[JURIST] The Arab League [official website, in Arabic], African Union (AU) [official website] and others have criticized the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] prosecutor's Monday application [JURIST report] for an arrest warrant [application, PDF] for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir [BBC profile, JURIST news archive]. Al-Bashir is facing charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes for atrocities committed in the country's Darfur region [JURIST news archive], but critics of the indictment say that it threatens to destabilize the region and poses a risk to joint AU-UN peacekeeping forces in the country. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has responded to the criticism by encouraging Sudan to comply with ICC efforts [BBC report], but said that he has no control over ICC indictments [UN News Centre report]. The charges against Al-Bashir mark the first time a sitting head of state has been charged with genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the ICC. The Daily Monitor has more. AFP has additional coverage.

The Sudanese government has already rejected the ICC's jurisdiction and has refused to surrender two previously-named war crimes suspects [JURIST report]. Hundreds of thousands of people have allegedly been killed in Darfur by Sudanese military and janjaweed [Slate backgrounder] militia forces. The investigation that resulted in Monday's charges, which involved more than 100 witnesses in 18 countries, led the ICC's Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno- Ocampo to state before the UN Security Council [official website] in June that “evidence shows that the commission of such crimes on such a scale, over a period of five years, and throughout Darfur, has required the sustained mobilization of the entire Sudanese state apparatus.” The Security Council has repeatedly called on Sudan to comply with the ICC investigation [JURIST], but Sudan has refused to do so, calling Moreno-Ocampo a "terrorist" [JURIST report] and suggesting that he should be removed from office.

[JURIST] Kurdish legislators staged a walkout of the Iraqi Parliament [official website] Tuesday, delaying a vote on a proposed provincial election bill that they say is unconstitutional. Kurdish lawmakers objected to an attached proposal that would establish a provincial council in Kirkuk [GlobalSecurity backgrounder] to include equal numbers of Kurdish, Arabs and Turkmeni representatives. Kurds, who constitute the majority in the area, argue that this arrangement does not reflect the region's true population. The parliament will reconvene to discuss the bill again on Thursday, but Kurdish legislators have threatened to boycott that session unless the council proposal is dropped. The New York Times has more. AP has additional coverage.

In February, Iraq's Presidency Council rejected a draft provincial elections law [JURIST report] that detailed the relationship between Iraq's central and local governments, sending the legislation back to parliament. The draft law was part of a package of legislation approved [JURIST report] by the parliament earlier that month that also included the 2008 budget and an amnesty bill [JURIST report] that will lead to the release of roughly 5,000 prisoners. In March, the Presidency Council withdrew its objections [JURIST report], indicating that the law could now take effect without any changes.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday filed a complaint [PDF text; press release] in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington [official website], seeking to revoke the US citizenship of an alleged World War II Nazi militiaman. Peter Egner, 86, is accused of taking part in the killings of over 17,000 Serbs as a member of the Nazi-run Security Police and Security Service in German-occupied Belgrade. Egner became a US citizen in 1966 but failed to disclose his Nazi service on his citizenship application. The DOJ argued that he was ineligible for citizenship both because of his service and because he concealed that information on his application. JTA has more. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has local coverage.

The DOJ's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) [official website] handles cases aimed at denaturalizing or deporting former Nazis who participated in wartime persecutions. Last month, Third Circuit judges revoked [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] the US citizenship of Anton Geiser, an 83-year-old Pennsylvania resident who had served as an SS guard at two concentration camps before the US government mistakenly granted him a visa in 1956 and then citizenship in 1962. In 2002, a judge revoked the US citizenship [JURIST report] of former Nazi concentration camp guard and Ohio resident John Demjanjuk [JURIST news archive] after a judge found that World War II evidence showed he worked in the Nazi concentration camps. In 2006, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit refused to overturn [opinion, PDF] a lower court decision upholding the order revoking the citizenship of former Nazi guard Johann Leprich's [JURIST report].

