[JURIST] The Philippines armed forces have followed a "deliberate strategy" of killing left-wing activists, according to a report [DOC text] Monday by UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions [official website] Philip Alston [NYU Law profile]. According to the summary of Alston's report:

Many in the Government have concluded that numerous civil society organizations are "fronts" for the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed group, the New People's Army (NPA). One response has been counter-insurgency operations that result in the extrajudicial execution of leftist activists. In some areas, the leaders of leftist organizations are systematically hunted down by interrogating and torturing those who may know their whereabouts, and they are often killed following a campaign of individual vilification designed to instill fear into the community. The priorities of the criminal justice system have also been distorted, and it has increasingly focused on prosecuting civil society leaders rather than their killers.

The military is in a state of denial concerning the numerous extrajudicial executions in which its soldiers are implicated. Military officers argue that many or all of the extrajudicial executions have actually been committed by the communist insurgents as part of an internal purge. The NPA does commit extrajudicial executions, sometimes dressing them up as "revolutionary justice", but the evidence that it is currently engaged in a large-scale purge is strikingly unconvincing. The military's insistence that the "purge theory" is correct can only be viewed as a cynical attempt to displace responsibility.

[JURIST] Senegalese prosecutors will begin an investigation into former Chadian president Hissene Habre [HRW materials; JURIST news archive] within months so that Habre can face trial for alleged torture and mass killings in Senegal in the 1980s, victims' lawyers said Monday. Senegalese officials said earlier this year that Habre's trial would probably not begin for another three years [JURIST report] in order to give Senegal sufficient time to establish the necessary legal procedures and raise enough funds for the proceeding. In July, the government determined that Habre would stand trial in a criminal court [JURIST report] rather than in front of a special tribunal, possibly hastening the trial. Human rights groups, however, have still criticized Senegal for its lack of progress.

African Union leaders decided last year that Habre would face trial in Senegal [decision, PDF; JURIST report] for committing some 40,000 alleged acts of murder and torture of political opponents during his rule from 1982 to 1990, after which he fled to Senegal. Following an initial attempt to have charges brought against Habre in Senegal failed, victims took their case to Belgium, where prosecutors indicted him on crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture charges in 2005 under Belgium's universal jurisdiction laws. Senegal has since agreed to the AU's determination that Habre should face trial in that country, with Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade saying that his country was "best-placed" to try Habre. Right groups have urged Senegal to build on the work of Belgian investigators to speed up the trial. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] heard oral arguments Monday in LaRue v. DeWolff, Boberg & Associates [Medill backgrounder; merit briefs], 06-856, a case where the Court considered whether the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) [text; US DOL backgrounder] allows an employee to sue for losses incurred when administrators of his retirement plan ignore his instructions on how to invest his retirement money. James LaRue says that he lost $150,000 when administrators of his 401(k) retirement plan refused to divest in risky stocks after he had twice instructed them to do so.

In the past, ERISA has been found to only allow recovery when plan administrators have injured all plan participants by malfeasance. The US District Court ruled that LaRue was not entitled to sue for recovery, and the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed [opinion, PDF] the ruling. Lawyers for the plan administrators argued that allowing individuals to sue for recovery of losses would open the floodgates to excessive litigation. LaRue's lawyers argued that ERISA gives individuals the right to sue over losses in federal court. AP has more.

[JURIST] Prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda [official website; JURIST news archive] Monday pushed for a life sentence for Father Athanase Seromba [case materials], arguing that Seromba's 15 year prison sentence [JURIST report] for committing genocide and extermination during the 1994 mass killings [HRW backgrounder] of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda was too lenient. Seromba, who was acquitted of lesser charges of complicity and incitement, was in charge of a parish church where some 2000 Tutsis sought refuge from Hutu forces. He was found to have ordered the bulldozing of the church and the shooting of all those who tried to escape. Seromba's lawyers argued that he was powerless to stop the carnage, in which all the sanctuary-seekers died. Seromba, the first priest convicted by the ICTR, surrendered to the tribunal in February 2002 and was convicted in December 2006.

