[JURIST] A prominent Russian lawyer and government critic was accused Tuesday of disclosing state secrets about government wiretapping to the Russian Constitutional Court [RIN backgrounder]. Boris Kuznetsov [American Russian Law Institute profile] fled the country recently after a city court approved a criminal investigation last week; Tuesday's move by the Moscow prosecutor's office formally opened the investigation. The probe of Kuznetsov stems from his representation of former parliamentarian Levon Chakhmakhchyan, whose telephone conversations were recorded by the Federal Security Service [official website, in Russian] without court authorization.

Russia has lately seen increasing official pressure put on lawyers representing high-profile clients critical of the government. In the past, Kuznetsov has represented numerous government opponents, including the family of slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya [BBC report; JURIST news archive]. AP has more.

[JURIST] US District Judge Marcia Cooke ruled Tuesday that prosecutors had produced enough evidence in the trial of Jose Padilla [JURIST news archive] and his co-defendants that the case should go to a jury, rejecting a motion for acquittal filed by the defense. The prosecution rested [JURIST report] last week, at which time the defense filed the motion based on the alleged insufficiency of the evidence against Padilla, Adham Amin Hassoun, and Kifah Wael Jayyousi [GlobalSecurity profiles]. Defense counsel is scheduled to begin presenting its case this week.

Padilla, Hassoun, and Jayyousi are charged [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 with other offenses in November 2005. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Bosnian war crimes tribunal Tuesday sentenced [press release] a Bosnian Muslim to 30 years in prison for war crimes committed against Serbs in the 1992 - 1995 civil war [Wikipedia backgrounder]. Niset Ramic received the longest sentence yet handed down by the Bosnian War Crimes Chamber. The court found Ramic guilty of murdering four Serbian civilians [PDF indictment] in the town of Visoko during a weapons raid in June 1992.

The War Crimes Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina [official website], created to investigate and prosecute atrocities committed during the ethnic war between Serbs, Bosnian Muslims, and Croats, was established [JURIST report] in March 2005 to ease the backlog of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia [official website]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] French Justice Minister Rachida Dati [official profile, in French] pressed a bill to toughen the country's criminal code [transcript, in French] in an appearance before the National Assembly [official website, in French] Tuesday. The bill, which fulfills a campaign promise of French President Nicolas Sarkozy [official website, in French], will allow minors as young as 16 to be treated as adults when charges are serious. It will also establish minimum sentences for repeat offenders. Left-leaning groups criticized the bill, saying it will increase prison overpopulation without addressing the root causes of crime. They also denounced the minimum sentences for hampering judges' sentencing discretion.

Dati brushed off the criticism, saying the "most important tool in the prevention of crime is the certainty of punishment." The proposed bill has already been passed in the French Senate [official website]. AFP has more.

[JURIST] A suicide bomber struck a lawyers' protest over the ousting of suspended Pakistan Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry [official website; JURIST news archive] in Islamabad Tuesday, killing at least 13 people and wounding at least 40. Chaudhry was not present at the time of the attack, which appeared to be aimed at his supporters. Witnesses told the BBC that the bomber attacked near supporters of the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP) [party website]. The motive for the attack is still unknown. The PPP had recently distanced itself from right-wing Islamic parties opposed to Pakistan President Musharraf [official website]. PPP also supported the decision to storm the Red Mosque last week, which drove out hard-line Islamists who advocated adopting Sharia law as the country's legal system.

This was not the first rally for Chaudhry to turn violent. In May, clashes sparked by the arrival of Chaudhry caused the deaths of 39 people [JURIST report]. The government says Chaudhry misused his influence [JURIST report] to obtain jobs and promotions for his son. Officials have already indicated other charges may follow [JURIST report]. Many Pakistani lawyers and opposition leaders believe Chaudhry's March suspension was an indirect bid by Musharraf to continue his eight-year rule in an election year. BBC News has more. AFP has additional coverage.

