[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] on Thursday urged [press release] the European Union (EU) [official website] to adopt a series of specific human rights benchmarks Russia should meet before moving forward with the EU-Russian Partnership and Cooperation Agreement [text and materials]. HRW said Russia must focus on carrying out judgments by the European Court of Human Rights [official website], end restrictions on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) [JURIST report], and ensure that ethnic Georgians are allowed to return to South Ossetia [JURIST report] in safety and dignity after the recent conflict there. Lotte Leicht, EU director for HRW said:

It’s time for the EU to make human rights a priority in dealing with Russia and to insist on reforms before an agreement is signed. Russia and the EU are partners, and it’s in their mutual interest for Russia to improve its record.

[JURIST] The Italian Court of Cassation [official website, in Italian], the country's highest court, ruled Thursday that the father of Eluana Englaro [materials, in Italian], who has been in a vegetative state for 16 years, can remove her feeding tube. Last month, Italy's Constitutional Court [official website, in Italian] rejected [JURIST report; decision text, in Italian] a parliamentary challenge to a Milan appeals court decision holding that doctors could remove Englaro's feeding tube because she was found to be in an 'irreversible' vegetative state. Catholic groups and conservative politicians opposing Thursday's decision argued [Independent report] that the court is permitting euthanasia [JURIST news archive], which remains illegal in Italy [JURIST report]. AP has more. Corriere della Sera has local coverage, in Italian.

Eluana Englaro has been in a coma since an automobile accident in 1992. Her father, Beppino Englaro, has been fighting to have her feeding tube removed since 1999. In 2005, Italy's Constitutional Court upheld [JURIST report] a lower court's ruling to keep her feeding tube in place because they could not find specific evidence on Englar's personal views of life and death. The Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies [official website, in French] last February narrowly passed [JURIST report] a bill legalizing euthanasia [text, PDF, in French], a move that could make Luxembourg the third EU country to allow the controversial practice. The Netherlands [BBC report] legalized euthanasia in 2001, and Belgium [JURIST report] followed suit in 2002.

[JURIST] State and national housing advocates filed a class action lawsuit [complaint, PDF; press release, PDF] Wednesday arguing that Louisiana's Hurricane Katrina recovery program, Road Home Louisiana [program website], discriminates against African-American homeowners. The federally-funded program awards grants to homeowners in the lesser of the following two amounts: the pre-storm value of the home or the cost of the damage. Because home values in African-American communities are substantially lower than those of similar homes in white neighborhoods, plaintiffs National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) and Greater News Orleans Fair Housing Action Center (GNOFHAC) [advocacy group websites] contend in the complaint:

African Americans whose property received substantial damage and who qualify for Road Home grants are more likely than white applicants to receive a grant that is based on the pre-storm value of their home. Because the Road Home formula limits grant awards to the pre-storm value of the home where that amount is less than the cost of damage, African-American recipients of Road Home grants are more likely than white grantees to have a gap between their rebuilding resources and the cost to rebuild.

[JURIST] A panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit [official website] on Wednesday dismissed [opinion, PDF] an appeal by Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) [official profile; JURIST news archive] seeking to have bribery charges against him dropped. Jefferson argued that the grand jury indictment against him was based on evidence protected by the US Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause [text; backgrounder], which makes certain information relating to legislative action privileged. Jefferson had argued that testimony by former members of his staff had been based on his legislative action, which is prohibited, but the court found that references to legislative action in the testimony were incidental, and not the basis for the indictment against him. Upholding a lower court decision [JURIST report], the panel quoted the US Supreme Court's 1972 ruling in United States v. Brewster on the scope of the clause's protection:

[I]t is well settled that the government may not introduce evidence of a Member’s legislative acts to prove an element of a criminal charge. But the government may rely on acts "casually or incidentally related to legislative affairs but not part of the legislative process itself." Put simply, the Speech or Debate Clause is not a license to commit crime.

[JURIST] Former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian [BBC profile] continued a hunger strike in the Tucheng jail in suburban Taipei Thursday after being incarcerated [JURIST report] Wednesday, according to local media reports. While there are no official charges against Chen, the former leader of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) [official website] was arrested [JURIST report] Tuesday and questioned by prosecutors for some five hours. He is alleged to have committed money laundering and to have made illegal use of government funds during his presidency. He maintains his innocence, however, claiming he is being victimized because of his advocacy for Taiwan's independence and opposition to the ruling Nationalist Party. The court is holding Chen for up to four months to segregate him from alleged co-conspirators. AP has more.

