[JURIST] US President George W. Bush issued an executive order [text] Monday requesting that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US departments of Agriculture, Energy, and Transportation [official websites] cooperate to begin the regulation of vehicle emissions by the end of his term on January 20, 2009. The order comes as an executive response to last month's Supreme Court ruling [JURIST report] that the EPA has the authority under the Clean Air Act [text; EPA materials] to regulate the emission of "greenhouse gases," such as carbon dioxide, by automobiles. In the past, Bush has insisted that efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions [JURIST news archive; EPA backgrounder] should be voluntary; Monday's executive order is the first compulsory regulation that Bush has endorsed.

Last month, in response to the Supreme Court ruling, Bush urged Congress [JURIST report] to adopt his proposed targets for alternative fuel use [White House energy policy materials] to combat greenhouse gas emissions. His plan includes adoption of

a mandatory fuel standard that insists upon using 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels by 2017, which will reduce our gasoline usage by 20 percent and halt the growth in greenhouse gases that emanate from automobiles.

[JURIST] US Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty [official profile] announced Monday that he will resign from his post as second-in-line at the Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] as early as the end of the summer, or when a successor receives Congressional approval. In a letter [PDF text] submitted to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, McNulty said personal reasons affected his decision: "The financial realities of college-age children and two decades of public service lead me to a long overdue transition in my career." The announcement comes amid a flurry of investigations surrounding the firings of federal prosecutors [JURIST news archive] over the last two years. At least nine former US Attorneys allege they were fired in political retaliation for investigations they were or were not conducting. Gonzales publicly accepted McNulty's resignation in a statement [text] released Monday.

In February, McNulty testified [JURIST report] before the Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] that thirteen or more federal prosecutors who have been removed over the past two years were not victims of political retaliation, as some Democrats have alleged. McNulty specifically denied that the removal of former US Attorney Carol Lam [US Department of Justice profile], who prosecuted former Republican congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham [JURIST news archive], was motivated by political considerations. McNulty did admit, however, that one of the firings was conducted to allow Tom Griffin, former aide to Karl Rove, to assume the position. Gonzales has denied such allegations, maintaining the firings were necessary to replace US attorneys performing poorly on the job. AP has more.

[JURIST] The transitional government of Somalia [JURIST news archive] has agreed to cooperate with a UN probe into alleged human rights violations that occurred during recent fighting in the country's capital, according to UN emergency relief co-ordinator John Holmes [UN profile] Monday. Despite that, the Somali government maintains that no abuses took place. Recent fighting [Wikipedia backgrounder] between warlords and government-backed troops, most of whom come from Ethiopia, have left about 1,600 people dead in Mogadishu. Former deputy Prime Minister Hussein Aideed [AP profile] says that Ethiopian soldiers have been carrying out a campaign of genocide against Somalis since their arrival, but the government has defended their use as necessary to reinstate law and order after 16 years of chaos.

In January, the transitional government began imposing martial law [JURIST report] over areas under the government's control, two weeks after martial law was approved by parliament [JURIST report]. Somalia has endured a lengthy civil war and several rounds of failed peace talks [timeline] since the collapse of its last civil government in 1991. In late March Human Rights Watch claimed that the US, Kenya, and Ethiopia were cooperating with the transitional government of Somalia to secretly detain people [JURIST report] who fled the conflict there. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] The Ukrainian Constitutional Court [official website] announced Monday that it will consider whether a second decree by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko [official website; BBC profile] to dissolve parliament and hold early June elections was constitutional. The court is already mulling [JURIST report] the constitutionality of Yushchenko's first decree [text; JURIST report] dissolving parliament and calling for new elections. He issued a second decree [JURIST report] last month, reiterating the provisions of the first and moving the elections to late June. A majority of legislators objected to the decree, and filed an appeal with the 18-judge Constitutional Court. One judge has said, however, that the court can not make any rulings yet as it does not have the necessary number of judges sitting since Yushchenko dismissed three judges [JURIST report] and their replacements have not yet been sworn in.