On Sunday, the ICTR announced that it will be unable to complete its work [JURIST report] before its mandate expires in December 2008. ICTR officials plan to transfer uncompleted cases to Rwandan national jurisdiction. Amnesty International has urged the ICTR not to transfer genocide suspects to Rwanda [JURIST report; press release], saying that there are concerns regarding the fairness and impartiality of Rwanda's justice system. AFP has more.

[JURIST] A Russian court ruled against former chess champion and liberal United Civil Front [party website, in Russian] leader Garry Kasparov [personal website, in Russian] Monday, denying Kasparov's appeal and ordering him to serve a five day jail sentence [JURIST report] for organizing an unsanctioned protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin [official website] and resisting arrest. Kasparov says he complied with police and maintains that his arrest was illegal.

In April, Kasparov accused police of brutality after being arrested [JURIST reports] at a similar rally. Kasparov and fellow opposition leader former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov [BBC profile] have strongly criticized Putin and his allies in the run-up to December parliamentary elections and the March 2008 presidential election. Kasparov has accused Putin of instituting a police state and creating a puppet judiciary [JURIST report] to persecute opposition leaders. AP has more.

[JURIST] Human rights groups Amnesty International and JUSTICE [advocacy websites] Monday argued against the UK government's proposal to extend the pre-charge detention period of suspected terrorists from 28 days to 56 days, saying separately that the extended detention is neither merited by the circumstances nor in keeping with the principals of liberal democracy. Amnesty issued "Ten good reasons why extending pre-charge detention is a bad idea" [press release], saying that extended pre-charge detention:

undermines one of our most basic rights, enshrined in UK law as far back as Magna Carta and now at the heart of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which UK is a signatory: the right for anyone who is detained by the state to be told promptly why they are being held and what they are charged with.

[JURIST] Croatian lawmaker Branimir Glavas [personal website; Trial Watch profile], charged with committing war crimes against Serbs during the 1991 Serbo-Croatian war [GlobalSecurity backgrounder], was re-elected to the Croatian parliament in Sunday's legislative elections, according to election results released Monday. Glavas was indicted [JURIST report] in April along with six others on charges of war crimes committed in Osijek, including abduction, torture and murder. Glavas' Croatian Democratic Alliance of Slavonia and Baranja [party website, in Croatian] won three seats in the election. The party has previously said that Glavas would have parliamentary immunity and would have to be released from detention if he won a seat in Sunday's election.

Glavas has maintained his innocence and even staged a 40-day hunger strike last year when he was detained [JURIST report] after the criminal investigation against him initially opened. He also faces another war crimes investigation in Zagreb for the murder of two Serbs in a separate incident in Osijek. Glavas was one of the founding members of the ruling conservative HDZ party [party website, in Croatian], but was ousted in 2005 by Prime Minister Ivo Sanader [SE Times profile]. The Croatian Parliament [official website] granted a request in May 2006 to lift parliamentary immunity for Glavas in order to move forward with criminal proceedings. AFP has more.

[JURIST] Some 8,000 Kenyans have been killed over the last five years as a result of a police crackdown on the outlawed Mungiki sect, according to the Oscar Foundation Free Legal Aid Clinic-Kenya (OFFLACK) [advocacy website]. In a report [PDF text] issued over the weekend, OFFLACK said:

The Oscar Foundation has documented eight thousand and forty (8,040) cases of death by executions and torture perpetuated by state security agents and another 4070 cases of disappearance where the victims remain unaccounted for in the period between August 2002 and August 2007.

OFFLACK currently receives daily reports of between 200 to 400 cases of torture, extra-judicial executions, arbitrary arrests, and illegal confinement of young people on the pretext that they belong to the outlawed Mungiki sect. It was noted that most cases of torture occurred when officers attempted to extract confessions by force or while extorting bribes from suspected adherents. Those who refuse to part with bribes were blindfolded and led away to the killing fields where they were summarily executed.

[JURIST] Iraqi Kurdish and Shiite lawmakers on Monday criticized the delay in the executions of Ali Hassan al-Majid [JURIST news archive], better known in Western media as "Chemical Ali," and two others, all of whom are currently being held by the US military until a legal debate on the executions is resolved [JURIST report]. Several legal and procedural requirements for the executions have not yet been met, including signatures on the defendants' execution orders, and the US said earlier this month that the prisoners would not be transferred to Iraqi custody for their executions until all unresolved matters are settled. Some lawmakers called the interference a constitutional violation, and urged the government to carry out the executions immediately.