Shui-bian spent eight months in the same Tucheng jail twenty-one years ago for defaming Nationalist leaders. In September, Chen was cleared [JURIST report] on more recent defamation charges. Last year while Shui-bian was still in power, he was tied [JURIST report] to an allegedly corrupt lawmaker.

[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] said Wednesday that the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] needs more vocal support [HRW press release] from its member countries in a memorandum [text, PDF] sent to member governments in advance of their annual meeting [press release]. Citing recent efforts to convince the UN Security Council [official website] to suspend the case against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], HRW counsel Elizabeth Evenson said that the backing of member countries is necessary to insulate the ICC: "With the court’s independence and integrity at risk, ICC member states should speak out forcefully to promote the ICC’s mission. They should strongly defend the ICC’s independence from political interference." Sudan, the African Union [official website], the League of Arab States [official website, in Arabic], the Organization of the Islamic Conference [official website], and others have objected [JURIST archive] to the ICC's potential issuance of an arrest warrant [JURIST report] for Bashir. On Wednesday, Bashir declared a ceasefire [AFP report] to hostilities in Darfur and called for disarming militias. The move was dismissed by the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) [advocacy website] as "rhetoric" designed to allay the ICC charges. AP has more.

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 Security Council has repeatedly called on Sudan to comply with the ICC investigation [JURIST report], but Sudan has refused to do so, calling ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo a "terrorist" [JURIST report] and suggesting that he should be removed from office.

[JURIST] The Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) [advocacy website] and the Asociacion Pro Derechos Humanos de España (APDHE) [advocacy website, in Spanish] filed suit [complaint; CJA press release] Thursday in Spain's National Court [official website, in Spanish] against Alfredo Cristiani [profile], the former president of El Salvador. The groups claim that Cristiani, along with 14 others, committed crimes against humanity, citing a 1989 incident [UN Truth Commission report, PDF] in which six Jesuit priests and their housekeeper and her daughter were killed. Cristiani is accused of being an accomplice to the crime through his role as commander-in-chief. AP has more. El Faro has local coverage, in Spanish.

The organizations are filing the suit under the principle of universal jurisdiction [Princeton backgrounder, PDF], on the basis of which Spain's National Court issued an arrest warrant for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet [JURIST news archive] in 1998. El Salvador passed a law in 1993 granting amnesty [JURIST report] to many individuals involved in a civil war from 1980 through 1992. Salvadoran Jesuits were accused by the government of siding with guerrilla fighters during the war.

[JURIST] Germany's lower house of parliament [official website] voted Wednesday to approve a new law [materials, in German] which would expand the power of Germany's federal police agency, the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) [official website, in German], to undertake online and telephone surveillance. Under the proposed law, a judge would be required to order an online search before BKA agents would be permitted to engage in surveillance of a suspect's computer or telephone lines. Proponents argue the measure is necessary to foil international terrorism plots, while opponents say the new law would give the BKA expansive surveillance powers when they only have a vague suspicion of terrorist activity. The bill passed by a margin of 375-168, and it is expected to pass the upper house later this month. The law could take effect in late 2008. AP has more.

In February, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court [official website] ruled that a 2006 North-Rhine Westphalia [state government website, in German] law authorizing intelligence agents to search personal computers, networks, and Internet communications was unconstitutional [JURIST report]. The court ruled [text, in German; press release, in German] that the law violated privacy rights, but said similar methods might be appropriate in limited, compelling circumstances, such as if a life was in danger or to prevent an immediate terrorist attack.

[JURIST] Authors of a new report [text, PDF] on detainees released from US detention in Guantanamo Bay [Global Security backgrounder; JURIST news archive] are urging US president-elect Barack Obama [official website; JURIST news archive] to form an independent, nonpartisan commission with subpoena powers to investigate the treatment of US detainees in Guantanamo as well as in facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq [JURIST news archives]. The report, released on Wednesday by human rights experts at the University of California, Berkeley, in partnership with the Center for Constitutional Rights [advocacy website], concludes that detainees were subjected to interrogation methods that appear to have violated domestic and international prohibitions on torture and other cruel treatment:

By adopting a “take the gloves off” approach, top US civilian and military leaders established unprecedented parameters for the treatment of detainees at US detention facilities in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and other locations. This permissive environment allowed—if not encouraged—guards and interrogators to dehumanize and, in some cases, torture detainees in their custody. The totality of this experience deeply affected the lives of former detainees—many of whom government officials believe were imprisoned in error. Stigmatized by their imprisonment, a significant number of these detainees now face difficulties finding employment, and some report lasting emotional and psychological scars.