[JURIST] Sources close to Libya's Supreme Judiciary Council told the Associated Press Tuesday that the death sentences [JURIST report] of six foreign medics [JURIST news archive] accused of knowingly infecting over 400 Libyan patients with the HIV virus have been commuted to life in prison. The families of the infected patients dropped their calls for the execution of the workers after each received $1 million in compensation as a settlement [JURIST report], negotiated by the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charity [official website]. Seif al Islam, son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, told France's Le Figaro newspaper [media website, in French] that Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia, and the Czech Republic were all involved [Le Figaro report, in French] in procuring the funds. The nations all denied sending money to the families, but the Foreign Ministry of Bulgaria [official website] admitted considering sending funds for humanitarian aid as part of an international effort.

The Libyan Supreme Court upheld the death sentences [JURIST report] only last week. Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev [official profile] said the Supreme Judiciary Council's involvement so soon after the court decision showed the effect of international pressure on Libya. The medics - five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor - have been imprisoned since 1999 and have consistently maintained their innocence, saying that they were being scapegoated for unsanitary conditions in the Libyan hospitals where they worked. Bulgaria and its allies, including the US [JURIST report] and the European Union, contend that the medics are innocent and were tortured into admitting guilt [HRW report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal [official backgrounder] Tuesday upheld [judgment] a 2006 lower court ruling that invalidated a law targeting public homosexual sodomy [Crimes Ordinance S.118F(1), text], ruling that the law's specific focus against homosexual sodomy is unconstitutional, discriminatory, and thereby violates Hong Kong's Basic Law [text and backgrounder] and the Bill of Rights [text]. The original ruling [judgment], issued last-September by the Court of Appeal for the High Court [official backgrounder], stems from an appeal brought on by two men who admitted violating the law in a private car parked beside a public road. The law was enacted in 1991 when Hong Kong was a British colony, but this is the first time that anyone has been prosecuted under it.

Last September, the Court of Appeal for the High Court upheld [judgment; JURIST report] a 2005 ruling that invalided laws prohibiting homosexual sex [JURIST report], specifically rejecting a law that held that men under 21 who engaged in sodomy could receive a life sentence, while heterosexual and lesbian relationships were legal after the age of 16. AP has more.

[JURIST] Some members of the European Parliament [official website] criticized Swiss Senator Dick Marty [personal website; JURIST news archive] Tuesday for failing to cite sources [press release] in his June report [text; JURIST report] to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe that accused Poland and Romania of assisting the US Central Intelligence Agency in operating secret prisons [JURIST news archive] for terror suspects. One criticized Marty's report as essentially being a rehash of what was already reported in the news, "without offering any concrete evidence." Marty defended the document before the European Parliament's Committees on Civil Liberties and Foreign Affairs and the Sub-committee on Human Rights, saying that every allegation made had corroborating evidence. Supporters called for countries implicated in the report to follow Council of Europe [official website] urgings to be more transparent [JURIST report], and allow the investigating teams access to their documents.

EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini [official website] had previously complained that the report quoted only unverifiable, anonymous sources. Spokespersons for other implicated countries vehemently denied the allegations, with one Polish lawmaker quoted as calling the report a "piece of fiction." US President George W. Bush acknowledged the existence of the secret CIA prison program [JURIST report] last year, but did not disclose any details. AP has more.

[JURIST] Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock [official profile] said Tuesday that the Australian government is considering whether to toughen existing terror laws following a Monday ruling by a magistrate granting bail to UK terror suspect Dr. Mohammad Haneef [JURIST news archive]. Immigration and Citizenship Minister Kevin Andrews [official website] subsequently revoked Haneef's work visa and placed Haneef under immigration detention to effectively block the bail order. The move was sharply criticized by lawyers groups and activists [JURIST report]. During an interview [recorded video, WMV] on Australian ABC-TV Lateline Ruddock said that current laws, which include a presumption against bail for terrorist suspects, were not operating as the government had anticipated. He also refused to provide more details on what evidence the Australian government has connecting Haneef with providing material support to the failed UK car bomb attacks [JURIST report], saying that the information cannot be divulged under law because it pertains to national security. Haneef, who is not facing charges in the UK, is believed to have left a subscriber identity module [Wikipedia backgrounder] with his second cousin, one of the alleged bombers, when he left the UK almost a year ago.

Also Tuesday, Supreme Court of Victoria [official website] Justice Bernard Bongiorno appeared to wade into the bail debate while granting bail to two alleged Tamil Tiger supporters [Melbourne Age report], insisting that suspects are innocent of crimes until proven guilty and that "If that principle's abandoned or modified for political expediency, we risk the legal foundation of our whole criminal justice system." ABC News has more.

