[JURIST] The US House of Representatives [official website] passed a bill [H.R. 1256 text, PDF] Thursday that would give the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) [agency website] the authority to regulate the market for tobacco products. The bill, entitled the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, passed in the House by a vote of 298-112 [roll call vote]. The Act would amend the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act [text], the law that created the FDA, to provide the agency with the authority to regulate tobacco products including "any product made or derived from tobacco that is intended for human consumption, including any component, part, or accessory of a tobacco product." The bill does not permit the FDA to regulate tobacco leaf that is not in the hands of tobacco product manufacturers, or producers of tobacco leaf, including tobacco growers, tobacco warehouses, or tobacco grower cooperatives. Additionally, the bill calls for the establishment of a Center for Tobacco Products and an Office to Assist Small Tobacco Product Manufacturers within the FDA to assist the agency in its regulation of the tobacco market.

Last year, the House Energy and Commerce Committee [official website] voted 38-12 to approve the bill [JURIST report]. At the time, supporters said the bill would help to inform the public of the risks of smoking and make cigarettes safer, but opponents criticized the legislation, saying it could give the public a false sense of security about smoking and that the FDA might not be able to handle the burden of regulation. The US Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approved a similar bill [JURIST report] in August 2007. Shortly before that, former FDA Commissioner Dr. Mark McClellan said that the FDA lacked the resources [JURIST report] to handle tobacco regulation. The FDA first began to regulate the tobacco industry in 1996, but in 2000 the Supreme Court ruled in FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. [text] that Congress had not provided the FDA with the authority to regulate tobacco products.

[JURIST] Judge John Bates of the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF; order, PDF] Thursday that three detainees being held at Bagram Air Base [official website; GlobalSecurity backgrounder] in Afghanistan can proceed with habeas corpus challenges to their detention. The court's order rejects three of four motions brought by the US government to dismiss the habeas petitions of four foreign nationals, including one Afghan national, captured outside of Afghanistan and brought to Bagram, where they are currently held. The court's decision focused on whether the detainees, Fadi Al Maqaleh, Amin Al Bakri, Redha Al Najar, and Afghan national Haji Wazir, could invoke the Constitution's Suspension Clause [text]. Applying the multi-factor test for application of the Suspension Clause developed by the US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] in Boumediene v. Bush [opinion, PDF; JURIST report], Bates wrote:

This Court's role, and this decision, is nonetheless quite narrow, and is limited today to assessing whether the Suspension Clause extends to these four petitioners and hence whether they are entitled to seek habeas corpus in this Court. Applying the Boumediene factors carefully, the Court concludes that these petitioners are virtually identical to the detainees in Boumediene - they are non-citizens who were (as alleged here) apprehended in foreign lands far from the United States and brought to yet another country for detention. And as in Boumediene, these petitioners have been determined to be "enemy combatants," a status they contest. Moreover, the process used to make that determination is inadequate and, indeed, significantly less than the Guantanamo detainees in Boumediene received. Although the site of detention at Bagram is not identical to that at Guantanamo Bay, the "objective degree of control" asserted by the United States there is not appreciably different than at Guantanamo. Finally, it cannot be denied that the "practical obstacles" inherent in resolving a Bagram detainee's entitlement to habeas corpus are in some ways greater than those present for a Guantanamo detainee, because Bagram is located in an active theater of war. But those obstacles are not as great as respondents claim, and certainly are not insurmountable. And importantly, for these petitioners, such practical barriers are largely of the Executive's choosing - they were all apprehended elsewhere and then brought (i.e., rendered) to Bagram for detention now exceeding six years.

Based on those conclusions driven by application of the Boumediene test, the Court concludes that the Suspension Clause extends to, and hence habeas corpus review is available to, three of the four petitioners. As to the fourth, his Afghan citizenship - given the unique "practical obstacles" in the form of friction with the "host" country - is enough to tip the balance of the Boumediene factors against his claim to habeas corpus review. When a Bagram detainee has either been apprehended in Afghanistan or is a citizen of that country, the balance of factors may change. Although it may seem odd that different conclusions can be reached for different detainees at Bagram, in this Court's view that is the predictable outcome of the functional, multifactor, detainee-by-detainee test the Supreme Court has mandated in Boumediene.

[JURIST] China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS) [official website, in Chinese] announced [Xinhua report] Wednesday that it would conduct a review of its prison system in response to the deaths of at least five inmates since February. The suspicious deaths include [China Daily report] the death of two minors, the death on an inmate which guards attributed to a "nightmare," and the fatal beating of an inmate which had been dismissed as an accident until it was investigated by the Supreme People's Procuratorate [official website]. A former Ministry of Justice [official website] official last month called for more security measures [JURIST report] to combat abuse in Chinese prisons. The MPS said the investigation would look at police officers' possible abuse of authority and lack human rights training.

In late November, the UN Committee Against Torture [official website] said in response [text, PDF; JURIST report] to a report on China that it was "concerned about reports of abuses in custody, including high numbers of deaths, possibly related to torture or ill-treatment, and about the lack of investigation into these abuses and deaths in custody." The committee recommended that China arrange for independent investigations into all in-custody deaths and ensure that those responsible for the deaths are prosecuted. China later rejected the report [JURIST report], saying that it was biased. In July, a Chinese prosecutor was given a life sentence [JURIST report] for torturing and killing a corruption suspect.