Yushchenko has insisted [JURIST report] that his dissolution decree was proper under the Ukrainian constitution [DOC text] and has said that officials who refuse to comply with his decree could face criminal prosecution [press release; JURIST report]. Yushchenko and current Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who launched the legal challenge to the decree, were fierce rivals in the 2004 presidential election [JURIST report], the results of which were invalidated by the country's Supreme Court [JURIST report] following fraud allegations. Yushchenko was sworn in as Ukraine's president [JURIST report] in January 2005 on the wings of the populist Orange Revolution [BBC timeline] after winning a re-vote. Yushchenko reluctantly accepted Yanukovych as prime minister last June and the two have since clashed over parliamentary attempts to expand the cabinet's power [JURIST reports] at the expense of the presidency. RIA Novosti has more.

[JURIST] US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff [official profile] met with the European Parliament Civil Liberties Committee [official website; meeting materials (Agenda No 3)] Monday in his latest bid to convince the EU to allow the transfer of detailed information regarding passengers on US-bound flights to all relevant US government agencies. The current interim deal [JURIST report], which expires in July, allows up to 34 pieces of data, including names, addresses, travel itineraries, and credit card information, to be transferred to the US Customs and Border Protection Agency [official website] within 15 minutes of a flight's departure from an EU member state. The information may only be disseminated to other law enforcement agencies if the agencies have data security standards as stringent as those of the EU. Chertoff argued that information gathered from passengers must be available to agencies that do not meet data security standards if the need arises.

Some EU lawmakers have expressed skepticism, citing the lack of privacy protection in US agencies. If a deal is not reached by July, Washington has warned that fines against European airlines could begin to accumulate up to $6000 per passenger and that those airlines could even lose US landing rights. The current interim agreement replaced a 2004 agreement [PDF text], which was struck down [JURIST report] by the European Court of Justice in May as lacking a sufficient legal basis. AP has more.

[JURIST] The court-martial [JURIST report] of the Navy lawyer accused of passing then-undisclosed names of Guantanamo detainees to a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) [advocacy website] began Monday. In its opening statement, the prosecution argued that Lt. Cmdr. Matthew M. Diaz, a former staff judge advocate at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], endangered the lives of detainees and of US soldiers in the war on terror. Diaz's attorneys argued that the information was not marked classified and that Diaz had no reason to believe that the names of the detainees "could be used to injure the United States." Diaz is charged [press release, DOC; JURIST report] under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the Espionage Act [text] with failing to obey a lawful general regulation, engaging in conduct unbecoming an officer by wrongfully transmitting classified documents to an unauthorized person, and turning over to unauthorized person secret information related to national defense. If convicted, Diaz could face a maximum prison sentence of 24 years.

In February 2005, CCR human rights lawyer Barbara Olshansky received in the mail printouts of approximately 550 detainee names, months before AP forced the Defense Department to officially release the detainee lists [JURIST report] through Freedom of Information Act requests. AP has more.

ALSO ON JURIST  Text: Diaz Guantanamo names court-martial documents

[JURIST] The US District Court for the Southern District of Florida [official website] heard opening statements Monday in the federal trial [calender] of US citizen and alleged al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla [JURIST news archive]. The government told jurors that Padilla and his two co-defendants were members of a secret terrorist cell based out of the Miami area, while an attorney representing Padilla's co-defendant Adham Amin Hassoun [GlobalSecurity profile] said that they were only trying to financially assist needy Muslims overseas. The government argued that Hassoun recruited Padilla, and Padilla agreed to be trained by al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Jury selection in the trial ended [JURIST report] last week, after US District Judge Marcia Cooke [official profile], rejected claims on both sides that lawyers were basing their objections to potential jurors on racial or ethnic biases. Padilla was arrested in 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on accusations of planing to set off a "dirty bomb" and was subsequently detained without charges for three years as an "enemy combatant" [JURIST news archive] at a Navy military brig in Charleston, South Carolina. In November 2005 he was eventually charged [indictment, PDF; JURIST report] on unrelated counts of conspiracy to murder US nationals and supporting terrorist activity. He was transferred to civilian custody [JURIST report] in January 2006 and has pleaded not guilty [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] The German state court in Darmstadt convicted two former Siemens AG [corporate website] officials on Monday of bribing and assisting in the bribery of two managers at Enel [corporate website], Italy's largest utilities company. Andreas Kley, a former finance chief, and Horst Vigener, a former employee-consultant, admitted that they provided up to $7.9 million dollars to secure winning gas turbine contracts for Siemens between 1999 and 2002. Kley and Vigener each received suspended sentences. Both men had said they acted independently of Siemens and that the Italian managers initiated the bribery scheme, but the court ordered Siemens to forfeit $51.5 million in profits from deals with Enel. Siemens said that Monday that the court's decision has "no basis in law or in fact" and that it will appeal the ruling [statement].