[JURIST] Malaysian authorities arrested opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] Wednesday afternoon, less than a day after a warrant was issued for his arrest on sodomy allegations [JURIST reports] made against him by a former aide. According to a statement [Anwar blog post] by a staff member, Anwar was stopped by police and taken to their headquarters while he was on his way home. He had just spoken to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency [official website], where he had accused [New Straits Times report] the Malaysian Attorney General and Police Inspector-General of fabricating evidence against him. According to reports, Anwar was taken to the Kuala Lumpur Hospital to undergo DNA tests related to the investigation into the sodomy allegations. The Malaysian news service Bernama reported that Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi [official profile] gave assurances [Bernama report] that Anwar would not be harmed in police custody. AP has more. From Malaysia, the Star has local coverage.

Anwar has claimed that the sodomy allegations leveled against him are politically motivated, and filed a lawsuit against his accuser [JURIST report] in late June. Under Malaysian law, sodomy is punishable by 20 years in prison regardless of consent. Anwar was Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister under former Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad [BBC profile] until he was fired in 1998 following earlier sodomy charges of which he was initially convicted but later acquitted. He only recently reentered Malaysian politics following the expiration of a ten-year ban [JURIST report] against him for unrelated corruption charges. Earlier this month the Federal Court of Malaysia ruled he could challenge the constitutionality [JURIST report] of his original dismissal from office.

[JURIST] The US Congress enacted a new Medicare law [HR 6331 text] on Tuesday to cut Medicare expenditures by reducing Medicare payments made to insurance companies rather than those made to doctors. President George W. Bush vetoed [text] the bill, but the Senate overrode the veto [Congressional record; roll call] by a vote of 70-26, while the House overrode it [Congressional record; roll call] by a vote of 383-41. The law was designed [AMA bill highlights, PDF] to benefit physicians and Medicare recipients by covering services such as mental health and preventative care, incentivizing modernization through services such as online prescriptions, limiting the ability of private fee-for-service health plans to unilaterally include physicians, and postponing a 10.6 percent Medicare pay cut to physicians for 18 months. In his veto, Bush wrote:

I support the primary objective of this legislation, to forestall reductions in physician payments. Yet taking choices away from seniors to pay physicians is wrong.

[JURIST] The Seoul Central District Court Wednesday suspended a three-year prison sentence for former Samsung [corporate website] Chairman and CEO Kun-Hee Lee [corporate profile], who was convicted of tax fraud. The court ruled that Lee should not serve prison time because he did not actively seek to avoid taxes, but many criticized the decision in a country where wealthy corporate leaders are often seen as above the law. In April, South Korean prosecutors charged Lee with breach of trust and tax evasion [JURIST report], but decided not to indict him based on accusations that Samsung maintained a $200 million slush fund to bribe prosecutors, judges and civil servants. Nine other Samsung executives were indicted on similar charges. Prosecutors questioned Lee [JURIST report] earlier that month. AP has more.

Samsung, South Korea's largest corporation, has been at the center of numerous legal battles over the past few years. In May 2007, a South Korean appellate court upheld the conviction of two Samsung executives connected with illegal stock trading [JURIST reports]. In April 2007, another Samsung executive pleaded guilty [US DOJ press release; JURIST report] to US charges of conspiring to artificially inflate the cost of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), affecting the price of personal computers worldwide. In 2005, Samsung reached an agreement [JURIST report] with the US Department of Justice to plead guilty to charges that it conspired with other technology companies to fix prices on DRAM chips.

[JURIST] The Spanish Senate [official website] voted Wednesday to ratify the new EU reform treaty [JURIST news archive], also known as the Treaty of Lisbon [official website; text, PDF]. Jose Manuel Barroso [official profile], the president of the European Commission, congratulated Spain [text, PDF, in Spanish] on its passage of the Treaty, thanking the country for its "unwavering support for the European Project and the successful ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon." The approval of the Lisbon Treaty by the Spanish Senate marks the final legislative hurdle for official recognition of the Treaty by Spain. It must now be signed into law by the country's King Juan Carlos in order to be officially ratified. BBC News has more.

