[JURIST] The Russian State Duma [official website, in Russian] on Friday gave first reading to a bill that would ban jury trials for terrorism, espionage, and treason, among other crimes. In a vote of 351 to 34 [AP report] with no abstentions, the lower house of parliament approved the bill that proponents call necessary as a result of lenient jurors [Moscow Times report]. Opponents fear that the new law could be used to punish opposition leaders. The bill must now be presented for two more readings before being sent to the upper house of parliament, and finally to President Dmitry Medvedev.

In February, a panel of jurists reported that Russia's anti-terrorism laws were leading to human rights abuses [JURIST report]. In 2006, the Russian government passed laws [JURIST report] giving Russian police and military broad authority to tap telephone conversations and control electronic communications in the vicinity of counter-terror operations, shoot down hijacked planes threatening public places or strategic facilities, and deal with the aftermath of terrorist attacks.

[JURIST] The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) [official website; JURIST news archive] said [scheduling order, PDF] Friday that it would add charges of murder and torture to the case against Khmer Rouge [BBC backgrounder] leader Kaing Guek-Eav [TrialWatch backgrounder; court materials], also known as "Duch." Duch already faces charges [closing order, PDF; JURIST report] of crimes against humanity and violations of the Geneva Conventions, but commentators say the inclusion of the new charges based on Cambodian law will likely make it easier to convict him [AFP report]. The court, however, denied prosecutors' request to charge Duch with participation in a "joint criminal enterprise," a charge [Phnom Penh Post report] that can be used hold all members of a group responsible for the crimes of any of its members. The additional charges come in response to an August request by prosecutors [JURIST report] who had said the original indictment against Duch was incomplete. Duch's trial is expected to begin [JURIST report] in January 2009.

The ECCC plans to try as many as eight suspects [JURIST report] for their roles in the Khmer Rouge regime, which is generally held responsible for the genocide of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians [PPU backgrounder] between 1975 and 1979. In June, court officials announced plans [JURIST report] to complete operations a year early because of limited funding but said they would still be able to prosecute all the suspects. In February, a Cambodian genocide survivor testified [JURIST report] against Nuon Chea [PBS backgrounder] at a pretrial hearing, marking the first time a victim has taken the stand against a former Khmer Rouge official.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] granted certiorari [order list, PDF] Friday in two cases. In al-Marri v. Pucciarelli [docket; cert. petition, PDF], the Court will decide whether the Authorization for Use of Military Force [text, PDF], passed after the 9/11 attacks [JURIST news archive], authorizes the indefinite military detention of of a person lawfully residing in the US, without criminal charge or trial, based on government assertions that the detainee conspired with al Qaeda to engage in terrorist activities. The case involves Qatari national Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri [NYT profile; JURIST news archive] who has been held since 2003 solely on the basis of a presidential declaration that he is an "enemy combatant." The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit [official website] in July upheld [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] the president's authority to order al-Marri's detention. The incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama [transition website] will have the power to change the Bush administration's policy, potentially ending the case before a ruling by the Court by releasing or charging al-Marri.

In Gross v. FBL Financial Services [docket; cert. petition, PDF], the Court will decide whether a plaintiff must present direct evidence of discrimination in order to obtain a mixed-motive instruction in a non-Title VII [text] discrimination case. The case involves an executive who claims he was passed over for a promotion in favor of a younger employee in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) [text]. In 2003, the Court ruled in Desert Palace v. Costa [opinion text] that direct evidence - evidence linking an adverse employment action to a specific motive - is not required in a mixed-motive case under Title VII, but left open the issue of whether direct evidence would be required outside the Title VII context. The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] in May that direct evidence is required under the ADEA.

[JURIST] A Moroccan court on Friday sentenced Hicham Ahmidan [Interpol arrest warrant] to 10 years in prison for his role in the 2004 Madrid train bombings [JURIST news archive; BBC background materials], which killed almost 200 people. Ahmidan, who was in custody at the time of the attack, was convicted of providing support to the bombers, but had earlier been acquitted of charges of belonging to a terrorist organization. Prosecutors in the case had sought a sentence of 20 years, and lawyers for Ahmidan have said they will appeal the ruling [AFP report]. Ahmidan is currently serving five years in prison for drug trafficking charges.