[JURIST] Russia's Constitutional Court [official website, in Russian] Monday upheld [press release, in Russian] a 2004 law requiring certified political parties to have at least 50,000 members. The decision upheld a May Supreme Court [official website, in Russian] ruling that dissolved the Russian Communist Workers Party - Revolutionary Party of Communists (RKRP-RPK) [party website, in Russian], a party of approximately 35,000 members. The party's first secretary told reporters that the decision essentially locked out smaller groups, who could not raise the funds to attract the requisite number of members. On the RKRP-RPK website, the group said that it would continue fighting [press release, in Russian] to achieve political acceptance.

According to the RKRP-RPK, 16 political parties have so far had their party status revoked by the Russian Federal Registration Service [official website, in Russian], which regulates Russia's political parties. In March, both the Republican Party [party website, in Russian; JURIST report] and the Russian Peace Party [JURIST report] were shut down by the Supreme Court. The Social Democratic Party of Russia, the country's oldest political party, was shut down in April [JURIST report] for failure to follow other Registration Service regulations. The Moscow Times has more.

[JURIST] The European Court of First Instance [official website] announced Tuesday that it will deliver a judgment [press release, PDF] September 17 in Microsoft's appeal [JURIST report] against the European Commission's (EC) 2004 landmark anti-trust ruling [JURIST report] that hit Microsoft [corporate website; JURIST news archive] with a record €497.2 million euro (approximately $686 million) fine. Microsoft, which is seeking the "annulment of the decision or a substantial reduction in the fine imposed on it," has been accused by the EC of steadily increasing its market share [JURIST report] in the workgroup server market through abusive business practices; the company has been threatened with additional fines [JURIST report]. Both the European Commission and Microsoft can appeal the judgment to the European Court of Justice [official website; JURIST news archive].

Last July, EC antitrust regulators imposed a €2 million euro per day (approximately $2.75 million) fine [JURIST report] on Microsoft for continuing noncompliance with its 2004 order, which required Microsoft to share information necessary for compatibility with competitors and offer a reduced version of the Windows XP operating system without Windows Media Player. AP has more.

[JURIST] India's Ministry of Women and Child Development [official website] announced plans Tuesday to toughen existing laws prohibiting the archaic Hindu funeral custom of sati [Wikipedia backgrounder], in which widows are expected to self-immolate on their deceased husbands' funeral pyre, by holding entire communities criminally responsible and increasing the maximum punishment from the current seven years imprisonment to life. The ministry's proposals, which will be submitted to the cabinet Council of Ministers [official website] for approval, are intended to strengthen the Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act of 1987 [text]. If approved by the cabinet, the proposals will be referred to the Parliament of India [official website] when it reconvenes in August.

The proposals, which will hold village councils responsible for its implementation, are intended to counter the pressures that annually contribute to a few highly-publicized deaths. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The Indonesian Constitutional Court [official website] Tuesday voided Articles 154 and 155 of the Indonesian criminal code prohibiting acts of inciting hatred against the government or the distribution of materials voicing opposition against the government, ruling that Dutch colonial-era articles violated the freedom of expression guaranteed in the 1945 Indonesian Constitution [text]. The ruling stems from an appeal filed by Aceh activist Panji Utomo, who was sentenced to prison for leading protests against the government [WorldBank backgrounder, PDF] in September 2006.

Last December, the Constitutional Court analogously voided Articles 134, 136, and 137 of the criminal code [Amnesty report], ruling that prohibitions on "insulting the President or Vice-President" violated the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Indonesian constitution. In February, after Indonesia convicted and jailed at least 18 people for peacefully advocating Papua [Wikipedia backgrounder] independence, Human Rights Watch criticized Indonesia for continuing to criminalize peaceful dissent. AP has more. Xinhua has additional coverage.