Some EU countries have delayed ratifying the treaty after Irish voters rejected it [JURIST reports] in June. The future of the pact is currently in doubt as it must be approved by all 27 EU states in order to take effect. EU leaders signed the reform treaty [JURIST report] in December, and 14 countries had ratified the document [JURIST news archive] before the Irish rejection. In 2005, an earlier draft European constitution [JURIST news archive] also failed when voters in France and the Netherlands [JURIST reports] rejected the proposal in national referenda.

[JURIST] A Chinese office manager has become the first man to be imprisoned under a Chinese sexual harassment law [Xinhua report] passed in 2005, according to reports on Wednesday. Previous cases brought under the law have been settled through civil litigation. Women's rights advocates say that sexual harassment has long been a prevalent problem in China [China Daily survey], but that women have only recently begun to come forward with complaints as they become more aware of their legal rights. The Guardian has more. Sina has local coverage, in Chinese.

China first considered legislation to criminalize sexual harassment [JURIST report] in 2005. The draft amendment to the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women [text], designed to protect women's rights, mandated that no one shall be allowed to subject women to sexual harassment and all employers shall take measures against sexual harassment in working places.

[JURIST] The Massachusetts Senate passed a bill [SB918 text] Tuesday to repeal a 1913 law which bars people from marrying in Massachusetts if their own state would not recognize such a union. The statute [text] gained attention because it would have the effect of preventing most out-of-state same-sex couples from marrying in Massachusetts. Proponents of same-sex marriage, including MassEquality.org [advocacy website], have applauded efforts to repeal the 1913 law, heralding the move as a step toward increased equality in the state. Other advocates of the bill highlighted the potential boost to the state's economy as a result of allowing out-of-state same-sex couples to marry in Massachusetts, pointing to potential increases in catering, hotel, and tourism revenues. The bill now goes to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, which is expected to pass it. The New York Times has more. The Boston Globe has additional coverage.

In 2006, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts upheld the 1913 law [JURIST report] in Cote-Whitacre v. Department of Public Health [opinion, PDF]. Opponents of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts derided the passage of SB918, characterizing it as an unwelcome intrusion into the marriage policies of other states. Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI) [advocacy website] president Kris Mineau commented, "The Massachusetts Senate has no right to infringe on the internal issues of how other states define marriage, but that's exactly what they voted today to do." AP has more.

[JURIST] Canada transferred US Army deserter Robin Long back to US custody Tuesday following a decision by the Federal Court of Canada [official website] denying his asylum request. Long is the first of an estimated 200 US military personnel avoiding deployment in Canada to be returned to the US. Last week the court allowed [decision text] another soldier, Joshua Key, to remain in the country while he appeals an initial denial of refugee status. In that case, the court named a number of key factors in determining whether or not the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) [official website] should grant an applicant asylum, including the reasons for the objection to deployment, the likely legal consequences of resisting deployment, and the availability of remedies other than Canadian refugee status. Quoting Article 171 of the UN Refugee Agency Handbook [PDF text] regarding the justification for a soldier to be granted asylum in another country, the court wrote:

Not every conviction, genuine thought it may be, will constitute a sufficient reason for claiming refugee status after desertion or draft-evasion. It is not enough for a person to be in disagreement with his government regarding the political justification for a particular military action. Where, however, the type of military action, with which an individual does not wish to be associated, is condemned by the international community as contrary to basic rules of human conduct, punishment for desertion or draft-evasion could, in the light of all other requirements of the definition, in itself be regarded as persecution.

[JURIST] Lawyers for former Russian oil executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky [defense website; JURIST news archive] on Wednesday filed an application for his parole from the Krasnokamensk penal colony [Guardian Khodorkovsky backgrounder] in Siberia. Khodorkovsky headed the now-bankrupt OAO Yukos Oil Co. [Time backgrounder] and was sent to prison by the Russian government in 2005 to serve an eight-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion [JURIST report]. Last month Khodorkovsky's lawyers advised him to apply for parole [AP report], saying approval is more likely under newly-inaugurated president Dmitry Medvedev [BBC profile] than it would have been under former president Vladimir Putin. Prison officials have said that the parole application will likely be rejected [BBC report] because of past poor behavior, and Khodorkovsky is now facing 20 more years in prison if convicted on new charges [press release; Bloomberg report] of theft and money laundering. AFP has more. RIA Novosti has local coverage.