[JURIST] The European Court of First Instance [official website; JURIST news archive] on Wednesday denied an appeal by the Danish company Lego [corporate website] to restore its EU trademark for its interlocking toy bricks. The decision [opinion text] upheld an Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) [official website] ruling that the distinctive nature of the product is its functional shape, and cannot be trademarked under EC 40/94. The court contended that the availability of the trademark for a technical solution would constitute a monopoly. Lego argued that its bricks were not a monopoly, citing the availability of other shapes which could achieve the same function. The court disagreed, writing:

That aim [of the public interest] does not therefore relate solely to the technical solution incorporated in such a shape, but to the shape and its essential characteristics themselves. Since the shape as such must be capable of being freely used, the distinction advocated by the applicant cannot be accepted.

[JURIST] A court in Brandenburg, Kentucky began civil trial proceedings Wednesday against the Kentucky-based Imperial Klans of America over injuries sustained to then-16-year old Jordan Gruver, a US citizen of Panamanian descent, during a racially motivated beating allegedly perpetrated by members of the IKA. The lawsuit, brought on behalf of Gruver by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) [advocacy website] seeks to place responsibility for the beating on the IKA and Ron Edwards, the "Imperial Wizard" of the Klan. The beating occurred during an alleged Klan recruitment event at the Meade County Fair. According to testimony of those convicted of the battery in a separate criminal trial, Gruver was singled out because of his race. The SPLC claims in its pre-trial brief [text, PDF] that Edwards encourages violence against non-white minority populations, including Hispanics, and that Edwards' rhetoric is directly responsible for the battery committed against Gruver. The SPLC is seeking $6 million in compensatory damages for Gruver's prolonged physical injuries as well as an undisclosed amount in punitive damages from Edwards and the IKA. Settlements have already been reached with those convicted of the battery. Morris Dees, head attorney for the SPLC, said in a Q&A on the SPLC website Wednesday that the goal of the lawsuit is to "obtain justice for young Jordan Gruver. He has been scarred for life by this trauma. We also would like to obtain a crushing verdict that would put the Imperial Klans of America out of business." The SPLC has been successful in the past in winning enough in punitive damages to effectively shut down other notable hate groups, such as the Aryan Nation group in Idaho, and the United Klans of America in Alabama. Edwards has said that he will use whatever means necessary to keep the IKA alive. AP has more. The Courier-Journal has local coverage.

Hate groups like the KKK have recently been experiencing a resurgence [JURIST report] of membership in the United States that some observers connect with growing public attention to racially sensitive issues such as immigration. At the same time, federal and state authorities have been successful in a number of criminal prosecutions against alleged KKK members who committed hate crimes in the 1960s, although in October the Fifth Circuit vacated the conviction [JURIST report] of alleged Klansman James Ford Seale for his involvement in the 1964 deaths of two 19-year-old black teens.

[JURIST] The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] on Wednesday announced [press release] that it had filed an Alabama Open Records Act [text and materials] request to obtain documents related to the Hankins Middle School [official website] policy of educating students in a single-sex environment. In a letter [text, PDF] to the Mobile County School System [official website], the Alabama chapter of the ACLU argued that Title IX [text], the Equal Educational Opportunities Act (EEOA) [text], and the US Constitution prohibit the segregation of students by gender. They urged the district to abandon the policies in order to avoid litigation. WKRG News has local coverage.

In 2006, the ACLU opposed a Louisiana plan to segregate two middle schools, but the effort was abandoned when in the same year the US Department of Education [official website] changed [press release] its regulations allowing public schools more discretion [JURIST report] in providing for the separate education of boys and girls. The move changes the application of the anti-discrimination provisions in Title IX by allowing gender-segregated classes [backgrounder], grade levels, or even entire schools. The previous rules, implemented in 1975, only allowed gender distinctions in gym or sex education classes. The current rules allow school boards to segregate any course if it would offer an educational benefit, such as higher attendance or increased student comfort. Any school that segregates based on sex is required to offer a co-educational version of the course, and enrollment in a same-sex class is always voluntary. Other critics of the practice include the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and the National Organization for Women (NOW) [advocacy websites].

