Morales' Movement Towards Socialism party [party website] began the final stages of making populist reforms part of an amended Bolivian constitution [JURIST report].

[JURIST] Switzerland is launching a criminal probe into the alleged unlawful use of Swiss airspace by US agents in anti-terrorist operations after authorization Wednesday by the Swiss Federal Council [official website], which said in a statement that there was evidence that "basic norms of international law were violated." The investigation will center around the abduction of Muslim cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr [Wikipedia profile], also known as Abu Omar, who says he was kidnapped [JURIST news archive; WP timeline] by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website] in 2003 during his extraordinary rendition [JURIST news archive] from Milan. He claims he was then flown to Germany via Swiss airspace en route to Egypt, where he then was tortured. Wednesday's announcement comes three days after Omar's release from detention by Egyptian officials [JURIST report]. AP has more. 24 Heures has local coverage [report, in French].

The decision, a blow to US-Swiss anti-terrorist cooperation, is the latest in a series of European complaints about US anti-terror operations overseas. Nasr has been at the heart of Italian judicial proceedings against 26 US CIA agents and five officials from the Italian Military Intelligence and Security Service (SISMI) [official website] who have already been implicated in his alleged kidnapping. Hearings [JURIST report] to decide the legal fate of some 30 operatives began last month. In October, Italian prosecutors said they would again press for the extradition of the 26 American agents [JURIST report] and, if turned down, will try the US agents in absentia [JURIST report].

[JURIST] President Bush on Wednesday issued an executive order [text] establishing military commissions [JURIST news archive] for enemy combatants held by the US. According to White House officials, the order is required under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) [JURIST news archive] to proceed with trials for terror suspects detained at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive]. It will facilitate formal review of the charges against three re-charged Guantanamo detainees [JURIST report], although no trial dates have been set. The original charges against the three were dropped after the US Supreme Court last June ruled the original military commissions system established by Bush unconstitutional without Congressional authorization [JURIST report].

Lawyers for the three charged detainees last week renewed their condemnation [JURIST report] of new rules [manual, PDF] that have been laid down for the new commissions, saying the deadlines imposed by them will prevent extended investigation into the reliability of evidence brought against the detainees. The manual, which allows terror detainees to be convicted solely on hearsay or coerced evidence and prevents defendants from using classified evidence without government approval, was released [JURIST report] by the US Defense Department [official website] in January. AFP has more.

[JURIST] Former CIA executive director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo [Wikipedia profile] and defense contractor Brent Wilkes [Newsweek profile] both pleaded not guilty Wednesday to corruption charges connected with the case of former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham [official profile]. Both Foggo and Wilkes, who were indicted by a grand jury [JURIST report] Tuesday, have been under investigation by the FBI since May, after Cunningham pleaded guilty in 2005 [JURIST report] to taking $2.4 million in bribes from Wilkes and others in return for federal contracts. Tuesday's indictment included charges of money laundering and fraud, as well as conspiracy between Wilkes and John T. Michael, nephew of New York businessman Thomas Kontogiannis [San Diego Union Tribune report], to bribe Cunningham. Wilkes is also alleged to have received $12 million in unlawful government contracts for his company ADCS [corporate website].

Foggo directed the daily operations of the CIA from 2004 until May 2006 after working with the agency for 25 years. While Foggo maintains his innocence in the bribery scandal, he admitted to attending card games at hotels allegedly provided to Cunningham by Wilkes. Both Foggo and Wilkes face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of all charges. AP has more. The San Diego Union Tribune has local coverage.

[JURIST] A UN Human Rights Council [official website] investigatory team Wednesday cancelled a scheduled trip to the Darfur region [JURIST news archive] of Sudan after Sudanese officials again refused to grant a visa to a team member. The UN refused to replace Bertrand Ramcharan [official profile; JURIST news archive], a former Acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights who accused the Sudanese government of violating human rights in a 2004 report [UN News report]. An International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation [JURIST report] into possible war crimes in the Darfur area has documented thousands of civilian killings and hundreds of rapes. Reuters has more.

In December, Sudanese Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardhi indicated that Sudan would cooperate [JURIST report] with UNHRC investigative missions in Darfur. Last month, incoming UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official website] announced that resolving the crisis in Darfur was one of his top priorities [remarks; JURIST report].

[JURIST] The UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) [official website] confirmed Tuesday that it had begun an investigation into whether UK firms paid illegal kickbacks to the Saddam Hussein regime in the now-defunct UN Oil-for-Food program [JURIST news archive], through which Hussein allegedly embezzled as much as $1.8 billion. According to the Guardian newspaper, drug manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly, as well as Mabey and Johnson [corporate websites] are among the firms under investigation; all four issued statements to the Guardian denying all bribery allegations. The same companies were named in a 2005 interim report [JURIST report; PDF text] on the scandal compiled by the UN-appointed Independent Inquiry Committee [official website] into the UN Oil-for-Food program. The SFO is authorized to demand documents and take testimony, and may recommend criminal charges.

