[JURIST] The Canadian Federal Court [official website] granted a last-minute stay of removal Monday for US Army deserter Jeremy Hinzman [JURIST news archive]. Hinzman fled to Canada from the US in January 2004 after leaving his unit, rather than deploy to Iraq. Hinzman had applied for asylum [JURIST report] in Canada and accused the US of war crimes in Iraq [JURIST report]. Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley [official profile] issued the stay of removal after hearing evidence [Canadian Press report] that an Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) [official website] official had made serious errors in assessing the hardships Hinzman and his family would face if forced back to the US. CBC News has more.

Last November, the Supreme Court of Canada [official website] declined to hear the appeals of Hinzman and another US deserter, Brandon Hughey, of the IRB denials of their asylum applications. Both Hinzman and Hughey cited moral objections to the war in Iraq and the punishment they would likely face if they returned to the US as grounds for asylum. The Immigration and Refugee Board had concluded [decision text; JURIST report] that the two men would receive a fair trial if they were returned to the US and that they would not face persecution or cruel and unusual punishment. It is estimated that up to 200 former US military personnel are in Canada avoiding war service [WRSC selected profiles] and that roughly 20 of them have applied for refugee status. In early July, Canada's House of Commons passed a non-binding resolution to grant US military deserters asylum [Globe and Mail report].

[JURIST] The chief judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia [court website] granted a government motion [order, PDF] Friday to extend from August 30 to September 30 its deadline to file the first fifty factual returns in the habeas corpus [JURIST news archive] appeals of more than two hundred Guantanamo [JURIST news archive] detainees. Judge Thomas F. Hogan [official profile] nonetheless said [memorandum opinion, PDF] he granted the government's motion reluctantly, writing:

Upon review of the public and ex parte declarations, the Court is satisfied that the government is not dragging its feet in an attempt to delay these matters beyond what is necessary to protect the national security concerns associated with releasing classified information. These cases are not run of the mill; they involve significant amounts of sensitive, classified information concerning individuals whom the government alleges were part of or supporting the Taliban or al Qaida or other organizations against which the United States is engaged in armed conflict. ... Going forward under the revised schedule resulting from the Court’s granting of its motion, consequently, the government cannot claim as a basis for failing to meet deadlines imposed by this Court that it 'simply did not appreciate the full extent of the challenges posed ...'

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] ruled [decision, PDF] Monday that the US Department of Defense [official website] must release certain photographs of alleged detainee abuse committed by US soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) [advocacy websites] and other civil rights groups sought the release [CCR backgrounder] of the photographs under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [text], but the government had claimed that the photos were exempt from disclosure because their release would either invade the privacy of the detainees or insight retaliation against US forces abroad. The Second Circuit held that redactions of the photographs ordered by a lower court sufficiently protected the detainees' privacy, and that safety exemptions to disclosure requirements were intended to cover reasonable safety risks to specific individuals rather than to any member of a larger group:

We hold that in order to justify withholding documents... an agency must identify at least one individual with reasonable specificity and establish that disclosure of the documents could reasonably be expected to endanger that individual. We need not shape the precise contours of the exemption today, as it is not a close question whether the government has identified any relevant individual with reasonable specificity. It is plainly insufficient to claim that releasing documents could reasonably be expected to endanger some unspecified member of a group so vast as to encompass all United States troops, coalition forces, and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. The structure of FOIA and the applicable legislative history, both of which contemplate a far narrower role for [the exemption] than that envisioned by the defendants, amply confirm our holding.

[JURIST] The US-led Multi-National Force - Iraq (MNF) [official website] announced Monday that it had released an Afghan freelance journalist detained since last year as an enemy combatant [JURIST news archive]. A military spokesman said Jawed Ahmad, who had been working as a videographer for Canadian television network CTV, was freed Sunday because he was no longer considered a threat. Ahmad's family sued the Bush administration [JURIST report] in June, alleging his detention violated his rights to due process and counsel. Ahmad said in an interview [Globe and Mail report] that he was subjected to beatings and sleep deprivation while in US custody. AP has more. Canadian Press has local coverage.

Ahmad, also known as Javed Yazamy, was detained by coalition forces at a NATO airbase in Kandahar last October. US officials designated him an enemy combatant [JURIST report] in February, alleging he had Taliban phone numbers and videos in his possession when he was detained. Ahmad is one of several journalists whom the US military has detained without charge in Iraq and Afghanistan [JURIST news archives]. In December 2006, the Committee to Protect Journalists released a report [JURIST report] noting that the US was detaining three journalists, including Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj and AP photographer Bilal Hussein.

