JURIST - Paper Chase: Saturday, August 15, 2009

[JURIST] American citizen John Yettaw, sentenced for swimming to and staying in the home of Myanmar opposition pro-democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], is expected to be released on Sunday, according to an announcement on Saturday following a closed meeting between US Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) [official website] and Myanmar's Senior General Than Shwe [BBC profile] on Saturday. Webb, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs [membership page], is the first senior American official to visit Myanmar [press release] in over ten years, becoming the highest ranking official who has met with the head of Myanmar's junta. The senator's request for Suu Kyi's release did not elicit any committment from the Than Shwe.

Earlier this week, Suu Kyi and American Yettaw were convicted [JURIST report] of violating state security laws after Suu Kyi, who was under house arrest, allowed Yettaw to stay in her home after he swam across a lake to visit her. Suu Kyi was sentenced to 18 more months of house arrest, and Yettaw was sentenced to seven years in prison, with four years of hard labor. The verdict has been widely criticized by world leaders and human rights groups, with many calling for her immediate release. Suu Kyi, a prominent human rights activist, has spent 12 of the past 18 years in prison or under house arrest for alleged violations of an anti-subversion law [text, PDF].

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court and the constitution were the focus of discussion Friday afternoon at the Netroots Nation [advocacy group] progressives conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Blogger Christy Hardin Smith [FireDogLake archive] began the session by giving her opinion that the Supreme Court is something Americans

should pay more attention to, because those decisions affect all of our lives in ways that we might not appreciate until we get pulled into a court case.

In discussing the Court's interpretation of statutory law, the four panelists and moderator made frequent reference to the Court's controversial 2007 ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. [JURIST report], which determined the statutory limitations period for pay discrimination lawsuits, meaning that Ledbetter was unable to recover from her employer. Hardin Smith said that Ledbetter had been "working while female" and Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) [official website] expressed frustration at the ruling, saying that the Court "went against the plain meaning of the text." Nadler co-sponsored the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 [S 181 materials; JURIST report], which effectively overturned the Court's ruling when US President Barack Obama [official website] signed it into law one week after taking office in January. Nadler stated that he intends to focus on "making a [legislative] record that protects decent legislation" from being misinterpreted.

The panelists spent a significant portion of the session discussing judge Sonia Sotomayor [White House profile], recently sworn in [JURIST report] as the 111th justice of the US Supreme Court. Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron [AFJ profile] speculated, "I think we will see from her what we saw from Thurgood Marshall...and the dialogue among the justices will change."

Moving to a broader exploration of the composition of the Court, Nadler expressed concerns that the Court in general is trending toward a return to the Lochner [SSRN article] era in its approach to employee rights and wages. Later, responding to a question about how the structure of the legal profession and its hiring practices may influence the Court, he noted,

The moment you hit the federal court, it's corporate law...You're not going to the federal bench if you weren't in a white shoe firm, and that's gotta be changed too. [sic]

The conversation shifted to a discussion of this Court's emphasis on the original intent [WSJ report] of the Constitution's framers, leading Nadler to quip, "the framers probably had no original intent," and so would be of little help in interpreting "glittering phrases [such as] Due Process." Speaking on originalism, Aron took a different approach, stating,

Most of us recognize that the founders of that Constitution were a very small, select group of elite individuals...all of them white men, if I'm not mistaken.

She added, "The debate between originalism and evolving notions of decency are certainly the underpinnings of how conservatives talk about [these issues]."

The panel discussion concluded with questions from the audience, with one attendee noting the importance of civics education in America. Constitutional Accountability Center Founder & President Doug Kendall [CAC profile] responded by returning to the theme of the framers, commenting,

How we teach the Reconstruction Amendments...the heart and soul of the progressive Constitution...the framers of those amendments should be on the levels of Hamilton and Madison.

Nadler noted, "Obviously they should teach civics, but they should teach reality too...courts have played a major role in government...not just as umpires."

[JURIST] Governor of the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) Gordon Wetherell [official profile] issued an order [TCI press release] Friday suspending the British Overseas Territory's constitution [PDF text] and submitting to direct rule by the UK after being directed to do so by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) [official website]. The FCO move follows a May 31 report [text, PDF; part 2, PDF; part 3, PDF] compiled by the TCI Commission of Inquiry [official website] led by Sir Robin Auld [Lamb Chambers profile] to Wetherell documenting widespread corruption among government officials, including former TCI Chief Minister Michael Misick, and recommending direct rule and the appointment of an independent prosecutor. Until Friday, the UK had not imposed direct rule on a territory since 1986, when it previously imposed direct rule on TCI [BBC report] over government misconduct. Ousted Premier Galmo Williams [official profile] decried [TCI press release] the UK takeover as a "coup" and claimed the "country is being invaded and re-colonized by the United Kingdom, dismantling a duly elected government and legislature and replacing it with a one man dictatorship, akin to that of the old Red China, all in the name of good governance." Martin Stanley [Civil Servants profile, PDF] has been appointed [TCI press releases] as TCI's new chief executive. Wetherell refused to call the imposition of direct rule a "takeover," and said he expects elections in the island nation by 2011, an expectation echoed by FCO Minister Chris Bryant [official profile].

Friday's order was made possible when, on Wednesday, London's Court of Appeal rejected [TCI Sun report] former Chief Minister Misick's claim that a proposed takeover would violate EU law. Misick resigned [AFP report] in March following the publication of an Interim Report [text, PDF; FCO press release] by the Inquiry Commission which accused Misick [BBC report] of corruption. The Inquiry Commission was established [Inquiry Commission press release] in July 2008 after media reports [BBC report] of corruption in TCI. TCI have had self-government since 1976, but plans for full independence have been abortive. Island politicians have several times considered and/or proposed union with Canada [CBC backgrounder]; the east coast province of Nova Scotia [JURIST news archive] most recently floated the idea [CBC report] in 2004.