[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit [official website; JURIST news archive] on Friday ruled [opinion, PDF] that a Minnesota school district must give a student group advocating gay rights [JURIST news archive] the same access to school facilities as other groups. Two students belonging to Straights and Gays for Equality (SAGE) sued the Osseo Area School District [official website] under the federal Equal Access Act (EAA) [text], which prohibits secondary public schools from discriminating against student groups on the basis of the religious, political, philosophical or other content of their speech. The plaintiffs alleged that administrators at Maple Grove High School (MGHS) [school website] had violated the EAA by designating SAGE as "noncurricular" and prohibiting it from raising money, taking field trips and using school-sponsored avenues of communication - privileges given to curriculum-related groups. The school district appealed a district court order granting a permanent injunction under which SAGE was to have "the same access for meetings, avenues of communication, and other miscellaneous rights" as curricular groups. Affirming the district court, Circuit Judge Lavenski R. Smith [official profile] wrote for a three-judge panel:

Here, MGHS does not prohibit SAGE from meeting at the school or utilizing some avenues of communication, but it limits SAGE's access to communication avenues and meeting times and places. Curricular groups receive more extensive use of school communication avenues. Thus, the issue is not whether MGHS provides SAGE access to some avenues of communication but whether it provides equal access to available avenues of communication as provided to other noncurriculum related groups. We hold that it does not.

[JURIST] Pakistani Law Minister Farooq H. Naek told reporters [Daily Mail report] Thursday that ousted Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry [JURIST news archive] cannot be reinstated because the current chief justice was legitimately appointed [JURIST report]. Naek said that Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar [official profile; JURIST news archive] should be recognized as holding the office and that the Pakistani Constitution [text] does not permit the appointment of two chief justices. Reacting to Naek's comments, Aitzaz Ahsan [profile], president of Pakistan's Supreme Court Bar Association, said that Dogar had not been recognized as chief justice [Khaleej Times report] by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto [BBC obituary; JURIST news archive] before her assassination last year. Associated Press of Pakistan has more.

Lawyers blocked streets throughout Pakistan [JURIST news archive] on Thursday to demand the reappointment of Chaudhry and dozens of other judges removed last year [JURIST report] by former President Pervez Musharraf [JURIST news archive]. The protests follow Wednesday's reappointment of eight ousted judges [JURIST report] to the Sindh High Court [official website] in Karachi, a development that leaders of the nationwide lawyers' movement [AHRC backgrounder; PBS report] described as a "conspiracy" to undermine support for total reinstatement. Pakistan's coalition government dissolved [JURIST report] Monday after former prime minister Nawaz Sharif [party profile; JURIST news archive] withdrew his Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N) party [party website] over the failure to reach an agreement with the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) [party website] that would reinstate the ousted judges.

[JURIST] Two former generals were convicted Thursday of killing a senator during the so-called "dirty war" in Argentina [JURIST news archive] and have been sentenced to life terms of house arrest. A court in Tucuman province found Antonio Bussi [New York Times profile] and Luciano Menendez [Project Disappeared profile and materials, in Spanish] guilty of kidnapping, torturing and murdering Guillermo Vargas Aignasse in 1976, during the coup that began a seven-year military dictatorship [GlobalSecurity.org backgrounder]. Prosecutor Alfredo Terraf had sought maximum penalties for both men, who were sentenced to house arrest because of their advanced age. Bussi, 82, was quoted [AFP report] as telling the court that he had been "politically persecuted" for his role in a "just and necessary war." Menendez, 81, received a separate life sentence [JURIST report] last month when he and four others were convicted of the 1977 kidnapping, torture and killing of four political dissidents. Menendez, who commanded the secret prison called La Perla [HRT backgrounder], was originally taken into custody in 2005 after a judge ordered his arrest [JURIST report]. AP has more. From Buenos Aires, La Nación has local coverage, in Spanish.

As many as 30,000 people were kidnapped or "disappeared" during the Argentine military dictatorship. In 2005, Argentina's Supreme Court struck down amnesty laws [JURIST report] adopted in the 1980s to protect potential defendants, prompting the government to reopen hundreds of human rights cases. In March, Argentine politician and former police chief Luis Abelardo Patti was also arrested for crimes allegedly committed during the period. In May, Juan Evaristo Puthod, a victim of the violent suppression, was kidnapped but later released [JURIST reports] before testifying in a third case.

[JURIST] The Mexican Supreme Court [official website, in Spanish] on Thursday ruled [session transcript, PDF, in Spanish] that a law permitting first-trimester abortions [JURIST news archive] in Mexico City does not violate the Mexican Constitution [PDF text, in Spanish]. The federal attorney general and the National Human Rights Commission [official websites, in Spanish] brought a lawsuit [case materials; JURIST report] last year challenging provisions of the Mexico City Criminal Code and Health Law [PDF text, in Spanish] that allow unrestricted abortions during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Following 17 hours of public hearings [links to recorded video], the Supreme Court voted 8-3 to uphold the provisions. According to a court press release [text, in Spanish], Chief Justice Guillermo I. Ortiz Mayagoitia [official profile, in Spanish] noted that the decision neither approves nor disapproves of abortion but rather embraces the principle that the court should not establish crimes or penalties. He said: "We have determined the constitutionality of a law approved by a representative body, and in this case we have participated in a decision of great national significance." AP has more. From Mexico City, El Universal has local coverage, in Spanish.