[JURIST] Lawyers in Nepal [JURIST news archive] began a boycott of court proceedings Sunday to protest the suspension [Nepalnews.com report] of the national bar association's leader by the Nepalese Supreme Court [official website]. The court last week suspended Bishwa Kanta Mainali, president of the Nepal Bar Association [profession website], for six months after he suggested that many Nepalese judges accept bribes. A bar association official said the boycott would continue until the court reverses the suspension, although some local media reported the boycott would end Tuesday. One Supreme Court justice has called the suspension "erroneous," saying in an interview [Himalayan Times report] that the court should reconsider the decision after hearing from Mainali. AP has more. Kantipur Online has local coverage.

Questions about the integrity of Nepal's judiciary have been raised before. Last year, the International Commission of Jurists [advocacy website] urged Nepalese lawmakers to amend the country's interim constitution [JURIST report] to create a fully independent judiciary. The Nepalese Supreme Court has also voiced concerns [JURIST report] about judicial independence, pointing to a constitutional provision giving the prime minister sole discretion in appointing the chief justice.

[JURIST] The Federal Reserve Board on Sunday preliminarily approved [press release] applications by independent investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley [corporate websites] to convert to bank holding companies, which would put the banks under Federal Reserve regulation, grant them increased access to bank funds and allow them to build their deposit bases. The move will place both companies, which are now regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), under the tighter regulations of the FDIC and the Bank Holding Company Act [text], effectively lowering the amount of debt the companies can risk in relation to the amount of money they actually have and requiring a higher amount of capital. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein said [press release] of the transition:

When Goldman Sachs was a private partnership, we made the decision to become a public company, recognizing the need for permanent capital to meet the demands of scale. While accelerated by market sentiment, our decision to be regulated by the Federal Reserve is based on the recognition that such regulation provides its members with full prudential supervision and access to permanent liquidity and funding. We believe that Goldman Sachs, under Federal Reserve supervision, will be regarded as an even more secure institution with an exceptionally clean balance sheet and a greater diversity of funding sources.

The Firm does not expect significant adverse tax or accounting effects from this new status, nor does the Firm expect there to be limitations on its activities that would have a material impact on Morgan Stanley’s overall business.

[JURIST] South African President Thabo Mbeki [official profile; ANC profile] insisted in an official resignation speech [text] Sunday that allegations of his interference with the judiciary in the context of the Jacob Zuma case were incorrect. Top ANC officials called for Mbeki's resignation Friday, and on Saturday Mbeki said that he would resign [JURIST report]. Mbeki said Sunday:

I would like to restate the position of Cabinet on the inferences made by the Honourable Judge Chris Nicholson that the President and Cabinet have interfered in the work the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). Again I would like to state this categorically that we have never done this, and therefore never compromised the right of the National Prosecuting Authority to decide whom it wished to prosecute or not to prosecute.

This applies equally to the painful matter relating to the court proceedings against the President of the ANC, Comrade Jacob Zuma.

More generally, I would like to assure the nation that our successive governments since 1994 have never acted in any manner intended wilfully to violate the Constitution and the law.

[JURIST] A US federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction [order, PDF] requiring US Vice President Dick Cheney [official website; JURIST news archive] to preserve all his official records pending resolution of a lawsuit alleging that his office has failed to maintain records as required by law. In an opinion [PDF text] released Saturday, US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly [official profile] of the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] wrote that it was "unmistakably clear that Defendants apply a narrowing interpretation" to the Presidential Records Act of 1978 (PRA) [materials], which governs the official records of presidents and vice presidents. Calling the pleadings filed by Cheney's office "bereft of any legal analysis," Kollary-Kotelly found that

the public interest is undoubtedly served by ensuring that all documentary material potentially encompassed by the PRA's statutory language is actually preserved as Congress saw fit in enacting the PRA. ... These public interests are of the utmost significance and, as discussed above, are not and will not be fully protected if Defendants' narrowed interpretation of the PRA's statutory language is incorrect as a matter of law. ... The American public, however, has a right to the preservation of all records encompassed by the PRA’s statutory language. As such, until the Court is able to determine whether Defendants’ narrowed interpretation is legally supported, the public interest favors the issuance of a preliminary injunction.