In January, Moroccan authorities arrested and pledged to try [JURIST report] another Moroccan, Abdelilah Hriz, for alleged involvement in the bombings, but Spain has handled the majority of prosecutions thusfar. In November 2007, victims vowed to appeal [JURIST report] after a Spanish court acquitted seven of the 28 co-defendants accused of participating in the attacks, including alleged mastermind Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed [CBC profile]. In all, 28 co-defendants [BBC backgrounder] were charged in Spain with 192 counts of murder and upwards of 1,800 counts of attempted murder related to the March 11, 2004 bombings. Three defendants were convicted of murder [JURIST report] and 18 others were found guilty of lesser charges. The three men convicted of murder - Jamel Zougam, Otman el Ghanoui, and Emilio Trashorras - each received sentences of up to 40,000 years imprisonment, but under Spanish law can only serve a maximum of 40 years each.

[JURIST] The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website] unanimously ruled [press release] Thursday that there was no human rights violation when a French school expelled two students for refusing to remove their headscarves [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. Two French nationals, Belgin Dogru [judgment text] and Esma-Nur Kervanci [judgment text, in French], were expelled from school in 1999 at ages 11 and 12, respectively, when they refused to remove their headscarves for physical education classes. After the girls were unsuccessful in the French court system, they brought their claim to the human rights court. The applicants sought relief under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights [text], which provides for freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. The court ruled that there was no violation, reasoning in the Dogru case:

The Court considers that . . . the penalty of expulsion does not appear disproportionate, and notes that the applicant was able to continue her schooling by correspondence classes. It can be seen that the applicant's religious convictions were fully taken into account in relation to the requirements of protecting the rights and freedoms of others and public order. It is also clear that the decision complained of was based on those requirements and not on any objections to the applicant's religious beliefs.

[JURIST] The Taiwan Taipei District Court [official website] on Thursday sentenced former head of the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau [official website] Yeh Sheng-mao to 10 years in prison on corruption charges. Yeh was convicted [Taipei Times report] of corruption, concealing a government file, and leaking confidential information to former President Chen Shui-bian [BBC profile; JURIST news archive]. In addition to the prison sentence, Yeh will also be deprived of civil rights for five years. Lawyers for Yeh plan to appeal [Taiwan News report].

Yeh is the first to be convicted in the many corruption scandals surrounding Chen. Chen was arrested [JURIST report] in November on suspicion of embezzling money from the state affairs fund. Chen, the former leader of the now-opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) [party website, in Mandarin] who resigned the presidency in May 2008, has maintained his innocence and has said that the investigation is a political attack by members of the ruling Kuomintang Party [party website]. Chen spent eight months in prison twenty-one years ago for defaming Nationalist leaders. In September, he was cleared [JURIST report] on more recent defamation charges.

[JURIST] Two US congressman on Thursday sent a letter [text] to US Attorney General Michael Mukasey [official profile; JURIST news archive], calling on him to explain comments he made Wednesday about pardoning US counterterrorism officials for their controversial policies. Mukasey told reporters [NYT report] at a news conference that he did not see a need to issue a blanket pardon because there was no evidence that anyone who developed controversial interrogation, eavesdropping or other controversial policies did so under the belief they were acting illegally. Representatives John Conyers (D-MI) [official website] and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) [official website] wrote:

[W]e are troubled by the breadth of your statement and the blanket conclusion that everyone involved in approving these policies believed they were acting within the law. The public record reflects ample warning to Administration officials that its legal approach was overreaching and invalid, such as repeated objections by military lawyers to Department legal opinions on interrogation issues and the stark warning by then-Deputy Attorney General Comey that the Department would be "ashamed" if the world learned of the legal advice it had given on torture issues. . . . Accordingly, please explain the basis for your blanket conclusion that all Department actors believed their conduct in counterterrorism matters was lawful.

[JURIST] The European Court of First Instance [official website; JURIST news archive] on Thursday annulled [case materials; press release, PDF] a July decision of the Council of the European Union [official website] to place the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) [group website] on the list of terrorist organizations and freeze its assets for the third time since the court's similar decision in December 2006. The court recognized as valid four of the six pleas [text, PDF] made by the PMOI. In an unusually swift ruling only a day after the hearing, the court found that the Council had violated the PMOI’s right to defend itself from the Council’s legal arguments to place it on the European list of terrorist organizations by failing to give the specific reason for its decision to the PMOI and subsequently to the court. This constituted both a "failure to discharge burden of proof" and a "breach of the applicant’s right to effective judicial protection." In addition, PMOI was awarded costs under Article 87 (2) of the Rules of Procedure [text]. The court did not specify a date by which the Council must comply with its decision, and any appeals must be made within two months.