The UN Oil-for-Food program allowed the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein, under UN sanctions in the wake of the first Gulf War, to sell limited stocks of oil in return for foodstuffs and other humanitarian supplies. Hussein's regime nonetheless bribed foreign officials and commercial interests so it could sell oil on the black market, embezzling over $1 billion in program funds and perhaps as much another $10 billion from other sources. The Guardian has more.

[JURIST] A French magistrate judge has issued a second summons to Djibouti President Ismail Omar Guelleh [IRIN backgrounder] requesting testimony for an investigation into the May 1995 death of a French judge in Djibouti. Djibouti officials maintain that the death of Bernard Borrel [advocacy website, in French], who advised the Djibouti justice ministry until he was found dead in a ravine, was a suicide, though French investigators suspect he was murdered. Guelleh ignored a previous summons [Reuters report] in 2005. AFP has more.

Borrel's death has increased tensions between France and Djibouti, a former French colony. In February, Djibouti asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) [official website] to arbitrate a dispute between the two countries [JURIST report] regarding France's investigation of the alleged 1995 murder. Djibouti maintains that France has no right to summon Djibouti officials because of diplomatic immunity. In August, France consented to ICJ jurisdiction [JURIST report] over the case, which has been placed on the ICJ case list [press release]. In October, a French judge issued arrest warrants [JURIST report] for Djibouti state prosecutor Djama Souleiman and security chief Hassan Said, who are suspected of interfering with witnesses in the ongoing investigation.

[JURIST] The US State Department [official website] Wednesday announced an expanded program to allow 7,000 Iraqi refugees to resettle in the US. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres [official profiles] to discuss the plan, which will fast-track refugee applications from Iraqis who face retaliation for cooperating with US forces. Since the Iraq war began in 2003, only 463 Iraqis have successfully relocated to the US, while between 1,000,000 and 1,400,000 have relocated to Syria and Jordan in that time period, according to UNHCR statistics [BBC report]. AP has more.

In January, the Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] held special hearings [notice] on the the plight of Iraqi refugees where Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey [official profile] testified [transcript] that the US has no quota on the number admitted to the country. Sauerbrey urged US financial support for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) [official website], which on January 9 requested $60 million in funds [UNHCR press release] toward securing permanent placements for 1.7 million displaced Iraqis.

[JURIST] The trial of Saddam-era Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan [Trial Watch profile; JURIST news archive] was flawed and he should not be executed, a UN Human Rights expert said [press release] Wednesday. Phillip Alston [official profile], appointed [UN press release] as UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions in 2004, said judicial misconduct, official statements declaring Ramadan guilty before his sentence, and the admission of evidence without allowing Ramadan to rebut, combined with other procedural irregularities, render Ramadan's sentence illegitimate. Alston also said the appeals process was too rushed to be fair, as Ramadan was given only weeks to appeal, and the Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT) [official website; HRW backgrounder] considered the evidence for less than a month before upholding the conviction. PTI has more.

The IHT originally sentenced Ramadan to life in prison in connection with crimes against humanity committed in the town of Dujail in 1982 for which Saddam Hussein and two others were sentenced to death [JURIST report] in November, but it resentenced him to death by hanging [JURIST report] on Monday following a December 26 ruling by the IHT Appeals Chamber in its decision upholding Hussein's death sentence [JURIST report; JURIST news archive] that the life sentence for Ramadan was too lenient. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour filed an amicus brief [JURIST report] with the court last week arguing that imposing the death penalty would be a violation of Iraq's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [text]. Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] also urged the IHT Sunday to spare the life of Ramadan [JURIST report], citing a lack of evidence tying him to the Dujail killings.

[JURIST] A senior Chinese official said Tuesday that the government plans to establish a "National Corruption Prevention Bureau" to ensure China's compliance with the UN Convention Against Corruption [UN materials], which China signed in 2005. The proposed bureau is another step forward in China's fight against widespread corruption, following a year in which over 97,000 Chinese officials were found guilty of bribery and other financial misconduct [BBC report]. PTI has more.

In January, Chinese President Hu Jintao [People's Daily profile] promised to confront corruption [JURIST report] in a speech focused on four measures: improving ethics education, reform of both the official system and procedures, arresting high-profile offenders, and focusing on the offenses that most affect the public interest. In October, China's chief justice called for judicial reform [JURIST report] in the face of court corruption and systemic failures to implement court orders, several days after three Chinese judges were arrested for bribery [JURIST report]. A Chinese official was arrested in September in connection with a pension plan scandal [JURIST report], and in June, the Communist Party announced increases in jail time and fines for those responsible for industrial accidents and white collar crimes.