In January, German Minister of Justice Brigitte Zypries [official profile, in German] announced plans to introduce legislation tightening anti-corruption laws [JURIST report] to increase public prosecutors' power to investigate corruption of a broader range of implicated employees. The announcement came in the midst of a series of high-profile corruption scandals involving large German corporations, including Siemens. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Connecticut Supreme Court [official website] heard oral arguments Monday in the case [SC 17716 docket] of eight gay couples who are unhappy with Connecticut's civil unions law and are seeking full marriage rights. Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) [advocacy website] attorney Bennett Klein, representing the couples, argued [brief, PDF; GLAD backgrounder] that the fundamental principles of marriage are not grounded in gender, and by granting secular marriage only to heterosexual couples, the state violated equal protection laws under the Connecticut constitution [text]. The Connecticut Attorney General's office [official website] in turn argued that a 2006 Superior Court decision [PDF text; JURIST report] was correct, and that civil unions provide same-sex couples the same benefits and protections as traditional marriages, rejecting the equal protection challenge.

Currently only Massachusetts recognizes full same-sex marriage [JURIST news archive]. Last month, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) [official website] introduced a bill that would legalize gay marriage in that state [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] A Syrian court sentenced writer and activist Michel Kilo [AI backgrounder] Monday to a prison term of three years for "speaking false news, weakening national feeling and inciting sectarian sentiments." Kilo was arrested [BBC report] in May 2005 along with nine other Syrians shortly after signing the so-called Beirut-Damascus Declaration of 12 May [text excerpts], which calls for the normalization of relations between Syria and Lebanon [JURIST news archives], a properly demarcated border, the release of political prisoners, and an exchange of ambassadors. The petition, signed by some 300 prominent Syrian and Lebanese intellectuals, was published in the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar [media website] and echoed UN Security Council Resolution 1060 [summary and text] urging Syria to establish diplomatic relations with Lebanon. Translator Mahmoud Issa also received a three-year sentence and two other activists received ten-year sentences in absentia. The defendants are expected to appeal the verdict within 30 days.

The four sentences come just days after political dissident Kamal Labwani was sentenced to 12 years in prison [JURIST report] for "encouraging attack against Syria" after meeting with officials from the White House during a visit to the US in 2005. In April, a Syrian court sentenced [JURIST report] human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni [HRF backgrounder] to five years in prison and imposed a $2,000 fine for "speaking false information" harmful to the state. Al-Bunni was arrested soon after publicly criticizing the Syrian government for Kilo's arrest. AP has more.

[JURIST] Pojaman Shinawatra, wife of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], her brother Banpot Damapong, and her personal secretary Kanchanapa Honghern, pleaded not guilty Monday to two counts of tax evasion and perjury [JURIST report] at the Bangkok Criminal Court. The three allegedly failed to pay taxes on a 1997 transfer of stock in the Shin Corporation [corporate website, Wikipedia backgrounder], the family business founded by Thaksin in 1983 and formerly known as Shinawatra Computer. The Thaksin family earned an estimated $1.9 billion dollars tax-free and two of Thaksin's children owe the government $789 million in back taxes. If convicted, the defendants could face up to seven years in prison and fines up to $5,700. The events occurred before Thaksin took office in 2001.