In October 2008 and December 2006 [JURIST reports] the European Court of First Instance struck down similar decisions by the Council in regards to the PMOI. The PMOI is considered the main organization in the National Council of Resistance of Iran [advocacy website], a coalition based in France that purports to be dedicated to a democratic, secular, and coalition government in Iran.

[JURIST] Israeli police Thursday forcibly removed 250 settlers who had barricaded themselves inside the four-story so-called House of Peace (Beit HaShalom) [Hebron Jewish Community backgrounder; advocacy materials] on the West Bank [CIA backgrounder] that the Israeli Supreme Court [official website] last month ordered cleared [JURIST report] pending judicial resolution of a dispute over land ownership. The raid lasted an hour [Haaretz report], with resistance by the settlers, and there were reports that five settlers were injured as well as two police officers. The police took the settlers by surprise, arriving at the house in the mid-afternoon rather than at dawn when they were expected. Further violence occurred in surrounding areas with shootings and violent confrontations between Jewish West bank Settlers, Israeli military and police forces, and Palestinians late into Thursday night, despite increased police and military presence.

Ownership of the house is disputed by Israeli settlers and the original purchaser of the house, New York-based businessman Morris Abraham, and the original Palestinian owner of the house who denies the sale. The transaction was never approved by Israel's minister of defense, a necessary component of a lawful transaction. On Friday, Riyad al-Malki, the Palestinian foreign minister appealed to foreign diplomats [AP report] and requesting international intervention. Hebron is in close proximity to one of the holiest places of worship in the Jewish faith, the Cave of the Patriarchs.

[JURIST] The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website] Thursday ruled on six Chechnya disappearance cases [press release], ordering Russia to pay a total of €320,000 to the relatives of the victims. In each case, the applicants, all Russian nationals, alleged their relatives disappeared between 2001-2003 after being taken into custody by members of the Russian military and that domestic authorities did not carry out adequate investigations of their claims. The applicants relied on Articles 2, 3, 5, and 13 - the right to life, the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment, the right to liberty and security, and the right to an effective remedy - of the European Convention on Human Rights [text]. The court found that in each of the six cases that Russia failed to carry out adequate criminal investigations into the disappearances.

The ECHR has consistently ruled against Russia in cases involving human rights violations in Chechnya. In October, the ECHR issued two decisions [JURIST report] finding Russia in violation of the human rights convention in several cases concerning the deaths or abductions of Russian nationals in Chechnya in 2000. In May, the court ruled that Russia was responsible for the disappearance of a dozen people [JURIST report] during Russian armed raids in Chechnya in 2002 and 2003. In July 2007, the court ruled that Russian authorities were responsible for the shooting deaths of 11 unarmed Chechen civilians, and in June 2007 it held that Russian authorities were liable for the 2003 deaths of four Chechen family members [JURIST reports]. On Wednesday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev [official profile; JURIST news archive] proposed [transcript, in Russian; JURIST report] that Russian courts become more transparent in order to restore faith in the justice system and prevent people from turning to the ECHR.

[JURIST] Lawyers for former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] filed a complaint with the court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) [official website] in October to prevent his trial for crimes against humanity in Senegal from moving forward, according to an AFP report. The move is a response to 14 Chadian and Senegalese citizens filing complaints with a Senegal prosecutor [JURIST report] in September alleging war crimes and torture by the former dictator. Habre, who has been accused of involvement in the murder or torture of more than 40,000 political opponents during his rule from 1982 to 1990, fled to Senegal after being overthrown in 1990. Senegal is expected to respond to Habre's petition in order to keep the trial moving as expected.

In August, a Chadian court sentenced Habre to death in absentia [JURIST report] for crimes committed against the state. Senegal courts have long refused to extradite Habre, despite the issuance of an international arrest warrant [JURIST reports] by Belgium pursuant to its universal jurisdiction laws [HRW backgrounder]. Under growing international pressure either to try Habre locally or extradite him to Belgium, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade [official profile, in French; BBC profile] agreed in April 2006 to try him in Senegal and the Senegalese government later determined [JURIST report] he would face charges in a criminal court, rather than in front of a special tribunal. Previously the Senegalese courts dismissed an action against him in 2001 [HRW report], claiming that they lacked jurisdiction over crimes committed elsewhere. In July this year Senegal formally adopted [JURIST report] a constitutional amendment giving the nation's courts jurisdiction over Habre's trial.