[JURIST] The Belgian government was complicit in Nazi persecution of the Jewish population during the Holocaust and the country's courts failed to hold Belgian authorities accountable for persecuting and deporting Jews after World War II, according to a government-supported report that was presented to the Belgian parliament on Tuesday. According to the report [PDF introduction and conclusion, in French], titled "Submissive Belgium," the Belgian government fled to Britain in 1940 before the country fell to the invading Germans, and the civil servants left behind were often complicit in rounding up Jews for deportation to Auschwitz and other concentration camps. The study said the exiled government never declared these policies unconstitutional. The report noted that of 50,000 Jews living in Belgium [CIA country profile; BBC profile] before the war, approximately half died in the Holocaust. The European Jewish Congress estimates [EJC materials] that 100,000 Jews lived in Belgium before WWII, and that "25,631 Jews were assembled in the transit camp in Mechelen (Malines) and were deported to death camps."

The Belgian government created the research team [official backgrounder] by decree [text, in French] in May 2003 to establish "the facts and possible responsibilities of the Belgian authorities in the persecution and the deportation of the Jews in Belgium during the Second World War." AP has more. Haaretz has additional coverage.

[JURIST] US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy testified [transcript] before the appropriations subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] on Wednesday on the topic of judicial pay, saying that low pay relative to private-sector jobs threatens the independence and integrity of the federal judiciary. While members of the Supreme Court rarely testify before appropriations committees, Kennedy said the "importance of judicial independence in our own time and in our constitutional history" led him to accept the invitation.

In his prepared remarks, Kennedy observed:

Despite the increase in workload, the real compensation of federal judges has diminished substantially over the years. Between 1969 and 2006, the real pay of district judges declined by about 25 percent. In the same period, the real pay of the average American worker increased by eighteen percent. The resulting disparity is a forty-three percent disadvantage to the district judges. If judges’ salaries had kept pace with the increase in the wages of the average American worker during this time period, the district judge salary would be $261,000. That salary is large compared to the average wages of citizens, but it is still far less than the salary a highly qualified individual in private practice or academia would give up to become a judge...

It is disquieting to hear from judges whose real compensation has fallen behind. Judges do not expect to become wealthy when they are appointed to the federal bench; they do expect, however, that Congress will protect the integrity of their position and provide a salary commensurate with the duties the office requires. For the judiciary to maintain its high level of expertise and qualifications, Congress needs to restore judicial pay to its historic position vis-à-vis average wages and the wages of the professional and academic community.

A failure to do so would mean that we will be unable to attract district judges who come from the most respected and prestigious segments of the practicing bar. One of the distinguishing marks of the Anglo-American legal tradition is that many of our judges are drawn from the highest ranks of the private bar. This is not the case in many other countries, where young law school graduates join the judicial civil service immediately after they complete their legal educations. Our tradition has been to rely upon a judiciary with substantial experience and demonstrated excellence. Private litigants depend on our judges to process complex legal matters with the skill, insight, and efficiency that come only with years of experience at the highest levels of the profession.

There are two present dangers to our maintaining a judiciary of the highest quality and competence: First, some of the most talented attorneys can no longer be persuaded to come to the bench; second, some of our most talented and experienced judges are electing to leave it...

Something is wrong when a judge’s law clerk, just one or two years out of law school, has a salary greater than that of the judge or justice he or she served the year before. These continuing gross disparities are of undoubted relevance. They are a material factor for the attorney who declines a judicial career or the judge who feels forced to leave it behind. The disparities pose a threat to the strength and integrity of the judicial branch...

[JURIST] A British judge announced Wednesday that he has dropped charges against five British soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi detainees in Basra, while continuing charges against two British co-defendants in their ongoing court-martial. The ruling was issued [JURIST report] Tuesday, but was kept secret until Justice Stuart McKinnon read it to the jury of military officers on Wednesday to avoid unnecessary prejudice to that jury when the court-martial against the remaining two defendants resumes on Monday. McKinnon found that the prosecution had presented enough evidence to charge Warrant Officer Mark Lester Davies and Maj. Michael Edwin Peebles with negligent performance of duties, and that the prosecution failed to present enough evidence to charge the other five soldiers on charges including inhumanely treating detainees under the International Criminal Court Act 2001 (ICCA) [text], other charges under the British Army Act 1955 [text], including assault, manslaughter, and perverting the course of justice. One of the seven soldiers, Corporal David Payne, pleaded guilty in September 2006 to a charge of inhumane treatment [JURIST report], becoming the first British soldier to admit committing a war crime in Iraq. AP has more.