The Royal Thai Army [official website] seized power from Thaksin last September in a bloodless military coup [JURIST report] that led to the imposition of martial law [JURIST news archive]. Since then, the new Thai government has struggled to find evidence [JURIST report] of Thaksin's alleged corruption prior to the coup. In February, the Assets Examination Committee, charged with investigating allegations of corruption by Thaksin and his family, recommended [JURIST report] that criminal tax evasions charges be brought against the former prime minister's wife, her brother and secretary. AFP has more.

[JURIST] Approximately 1.5 million people descended upon Izmir, Turkey Sunday to demonstrate against the Islamist-rooted government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan [official website, in Turkish; BBC profile], expressing their commitment to the concept of a secular republic. The protesters also denounced the Turkish military [official website, in Turkish] for its threat to intervene [JURIST report] in presidential elections in order to preserve secularism, calling for a secular yet democratic Turkey. Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) [party website, in Turkish; Wikipedia backgrounder] nominated Islamist-leaning Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul [official website; JURIST news archive] for president, but the nomination sparked several large protests by the pro-secular opposition, the Republican People's Party (CHP) [Wikipedia backgrounder]. The CHP boycotted parliament's vote for president, leading the country's constitutional court to void the vote for lack of quorum [JURIST report].

Gul abandoned his bid for the presidency [JURIST report] after a second vote failed to garner enough votes to establish a quorum, but Erdogan's AKP successfully passed a constitutional amendment paving the way for a popular election of the president [JURIST report]. The amendment must still be approved by current Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer [official website] and Gul has said he is open to running in the general election, expected to take place in July. While opponents are afraid that Gul's election would erode the country's secular ideals, Erdogan's party argues that it has no Islamist agenda, and has done much to implement western-style reforms needed for the country to join the European Union. AP has more.

[JURIST] Four of the fired US Attorneys [JURIST news archive] were dismissed after Republican officials complained they were lax in prosecuting alleged voter fraud in battleground states before the November 2006 elections, the Washington Post reported Monday. Documents and interviews obtained by the Post indicate that White House political adviser Karl Rove [official profile] and other administration officials identified five of the twelve US attorneys either dismissed or considered for dismissal in 2006 - including fired US attorneys David C. Iglesias (NM), John McCay (Seattle, WA), and Daniel G. Bogden (Las Vegas, NV) - as being unwilling to prosecute what Republican officials believed to be widespread voter fraud.

Last Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] expanded its investigation of the firings to include the dismissal of former US Attorney Todd Graves [professional profile] of Kansas City, Missouri, and a possible link to voter fraud prosecutions. Graves was fired when he refused to endorse a 2005 voter fraud lawsuit that former US Attorney Bradley Schlozman [official profile] filed against Missouri. On Wednesday, Graves told the New York Times that he was forced to resign [JURIST report] from his post with the Western District of Missouri after he expressed a difference of opinion with the Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website]. The Washington Post has more.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Pakistan [official website] Monday adjourned the hearing of petitions filed by suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry [official website; JURIST news archive; BBC backgrounder] after Justice Falak Sher, one of the fourteen justices on the Supreme Court, objected to the presence of more junior judges on the high court panel [JURIST report] hearing the case and refused to participate. Tarqid Mehmood, a lawyer for Chaudhry, told Reuters that the panel would be "reconstituted" on Tuesday at the earliest. The Supreme Court was scheduled to hear several petitions en banc concerning the construction of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) [governing constitutional provisions] which initially heard [JURIST report] the government's disciplinary case against Chaudhry. The SJC has been characterized as being biased and formed in an unconstitutional manner. Also Monday, unidentified gunmen killed Supreme Court Additional Registrar Syed Hamid Raza, only hours before the court was scheduled to begin its session. Reuters has more. AFP has additional coverage.

Chaudhry had scheduled a visit to Karachi this weekend to address a meeting of lawyers supporting him, but was unable to leave the airport due to the escalation of violence [JURIST report] Saturday between what has been characterized as pro-government Urdu-speaking Mohajir and anti-government Pashtu fractions that left more than 150 wounded and 41 dead. On Monday, opposition leaders held a general strike in Karachi and other cities to protest the violence, which government security forces allegedly allowed to take place. Following the weekend violence, Pakistan's Interior Ministry banned gatherings of over five people in Karachi, dispatched an additional 3,000 paramilitaries and has ordered security forces to shoot rioters on sight. AFP has more. AP has additional coverage.

