[JURIST] Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev [official website] said Saturday that he had accepted the resignation [press release, in Bulgarian] of Justice Minister Georgi Petkanov [official profile, in English] ahead of an expected European Commission report on the country's ongoing judiciary reforms [JURIST report]. Petkanov said Wednesday that he was tired of the difficult job of judiciary reform, and wanted to resign for personal reasons. Stanishev also announced that he had accepted the resignation of Economy and Energy Minister Rumen Ovcharov [official profile, in English]. In April, Ovcharov and other government officials accused one another of diverting funds from state companies, blackmail, and other forms of corruption. In early May, Ovcharov offered his resignation, but tabled it before renewing the offer Friday.

Stanishev has not indicated who will replace the two ministers, but did say that the reforms "will continue with new energy". The EU judicial reform report, expected in coming weeks, will likely be critical of the slow progress the country has made in eliminating corruption since joining the EU [JURIST report] earlier this year. AFP has more.

[JURIST] US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Friday announced draft legislation [press release] to combat violent crime that would increase penalties, extend the statute of limitations for prosecution, and create separate statutory prohibitions against violent crime by illegal immigrants [JURIST news archive]. The proposed Violent Crime and Anti-Terrorism Act of 2007, brought forward just days after FBI Assistant Director of Public Affairs John Miller said that a forthcoming FBI report would detail a nationwide increase in murders, robberies and other violent crimes [JURIST report] for a second straight year, also seeks to restore the binding nature of sentencing guidelines, which the US Supreme Court found to be merely advisory [JURIST report] in US v. Booker [text]. The legislation would also expand federal narcotics law, sexual predator law, and anti-terrorism law.

Gonzales also announced the expansion of violent crime task forces [ATF backgrounder, PDF] into four new cities: Mesa, AZ; Orlando, FL; San Bernardino, CA; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. In a statement made at the ATF Headquarters, Gonzales said that the four cities were chosen because they asked for help following an "unacceptable increase in homicides or other violent crimes" [statement text]. The addition of the four cities means that 29 US cities are now covered in the Violent Crime Impact Team program. Friday's proposals do not increase funding for individual communities' own law enforcement groups. AFP has more. AP has additional coverage.

[JURIST] US District Judge Marcia Cooke [official profile] declined to exclude FBI wiretap evidence from the trial of accused terrorist supporter Jose Padilla [JURIST news archive] Friday, rejecting arguments by defense attorneys that phone conversations that mentioned Osama bin Laden were irrelevant and threatened to prejudice the jury. Padilla and co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi are charged [indictment, PDF; JURIST report] with being a part of an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist support network and conspiring to murder US nationals.

Padilla, a US citizen, was arrested in 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and subsequently detained as an "enemy combatant" [JURIST news archive] at a Navy military brig in Charleston, South Carolina. Initially accused of planning to set off a "dirty bomb" in the United States, Padilla went from enemy combatant to criminal defendant when he was finally charged in November 2005. AP has more.

[JURIST] US President George W. Bush continued to push for passage [transcript; video] of the latest comprehensive immigration reform bill [S 1348 summary; JURIST report] Friday, denying conservative claims that the bill is "amnesty" by insisting it brings consequences for those who entered the US illegally. Bush recognized bipartisan complaints that the bill has problems, but responded that it "is a good piece of legislation", and being so complicated, questioned whether it was worth it to "sacrifice the good for the sake of the perfect". Commerce Secretary Carlos Guiterrez, who had assisted in drafting the reforms [statement], told reporters after the president's speech that although not everyone will get everything they want, "everyone will get something, and in the end, what we come up with is better for the country."

Since its proposal, the White House has been forced to defend the legislation [JURIST report] from conservative critics who argue that it goes too far, and liberal critics who argue it doesn't go far enough. Last week, the Senate voted to slash the maximum number of temporary guest workers [JURIST report] that could be annually admitted into the United States from 600,000 to 200,000. AP has more.

[JURIST] Ukraine's parliament [official website, in Ukrainian] Friday approved a series of bills paving the way for early parliamentary elections on September 30. The bills, reflecting an earlier political compromise [JURIST report] between rivals President Viktor Yushchenko [official website; JURIST news archive] and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych [BBC profile] that adverted a violent confrontation between their fractions, had previously twice failed to gain parliamentary approval [JURIST report].

Also on Friday, Yushchenko reinstated former Prosecutor General Olesandr Medvedko, who served as Prosecutor General from 2005 until April 2007 when Yushchenko replaced him with Svyatoslav Piskun. Yushchenko fired Piskun last Thursday, which prompted Interior Minister Vasyl Tsushko to dispatch police to prevent his removal [JURIST report]. AP has more. RIA Novosti has additional coverage.

[JURIST] Thousands of Pakistanis rallied in support of suspended [JURIST report] Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry [official website; JURIST news archive] Saturday, defying a government ban on unauthorized rallies [JURIST report] of more than five people declared Friday. The rally began in the capital city of Islamabad, and proceeded south for 30 miles to Abbotabad where an estimated 50,000 people, including many Pakistani lawyers, greeted Chaudhry's convoy with banners of support and portraits of Chaudhry. Aitzaz Ahsan, a lawyer for Chaudhry, said that police made no attempts to stop Chaudhry's supporters. The Pakistani government says it issued the partial ban on public gatherings of more than five people to ensure the peace and avoid inconvenience to the public. In April, a planned rally for Chaudhry in Karachi turned violent [JURIST report], resulting in 41 deaths.

Unlike previous rallies in support of Chaudhry, media coverage of Saturday's march was muted, which media outlets attribute to growing government pressure not to provide live coverage of Chaudhry's rallies. Pakistan Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani told AP that the government believed in the independence of the media, and that the government had only requested the media to cover news relating to Chaudhry in a "fair manner." On Friday, several television stations claimed they had been told that they will not be allowed to cover the march, and President General Pervez Musharraf told [press release] the media Wednesday to not "politicize a purely judicial and legal matter," and to follow the regulations set down by Pakistan's media regulatory authority. Many Pakistani lawyers and opposition leaders believe Chaudhry's suspension to be an assault on the independence of the country's judiciary and an indirect bid by Musharraf to continue his eight-year rule in an election year. AP has more.