[JURIST] UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official profile] voiced concern Wednesday about the lengthy and "severe" prison sentences recently issued by a Myanmar [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive] court against pro-democracy demonstrators. He called for the country's military junta to release the more than 30 activists, along with all other political prisoners in a statement [text] urging national reconciliation. The sentences [JURIST report], imposed in connection with peaceful anti-government demonstrations [Independent backgrounder], were issued in closed-door proceedings and have been reported to be as lengthy as 65 years in some cases. Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) [official website] Inter-parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC) [official website] also commented on the sentences and called for the UN to do more. The UN has visited the country over 40 times since 1990 in previous unsuccessful attempts at urging democratic reforms. AP has more. The Asian Tribune has local coverage.

The sentences were the latest step in what in what the UN Human Rights Council [UNHRC resolution], Human Rights Watch [HRW report], Amnesty International [AI report], and other right groups and agencies have identified as a systematic ongoing effort to repress dissenters. The European Union (EU) and the US have also expressed concern over human rights violations in the country and the lack of investigations in the aftermath of last year's violent government suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations. Human rights groups have estimated that more than 2,100 Burmese have been imprisoned for their religious and political beliefs despite the release [JURIST report] of over 9,000 political prisoners in September.

[JURIST] Connecticut Superior Court Judge Jonathan Silbert signed a final order [GLAD press release; materials] on Wednesday allowing same-sex marriage in the state. Last month, the state Supreme Court [official website] ruled in a 4-3 decision [opinion, PDF] that state statutes [text] barring same-sex marriage violated the state constitution by discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. The high court ordered summary judgment and injunctive relief for eight same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses by the town clerk of Madison, Connecticut. The lead plaintiffs, Beth Kerrigan and Jodie Mock, obtained a marriage license in West Hartford hours after Silbert signed the order. AP has more. The Hartford Courant has local coverage.

The victory for gay rights advocates follows the passage of same-sex marriage bans [JURIST report] in California, Arizona, and Florida earlier this month. In Arkansas, voters approved an initiative [JURIST report] prohibiting gays, lesbians, and other unmarried cohabiting couples from becoming either foster or adoptive parents. In September, a judge in New York dismissed a challenge [JURIST report] to a decision by New York Governor David Paterson to recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages.

[JURIST] The South African Constitutional Court [official website] Wednesday refused to hear an appeal brought by former president Thabo Mbeki [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] of a lower court ruling that dismissed corruption charges against his rival, African National Congress (ANC) [party website] president Jacob Zuma [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] and suggested he Mbeki had a role in bringing them. The Pietermaritzburg High Court dismissed [decision, PDF; JURIST report] corruption charges against Zuma in September after finding that the decision to prosecute him was invalid because Zuma was not given a chance to respond to the allegations against him. The Constitutional Court's rejection of Mbeki's appeal application comes after a judge gave prosecutors leave to appeal the ruling [JURIST report] in October. The Constitutional Court said it was not appropriate to hear the appeal "at this stage." Zuma is expected to become president after next year’s elections, although he has pledged to resign if convicted. Zuma contends the charges [JURIST report] were prompted by Mbeki, and their initial dismissal in September exacerbated existing divisions within the party. Mbeki was forced to resign in the wake of the ruling last month, and his loyalists have threatened to leave the ANC to form a splinter party. BBC News has more. From South Africa, IOL has local coverage.

Zuma defeated Mbeki for the ANC leadership in party elections held in December 2007. He was ousted [JURIST report] as the country’s deputy president in 2005 after an aide was convicted of corruption. He was also charged with rape, but ultimately acquitted and reinstated [JURIST report] as ANC deputy vice president. In late July, the South African Constitutional Court rejected a motion [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] by Zuma to exclude evidence from the corruption trial. Zuma had argued [JURIST report] that evidence seized in 2005 raids by the Directorate of Special Investigations [official backgrounder; BBC report] should be thrown out because the raids violated his rights to privacy and a fair trial. The court upheld the validity of the warrants used in the raids, confirming a November 2007 decision [JURIST report] by the South African Supreme Court of Appeal. The court also held [opinion, PDF; summary] that papers obtained by the Mauritius government [JURIST report] believed to document meetings between Zuma and arms manufacturer Thint were also admissible. Zuma has been facing corruption allegations [BBC timeline] and other charges for several years. He was first charged with corruption in 2005, but those charges were later dismissed [JURIST report] because prosecutors failed to follow proper procedures.