The Iraqi High Tribunal sentenced [JURIST report] al-Majid and two co-defendants to death in June on genocide and war crimes charges. The Tribunal's Appeals Chamber upheld the death sentences [JURIST report] in September. Under Iraqi law, the executions were supposed to have taken place 30 days after the men were sentenced, meaning that the men should have been executed no later than October 4. Iraq's Presidency Council, including Kurdish President Jalal Talibani, Shi'ite Vice-President Adel Abdul-Mahdi, and Sunni Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi, have nonetheless refused to sign any execution order [JURIST report]. An Iraqi judge said in September that presidential approval is not required [JURIST report] to carry out an execution for al-Majid and his co-defendants, but al-Hashemi reasserted in October that the presidency did in fact have the power to block the carrying out of the death sentences [AP report], regardless of their approval by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The Philippine House of Representatives [official website] Monday defeated [press release] an impeachment bid against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo [BBC profile] for alleged bribery, graft, corruption, and human rights abuses. The impeachment petition, filed by opposition lawmakers [JURIST report] earlier this month, needed approval of one-third of the House before the Philippines Senate could initiate a trial. However, 184 out of 240 lawmakers voted to uphold the decision by the House Justice Committee which dismissed the complaint against Arroyo on a technicality for lack of substance.

Since her election in 2004, Arroyo has overcome multiple impeachment efforts accusing her of rigging the presidential elections [JURIST reports] and corruption. AP has more.

[JURIST] Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif [BBC profile; party profile] on Monday urged the government of Pakistan to return to the rule of law and restore democracy in the country, now under emergency rule [JURIST bews archive]. At a press conference a day after his return from a seven-year exile [JURIST report] in Saudi Arabia, Sharif also called for the restoration of the judiciary, acknowledging superior court judges who have refused to take oaths under President Pervez Musharraf's Provisional Constitution Order [text as amended].

Sharif has filed nomination papers [BBC report] for general elections scheduled for January, but said Monday that unless Musharraf lifts the emergency, he will boycott the vote. Sharif was overthrown by Musharraf in a 1999 military coup; he was later sentenced to 14 years in prison for treason and corruption but was allowed go into exile in in 2000. The News has more. ANI has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The Bangladesh Supreme Court [official website] Monday ordered a stay of the bail granted to former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed [party profile], who has been charged by Bangladesh's anti-corruption commission [governing statute, PDF] with corruption, and most recently, bribery [JURIST reports]. A lower court had granted Hasina bail on November 4 while also staying the case proceedings; the appeals court affirmed the stay of proceedings Monday. In October, Hasina denied accusations [JURIST report] of corruption during questioning by officials that she allegedly extorted approximately $1.16 million from two businessmen. She also faces multiple counts of murder arising from the deaths of four protesters during political turmoil last year.

The new interim government in Bangladesh has arrested over 150 high-profile citizens since the military government declared a state of emergency [JURIST report; advocacy backgrounder] in January due to concerns that fraud would mar national elections scheduled for January 22. Hasina's rival, former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia [UN profile], has also been charged with corruption [JURIST report]. Hasina was prime minister between 1996 and 2001 and is the the leader of the opposition Awami League [party website]. Xinhua has more.

[JURIST] Munir Malik [JURIST news archive], a former president of Pakistan's Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) who was taken into custody by police in the wake of President Pervez Musharraf's November 3 declaration of emergency [JURIST news archive], was reported to be in critical condition in hospital Monday after his detention order was lifted. On Sunday Malik was transferred from Punjab's Attock Jail where he had been held and taken to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad where he was put under guard until the Punjab provincial government authorized his release. Pakistan's Dawn newspaper Sunday quoted Malik as saying that in jail he "was subjected to psychological torture, not physical torture" and that he was given medicine for a kidney problem that apparently worsened his condition, forcing him to undergo dialysis. Dawn has more.