Pakistan's judicial crisis stems from a March 9 order by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf [official profile] that suspended Chaudhry for unspecified reasons that were later disclosed to suggest Chaudhry had been misusing his influence [JURIST reports] to get his son jobs and promotions. Critics, including many lawyers and opposition leaders, consider the suspension an assault on the independence of Pakistan's judiciary and an indirect bid by Musharraf to continue his eight-year rule before elections scheduled for later this year.

[JURIST] The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs [official website] confirmed the arrest of prominent Iranian-American scholar Dr. Haleh Esfandiari [WWC profile] Sunday, saying that Esfandiari's arrest was "based on law" but did not elaborate on the reason for the arrest. On Saturday, the Kayhan, a state-controlled hardliner newspaper, accused Esfandiari of acting in concert with the United States and Israel in plotting to overthrow the Iranian Islamic Republic government. Esfandiari is the director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars [think tank website]. According to a statement [text] issued by the center, Esfandiari has been unable to leave Iran since December 30, 2006 when masked men stopped Esfandiari's taxi on her way to the airport and took her baggage and travel documents. Esfandiari was allegedly subjected to interrogation for several weeks thereafter and was formally arrested on May 7 and sent to the infamous Evin Prison [BBC backgrounder].

Last Wednesday, US State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack told reporters at a daily press briefing [transcript; recorded video] that the United States was aware of a number of US-Iranians being detained by Iran, and hoped that the detained scholar and a journalist would be released as they did not "pose any threat to the Iranian regime." Several members of Congress, including Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have called for the release of Esfandiari [WP report]. Iran has also confiscated the travel documents of Parnaz Azima, reporter for Radio Farda [media website, in English], a US-sponsored Persian language radio station. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Iraqi Interior Ministry [JURIST news archive] said Sunday that it will no longer allow news photographers or cameramen at the scenes of bomb attacks. Brigadier General Abdel-Karim Khalaf, head of the ministry's national operations center, told AFP that the prohibition was enacted in response to evidence being disturbed before the arrival of investigators, respect for the victims, and to prevent bombers from learning the extent of the aftermath of their attacks. Khalaf denied that the ban was infringing freedom of the press, but instead called it "a measure followed all over the world."

Sunday's announcement is only the most recent of a number of restrictions on the media in Iraq. Last week Iraqi Council of Representatives [official website, in Arabic] approved legal action [JURIST report] against Al Jazeera [media website, in English] for "insulting" top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani [BBC profile; official website]. In November, the parliament banned journalists from their sessions [JURIST report], as a way to prevent reporting of contradictory statements made by politicians. In early December, the Interior Ministry announced the formation of a specialized unit that would monitor news coverage [JURIST report] to correct "fabricated and false news" that the ministry claimed gave the Iraqi people the wrong impression that the situation in the country is worse than it actually is. The ministry also threatened to sue journalists who refused to comply with orders to modify their stories. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] ruled Monday that a US district judge did not abuse his discretion in refusing to allow an Arizona death row inmate to pursue an ineffective assistance of counsel claim after the inmate refused to allow his lawyer to present mitigating evidence at his sentencing hearing. In Schriro v. Landrigan [Duke Law case backgrounder], the defendant told the trial judge that he did not wish his lawyer to present mitigating evidence during sentencing, but then later attempted to obtain post-conviction relief because his lawyer failed to conduct further investigation into mitigating circumstances.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to reverse the Ninth Circuit's decision [PDF text] in the case. The majority wrote:

In cases where an applicant for federal habeas relief is not barred from obtaining an evidentiary hearing by 28 U. S. C. §2254(e)(2), the decision to grant such a hearing rests in the discretion of the district court. Here, the District Court determined that respondent could not make out a colorable claim of ineffective assistance of counsel and therefore was not entitled to an evidentiary hearing. It did so after reviewing the state-court record and expanding the record to include additional evidence offered by the respondent. The Court of Appeals held that the District Court abused its discretion in refusing to grant the hearing. We hold that it did not.