[JURIST] The UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) [official website] has asked Lebanese authorities to turn over documents [order, PDF] related to the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri [JURIST news archive], according to a court order released Wednesday. The STL, established under UN Security Council Resolution 1757 [text, PDF; JURIST report] to investigate and try suspects in Hariri's killing, said that Lebanese authorities should "defer to the Tribunal's competence in this case" by "hand[ing] over ... the results of the investigation and a copy of the court’s records" to the prosecutor. The STL also requested that "a list of all persons detained in connection with the Hariri case" be given to the pre-trial judge who would then determine whether those people should be freed, detained in Lebanon or transferred to STL at the Hague. Under the Resolution, the STL takes exclusive jurisdiction [Daily Star report] over the suspect once the request has been made, and Lebanese authorities have 14 days to comply with the request.

Last month, the STL's registrar Robin Vincent [official profile, PDF] said that it plans to ask the Lebanese government to transfer four generals [Daily Star report; JURIST report] being held on suspicion of involvement in Hariri's assassination to the court's custody. In March 2008, lead prosecutor Daniel Bellemare [Ya Libnan profile] said he believed a criminal network was behind the assassination [JURIST report]. The investigation into the assassination has been extended past its original anticipated end date and expanded [JURIST reports] to cover other assassinations in the country. Several reports from the International Independent Investigation Commission (IIIC) [authorizing resolution; UN materials], also headed by Bellemare, have implicated Syrian officials [JURIST report] in Hariri's death.

[JURIST] Twenty members of the Japanese parliament, the National Diet, formed a nonpartisan group [Japan Times report] Wednesday in order to delay the implementation of a lay judge system in the country. The group has concerns over rules governing disclosure and trial duration, along with the belief that the members of public will not be prepared make decisions in serious cases. Japan's proposed system [Japan Inc backgrounder] will consist of six members chosen from the public, and three professional judges, who together will decide serious criminal cases, including murder. The panel will decide guilt or innocence and sentencing by a majority vote, provided one professional judge is in the majority. The lay judge system is set to go into effect on May 1, 2009.

The Supreme Court of Japan [official website; Japan Times backgrounder] recently announced that approximately one out of every four citizens would not be eligible to serve [Mainichi Daily News report] as lay judges. Those who are ineligible to serve include policemen and security personnel. Others are given the option of serving, including those who are over the age of 70, are full time students, or have serious medical conditions. Japan previously experimented with a jury system from 1928 to 1943 in which only males over the age of 30 could participate.

[JURIST] The US House of Representatives [official website] approved a bill [H.R. 1664 materials] Wednesday which allows the Treasury Department [official website] to ban certain types of compensation at companies which receive federal bailout money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The Pay for Performance Act of 2009, which was originally introduced by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) [official website], gives Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner [official profile] the authority to define compensation that is unreasonable and excessive and to bar such payments, along with the power to prohibit payments that are not based on performance standards. The bill passed by a vote of 247-171 [roll call vote] with 12 not voting. While the legislation applies to all employees and not just executives, an amendment to the bill exempts most community banks [MarketWatch report] from the pay restrictions.

The bill comes just weeks after the House passed [JURIST report] legislation [H.R. 1586 text, PDF] that would tax bonuses given to employees of companies that received money from government stimulus programs at 90 percent. The bill was drafted and voted on in reaction to large bonus payments made to employees of embattled insurance company American International Group (AIG) [corporate website]. The strong reaction to exorbitant executive compensation and bonuses comes as the US government and the Obama administration attempt to grapple with the ongoing global financial crisis [JURIST news archive]. Attempts to gain control over the roiling credit markets and possible widespread bank insolvencies have included the passage in September of a $700 billion financial rescue bill [JURIST report], creating the TARP, which provided economic assistance to at-risk financial institutions.

[JURIST] Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] said Wednesday that Venezuela would be willing to accept detainees from the Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] military prison. Chavez made his statements in an interview [El Universal report, in Spanish] with Arabic TV channel al-Jazeera [media website] while attending the Second Summit of Arab-South American Countries [official website] in Qatar. In the interview, Chavez also called for US President Barack Obama [official profile] to complete the release of all Guantanamo detainees and completely return Guantanamo to Cuba [BBC report]. Given the tense relationship [State Department backgrounder] between the US and Venezuela, it is unlikely that detainees will be sent to Venezuela.

US Attorney General Eric Holder [official profile] told reporters in March that the Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] would consider accepting [JURIST report] in the US the 17 Uighur detainees [JURIST news archive] who have been cleared for release. The European Union (EU) [official website] has urged member nations to accept former Guantanamo prisoners, but EU leaders have requested complete background information [JURIST report] on each prisoner they would receive before making a decision to accept them. Spain, Ireland, and Portugal [JURIST reports] have already expressed their willingness to host detainees. Other EU members, including Poland [JURIST report], Sweden, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic [Financial Times report], have expressed strong reservations to doing so.