[JURIST] China's Shanxi province High People's Court Tuesday announced the completion of 7 trials and verdicts against 29 defendants [Xinhua reports, in Chinese] accused of involvement in the use of slave labor at various brick kilns in the Shanxi and Henan provinces Tuesday, sentencing kiln bosses, foremen, and other workers to punishments ranging from 18 months to 9 year prison terms for illegal detention. The court also announced a life sentence and death sentence against two defendants found guilty of more serious intentional infliction of injury charges. Five more trials involving 12 defendants are still in progress. Shanxi Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials also announced disciplinary actions against 95 party officials [Xinhua report, in Chinese] for dereliction of duty Tuesday, expelling 3 from the CCP, dismissing or demoting 45, and issuing various reprimands against the remaining officials.

In June, two Chinese labor officials were arrested [JURIST report] for allegations that they failed to report the enslavement of hundreds of people at Chinese brick kilns. In late June, the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress adopted a new labor contract law [JURIST report], which codifies administrative and criminal penalties for employers and government officials who either abuse or neglect their duties to laborers. AP has more. China Daily has local coverage.

[JURIST] Lawyers and rights groups joined in criticism of Australia's continued detention of UK terror suspect Dr. Mohammad Haneef [JURIST news archive] Tuesday, saying that the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship's decision to revoke Haneef's work visa so that Haneef can remain detained despite being granted bail by a magistrate, erodes the rule of law and violates the principles of justice. Haneef, an Indian doctor, is accused of being involved with failed UK car bomb attacks [JURIST report] in Glasgow and London late last month. Immigration and Citizenship Minister Kevin Andrews [official website] defended his decision to revoke Haneef's work visa [ABC report; transcript], saying that he arrived at the conclusion that Haneef "had and has associations with people who have been involved in criminal conduct" after seeing information that cannot be revealed under the law. Australian authorities have charged [JURIST report] Haneef with providing support in the terror plot because Haneef left a subscriber identity module [Wikipedia backgrounder] with his second cousin, one of the alleged bombers, when he left the UK almost a year ago.

Australian Bar Association [official website] President Stephen Estcourt, who called the continued detention a threat to the rule of law, said it was difficult to accept that government prosecutors did not present the additional evidence the Australian government claimed to posses, adding that if the visa revocation is to be upheld against appeal, the government will need to prove "more than just a casual association" with the suspected UK terrorists. Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA) [official website] President Ian Brown characterized the treatment of Haneef as appalling and deplorable [press release, PDF], saying that if comparable treatment occurred to an Australian national overseas, the country would be outraged. Brown also said that the visa revocation "is a grave departure from the standards of justice you would expect to see in any civilized society..." adding that the ALA believes the visa revocation is "little more than reactive and political." Another ALA official said that government prosecutors had the opportunity to appeal the decision granting Haneef bail to the Australian Supreme Court, but the government has instead "taken away this man's right to a fair hearing." Amnesty International Australia [official website] said it was "extremely concerned" with the development, calling it a "unprecedented use of power" [press release] that jeopardizes the right to a fair trial.

Haneef's lawyer has confirmed that Haneef will appeal the revocation of his visa [ABC report], while Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Navtej Sarna said that India has "expressed its concern" [press release] to Australia treat it Haneef in a fair and just manner under Australian law. Last Wednesday, former Australian High Court [official website] Chief Justice Sir Gerald Brennan [academic profile] denounced the anti-terror laws [text] being used to detain Haneef, calling them vague and even "draconian" [JURIST report]. AP has more. ABC News has local coverage.

[JURIST] The UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office [official website] announced the expulsion of four Russian diplomats [press release] and the immediate suspension of visa facilitation negotiations with Russia Monday, blaming "Russia's failure to cooperate to find a solution" in the two countries' differences over Britain's extradition request [JURIST report] for Andrei Lugovoy [JURIST news archive], wanted [JURIST report] by the UK Crown Prosecution Service for his alleged role in the poisoning-murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko [BBC profile; BBC timeline]. Prime Minister Gordon Brown [official profile] said that Britain would like to maintain "the best of relationships with Russia" [press release] but said that:

...people have got to understand that when a murder is committed on British soil, and when innocent people are put at risk by the method by which that murder is conducted, and when we have had a full police investigation and then we have the Independent Prosecuting Authority demanding that a certain person be arrested for the murder that has taken place and for the damage done to other civilians as a result of that, then we expect authorities in other parts of the world to co-operate with us in bringing that person to justice.