[JURIST] Leadership within the Communist Party of Nepal - Maoists (CPN-M) [party website] has called on Nepal's interim parliament to immediately declare the country a federal democratic republic. CPN-M leadership formed a human protest chain through the parliament building on Sunday which police say was long enough to disrupt traffic throughout the capital city of Kathmandu. Senior members of the Maoist party claim that they have secured over one million signatures on a petition calling for the creation of a republic government. The CPN-M has been agitating for the declaration of a republic [BBC report] for several weeks, but senior leaders in the six other major parties involved in the interim parliament, operating under the powers of the interim constitution [JURIST report], assert that the parliament only has the power to set up elections for a Constituent Assembly [eKantipur report], which will then decide the form of Nepal's new government.

Dissatisfaction with King Gyanendra [official profile; BBC profile] has led many individuals to call for the simple abolition of the monarchy with the declaration of a republic. eKantipur.com has more.

[JURIST] Joram Gumbo, a Zimbabwean delegate to the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) [official website] and member of the ruling party of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe [BBC profile], expressed outrage and contempt Sunday for the African organization's decision [press release] to send a fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe to investigate allegations of ongoing human rights abuses. Gumbo referred to the Pan-African Parliament, the African Union's legislative arm, as a "noise-making" institution and argued that far worse situations existed in Africa and that the PAP should be focusing their attention on those countries, rather than Zimbabwe [JURIST news archive]. Gumbo warned that the PAP was still required to send a letter of intent to the Zimbabwean government announcing their formation of an investigation mission and that the government was under no obligation to permit the fact-finding team into the country.

The PAP voted [ZimOnline report] 149-20 Friday in favor of sending a "fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe to investigate matters relating to human rights, good governance, transparency and the rule of law pertinent to the mandate of the Pan African Parliament," marking the first time in the organization's history it has agreed on sending a mission into another African nation. SAPA has more.

[JURIST] Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius [official website] has signed legislation making English the official state language. The bill [PDF text; supplemental note, PDF], which was signed Friday and takes effect July 1, also gives state and local governments the discretion to provide official documents or hold meetings in non-English languages, and grants an exception to Native American tribal school districts to "provide for the instruction of students that recognizes the cultural identity... [and] provides the use of a common language for communication." In February, the Kansas House of Representatives passed a version of the bill [JURIST report] that provided $500,000 dollars to facilitate education in English for non-native speakers, but the Kansas Senate removed the provision.

Critics of the bill, such as Rep. Dale Swenson (R-Wichita) and Rep. Tim Owens (R-Overland Park) [official profiles], have characterized the bill as a distraction from other issues such as health care and warned that the bill could send a "negative message" about the state. In March, several Native American groups voiced opposition [JURIST report] to a similar measure in Oklahoma over concerns that laws requiring all official state business to be conducted in English would stifle efforts to revive tribal languages. Kansas joins at least 29 other states that have made English the official or common language [JURIST news archive; backgrounder]. The Lawrence Journal-World has more.

[JURIST] Japan's House of Councillors [official website, in English], the upper house of the National Diet, approved legislation [JURIST report] Monday establishing procedures to facilitate a national constitutional referendum. The legislation requires a three-year public consultation period before parliament can vote on possible constitutional amendments, which must be approved by both houses of the National Diet by a two-thirds vote before proceeding to a national referendum. The legislation also sets a threshold of a simple majority for the popular vote approving constitutional amendments, and lowers the voting age from 20 to 18.

Earlier this month, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe [official website; BBC profile] repeated his call [JURIST report] for reforming the Japanese constitution [text], saying the pacifist constitution "needs to be revised as its basic framework can no longer proceed with major changes in the administration system, relations between central and local governments, and foreign and security policies." Efforts to reform the constitution are particularly focused on Article 9 [text; Wikipedia backgrounder], which has been interpreted to bar Japan [JURIST news archive] from maintaining military forces and from using force in international conflicts except in self-defense. Some fear the article may potentially hinder Japan's ability to respond to crises [JURIST report]. AP has more. Bloomberg has additional coverage.