Malik was the president of the SCBA earlier this year when Musharraf suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry [JURIST report] for alleged judicial misconduct; he later represented Chaudhry in a series of legal proceedings protesting his suspension which ultimately led to Chaudhry's reinstatement [JURIST report]. This past October Malik was succeeded at the SCBA by fellow Chaudhry defense lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan [JURIST news archive], who on Sunday was transferred from Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail to Lahore, where he is now under house arrest after filing papers [Post report] to run in Pakistan's parliamentary elections scheduled for January 8.

[JURIST] Xiao Yang [official profile], chief justice of China's Supreme People's Court [official website] has said that court reforms over the last 10 years have achieved judicial efficiency and improved the quality of trials and rulings [press release, in Chinese] in China, the China Daily reported Monday. Xiao noted that judicial committees, the highest decision-making bodies at each level of the Chinese judicial system, have been reformed [Xinhua report] so that panel decisions are more fair. Prior to judicial reforms, the judicial committees allowed closed sessions without direct contact with either party to the case, but under new reforms, the panels will take part in the trial process. Xiao added that judicial committees have to "hear cases in person to better understand the facts and reduce the chances of biased rulings" when considering "difficult, complicated or socially important" cases. Judicial committees also now use secret ballots to vote on their rulings to avoid bias on the bench, and the judicial committees have been divided into panels exclusively for criminal cases and other civil or administrative cases to improve accuracy.

Last year, Xiao said that public trust in the Chinese judiciary needs to be restored [JURIST report] in the face of court corruption and systemic failures to implement court orders. A report by Xiao to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress [official websites] said that 800,000 court orders remained unimplemented by the courts due to negligence and bribery. Early this year, the Communist Party of China announced plans to intensify its anti-corruption campaign [JURIST report] following Xiao's complaints. The China Daily has more.

[JURIST] The Pakistani government said Sunday that all of the Supreme Court of Pakistan [official website] judges ousted by President Pervez Musharraf when he declared emergency rule [JURIST report] in early November must vacate their government-provided accommodations by Friday and return to their own homes. Previously, the Interior Ministry had said the deposed judges were welcome to stay in their official accommodations or return to their hometowns for as long as the law permitted them to do so. The ousted judges, however, expressed skepticism about returning to their own homes, fearing they may be placed under house arrest.

Last week, Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Igbal Cheema said that the ousted judges, who had been under virtual house arrest, were "free to move" [JURIST report] and leave their homes. Deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry [JURIST news archive] was, however, prevented from leaving his official residence [JURIST report] Wednesday and fellow Justice Rana Bhagwandas said he and his colleagues still faced heavy restrictions on their mobility. On Friday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour urged Pakistan to reinstate all of the judges [JURIST report] dismissed under Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule before parliamentary elections slated for January. Dawn has more.

[JURIST] Former Canadian Chief Justice Antonio Lamer [official profile], 74, passed away on Saturday of natural causes, the Globe & Mail reported Sunday. Lamer led the Supreme Court of Canada [official website] from 1990-2000, and served on the high court for a total of two decades. On the bench, Lamer vigorously promoted the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms [text], using the document to strike down and reform several controversial pieces of legislation. He later claimed his greatest case was his 1998 opinion [text] for a unanimous court in which he said that the predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec had no legal power to unilaterally separate from Canada. Before being named to the high court by then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1980, Lamer was a leading criminal lawyer in Montreal, and served as the chairman of the Law Reform Commission of Canada [backgrounder] in the 1970s. After retirement, Lamer produced a major inquiry report on three wrongful convictions, wrote a report on military justice, and acted as independent commissioner of the Communications Security Establishment [official website].

Earlier this year, Lamer warned Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper [official profile] against influencing the judiciary to carry out his legislative agenda [JURIST report]. Lamer said Harper was compromising the independence of the judiciary by encouraging harsher sentences and interfering with the sentencing process. Although Lamer acknowledged that some judges are too lenient, he characterized Harper's demands on the judiciary as contrary to judges' duty to be impartial and hand out sentences they deem appropriate. Lamer also criticized the Canadian system of appointing judges to the 1,100-member federal bench as flawed and denounced new involvement of police and members of the community in the judicial selection process [JURIST report]. The Globe & Mail has more. AP has additional coverage.