In September 2006, a prosecutor in the case told a British court-martial that senior UK military officers should be held responsible for the abuse of Iraqi detainees [JURIST report] in UK custody because they failed to develop adequate checking procedures on junior personnel. A British Army major testified in November 2006 that a military legal adviser approved techniques for preparing Iraqi detainees [JURIST report] for interrogation with techniques that allegedly violated the Geneva Conventions [ICRC materials]. The charges stem from a 2003 raid on a hotel in Basra in which British military confiscated weapons and explosives contraband, and detained several Iraqi civilians, including hotel receptionist Baha Mousa [BBC report; JURIST report], who died while in custody. The soldiers allegedly took the Iraqis to a detention facility where they were held for 36 hours and subjected to physical abuse, causing Mousa's death, according to prosecutors.

[JURIST] The European Parliament voted 382-256 Wednesday to approve [press release] a report condemning member states for cooperating with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in operating illegal secret prisons and extraordinary rendition flights [JURIST news archives] in Europe. Seventy-four MEPs abstained from the vote. The report condemns the European countries who allowed the CIA to forcibly remove terror suspects [JURIST report] from within their borders, including the UK, Germany and Italy, and criticized those nations and others for a "reluctance to cooperate" with the EP investigation into the CIA's activities in Europe. An amendment to the report, which passed by a narrow margin, said that reports of secret prisons in Poland could be proved only by circumstantial evidence, and therefore could "neither be confirmed nor denied." The draft report [DOC text; proposed amendments; EP materials] was passed [JURIST report] in January by the temporary committee [official website] tasked with investigating the allegations. BBC News has more.

The conclusions of the European Parliament are similar to previous findings by Europe's human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe. In June, a COE study [PDF text] submitted by Swiss parliamentarian Dick Marty reported that 14 European countries collaborated with the CIA [JURIST report] by taking an active or passive role in a "global spider's web" of secret prisons and rendition flights.

The existence of secret CIA prisons [JURIST report] in Europe was first reported by the New York Times in November 2005, and in December, the EP launched an investigation [JURIST report] into the alleged secret prisons. President Bush publicly acknowledged that secret prisons exist [JURIST report] in September 2006, and in January, the UK admitted knowledge of a CIA prison network [JURIST report]. Earlier this month, Portugal opened a probe [JURIST report] into allegations that CIA planes landed in Portugal en route to Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], among other destinations.

[JURIST] US Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) [official website] on Tuesday introduced in the Senate the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007 [S 576 summary], legislation that would restore habeas corpus rights to all US-held detainees, ban the use of evidence gained by torture or coercion, and redefine "enemy combatant" in a more narrow light. If the bill is passed, it would change the detention status of many persons currently held by the US on suspicion of terrorist activities. In remarks [press release; recorded video] Tuesday, Dodd said:

It's clear the people who perpetrated these horrendous crimes against our country and our people have no moral compass and deserve to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But in taking away their legal rights, the rights first codified in our country's Constitution, we're taking away our own moral compass, as well.

[JURIST] US military branches continue to accept a greater number of recruits with criminal records, granting recruiting waivers [USAREC Regulation 601-56 text, PDF], according to data compiled by the US Defense Department. The Army accepted over twice as many recruits with criminal records in 2006 than it did in 2003, granting 901 felony waivers in 2006 as compared to the 411 recruits waived in 2003. The number of waivers granted for misdemeanors rose to over 6,000 in 2006, as opposed to 2,700 issued in 2003.

Felony and misdemeanor waivers are granted upon request by the military branches, in order to allow persons to serve in the armed forces even though their criminal record would normally preclude them from doing so. Commanding officers in the Army expressed concern last year that the drop in standards associated with an increase in recruiting waivers [JURIST report] would lead to discipline problems within units. AP has more.

[JURIST] Argentina has made a formal request that Spain [JURIST news archive] extradite former Argentine President Isabel Peron [Wikipedia profile], officials from the Argentinean Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. The request was made in connection to Federal Judge Raul Acosta's investigation into Peron's alleged involvement in the disappearance of political opponent Hector Aldo Fagetti Gallego in 1976. Peron was arrested [JURIST report] last month by Spanish authorities after Acosta issued an order for her detention so that she could be questioned in the case.

In January, Argentinean Judge Norberto Oyarbide issued a second international warrant [JURIST report] for Peron's arrest demanding that Peron be returned to Argentina for questioning about the Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance (Triple A) [MIPT backgrounder], a government-supported death squad. According to Oyarbide, extradition of Peron could take over a year [JURIST report], if it ever happens at all. AP has more.