Proponents of abortion rights praised the decision and predicted liberalization of abortion laws throughout Mexico [JURIST news archive] and Latin America. Dr. Raffaela Schiavon, head of the women's rights group Ipas [advocacy website] in Mexico, said [press release]:

This decision is of transcendental importance, not only for human rights, but as a stand for the secular state against religious fundamentalism. It is a lesson for the future, not only for Mexico City, but for the entire country and for the whole region.

[JURIST] Former Bosnian Serb leader and war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic [ICTY materials; JURIST news archive] again refused to enter a plea [JURIST report] on Friday to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in a hearing before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website]. The judge presiding over the hearing, Iain Bonomy [ICTY biography] entered a not-guilty plea on Karadzic's behalf. Karadzic, who has repeatedly challenged the ICTY's authority and legitimacy [JURIST reports], also said he planned to challenge the court's jurisdiction at his next hearing, and that the ICTY was no more than an arm of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) [official website]. Bonomy was appointed last week after the court announced [JURIST reports] that there would be a new panel of judges assigned to the case. Karadzic had requested the new panel [JURIST report], arguing that presiding Judge Alphons Orie [DPA profile] and other judges initially assigned were biased against him, but the court said its decision was independent of the accusations. AP has more. AFP has additional coverage.

Karadzic, who has been indicted [text] on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, was arrested [JURIST report] in Serbia in July after evading capture for nearly 13 years. Later that month, Serbian authorities transferred [press release] Karadzic to the custody of the ICTY. Karadzic was originally indicted [text] by the ICTY prosecutor in 1995, but had been in hiding under an assumed identity as an alternative medicine practitioner [BBC report] until his arrest. He is accused of involvement in the Srebrenica [JURIST news archive] massacre and other war crimes against Bosnian Muslims and Croats during ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.

[JURIST] A federal jury on Thursday acquitted former US Marine Sgt. Jose Luis Nazario Jr. [defense website; JURIST news archive] of voluntary manslaughter and other charges [JURIST report] in the first civilian trial for crimes allegedly committed by a member of the US military in Iraq. After six hours of deliberation, a jury in US District Court for the Central District of California [official website] found Nazario not guilty of ordering his squad to shoot four unarmed Iraqi men in a house they had just searched in Fallujah in 2004. In addition to manslaughter, Nazario was charged [criminal complaint, PDF] with assault with a deadly weapon and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. Because Nazario had left the military before facing charges, he was tried in civilian court under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000 (MEJA) [text], rather than in the military justice system. The MEJA gives federal courts jurisdiction over civilians who allegedly committed crimes in combat zones while associated with the US military. Defense attorney Kevin McDermott predicted [AP report] the acquittal would discourage similar prosecutions. The Los Angeles Times has more.

Two Marines who served with Nazario, Sgt. Ryan Weemer and Sgt. Jermaine A. Nelson [JURIST news archives], have been court-martialed in connection with the Fallujah killings. Another civilian trial involving a former service member is scheduled for April [JURIST report] in Kentucky, where former Army Pfc. Steven D. Green [JURIST news archive] faces charges in the March 2006 rape and killing of a 14-year old Iraqi girl [JURIST news archive] and the killings of her family in Mahmudiya. This week, a judge there ruled [JURIST report] that charging Green as a civilian did not violate his constitutional rights.

[JURIST] Bolivian President Evo Morales [official website; BBC profile] announced Thursday that a national referendum on his proposed reforms to the country's constitution will be held on December 7. If approved, the reforms would distribute more of Bolivia's land and energy resource income to the country's indigenous population. Morales said that a national referendum which permitted him to retain his office earlier this month provided the mandate for him to push for the changes, but several of the provincial governors also confirmed by the referendum oppose the plan [JURIST reports] and have said they will not hold the December vote in their regions. According to a Thursday release [text, in Spanish], Morales is considering an offer by the Organization of American States (OAS) [official website] to mediate the conflict. AFP has more. BBC News has additional coverage.

In May, the Bolivian National Congress [official website, in Spanish] approved the referendum on Morales' leadership, which he personally proposed [JURIST reports] last December in order to legitimize his campaign for the constitutional changes. In 2006, governors from six of Bolivia's nine states vowed to break off relations with Morales following the bid to give his leftist party more power [JURIST reports] to rewrite the Bolivian constitution [JURIST news archive]. A proposed national referendum on the new draft constitution, which had originally been blocked [JURIST report], was narrowly approved in February by the Bolivian Constitutional Assembly [official website, in Spanish] amid reports that Morales supporters prevented many draft opponents from entering the constitutional building to participate in the vote.