Russian prosecutors indicted Khodorkovsky on additional money laundering charges [JURIST report] in early 2007. Khodorkovsky, an opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has always maintained his innocence and insisted that the charges against him are politically motivated, but Russian prosecutors have denied the accusations [JURIST report].

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc, issued a per curiam opinion [PDF] Tuesday, finding by a vote of 5-4 that if the government's allegations against Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri [NYT profile; Brennan Center case materials] are true, the President is empowered by Congress to hold al-Marri in a military prison without charge as an enemy combatant, under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) [text, PDF]. The ruling overturned a prior decision [PDF; JURIST report] by the Fourth Circuit, which had held in 2007 that the military cannot seize and imprison civilians lawfully residing in the US and detain them as "enemy combatants" [JURIST news archive]. Ruling on a second issue Tuesday, five of the nine judges found that al-Marri's Fifth Amendment right to Due Process had been violated during the proceedings. Circuit Judge Traxler, the only judge to vote with the majority on both determinations, outlined the 216 page opinion and distinguished the decision from that of the Supreme Court in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld [Duke case law backgrounder; opinion text]:

If the allegations against al-Marri are true, al-Marri is a foreign national and member of al Qaeda who entered the United States with a purpose to commit additional hostile and war-like acts within our homeland, and he may therefore be detained as an enemy combatant under the AUMF. Accordingly, I would affirm the district court’s order denying al-Marri’s motion for summary judgment on the issue of whether the President possesses the legal authority to detain al- Marri as an enemy combatant.

However, because al-Marri was present within our borders at the time our intelligence sources identified him as an enemy combatant, he is entitled to contest his designation under the burden-shifting scheme outlined in Hamdi. Under this scheme, the government may demonstrate that the balance of the competing interests weighs on the side of lessened due process protections, which al-Marri and his counsel may contest. But because the district court applied Hamdi’s lessened procedures to al-Marri without any additional inquiry or balancing of the respective interests, I would hold that the process al-Marri received was constitutionally insufficient, vacate the district court’s order dismissing al-Marri’s petition, and remand for further proceedings.

[JURIST] The Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey [official website] on Tuesday struck down [opinion, PDF] two municipal ordinances that prohibited convicted sex offenders (CSOs) from living near schools, parks, playgrounds and day care centers. The Appellate Division ruled that New Jersey's statewide sex offender registry program, known as Megan's Law [text; BBC backgrounder], preempted the local ordinances and provided the state and all municipalities with a uniform rehabilitation and public safety plan. The court explained:

The far-reaching scope of Megan's Law and its multilayered enforcement and monitoring mechanisms constitute a comprehensive system chosen by the Legislature to protect society from the risk of reoffense by CSOs and to provide for their rehabilitation and reintegration into the community. The system is all-encompassing regarding the activities of CSOs living in the community. We conclude that the ordinances conflict with the expressed and implied intent of the Legislature to exclusively regulate this field, as a result of which the ordinances are preempted.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] on Monday asked [filing, PDF] a judge at the US District Court for the District of Columbia to deny a motion by Guantanamo Bay detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan [DOD materials; JURIST news archive] to stay his trial, now scheduled to begin July 21. Hamdan's lawyers argued [motion, PDF; memorandum, PDF] earlier this month that the trial should be postponed until the court rules on the jurisdiction and legality of Hamdan's military commission, but the DOJ responded:

Implicitly acknowledging that he has no serious challenge to the commission’s jurisdiction (much less a likelihood of success on the merits), petitioner instead argues that his trial by the military commission would result in a violation of various asserted constitutional rights. The Court need not reach these issues if it decides either that it lack[s] jurisdiction or that abstention is appropriate. In any event, it is far from clear that petitioner even has any claim to the constitutional rights asserted.