[JURIST] The Czech Parliament on Friday approved [press release, in Czech] a constitutional amendment [text, in Czech] that would allow the legislative body to dissolve and hold early elections. The lawmakers initially agreed [JURIST report] to amend the country's constitution [text] on Thursday following a decision [judgment, PDF, in Czech] by the country's Constitutional Court [official website, in Czech] that delayed the elections in response to a suit brought by independent lawmaker Milos Melcak [official website, in Czech]. Melcak alleged that the earlier scheduled elections violated his right to serve a full parliamentary term. The court ruled that the elections scheduled for October 9 and 10 would amount to a suspension of the constitution.

Earlier this month, after the court announced it would consider Melcak's suit, Czech President Vaclav Klaus [official website, in Czech] expressed his concern [JURIST report] for the decision and called it "highly political." Klaus held a meeting after the court's initial decision to discuss the proposed amendments. Former prime minister Mirek Topolanek [official website; JURIST news archive] formally resigned [JURIST report] in March, dissolving parliament, which led to the scheduling of the now-delayed October elections. The Czech Republic has been experiencing economic difficulty over the past year and the delayed election will further delay budget negotiations.

[JURIST] The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] filed a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] Friday in the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania [official website] claiming that the US Secret Service, the City of Pittsburgh, and the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources [official websites] are acting illegally by failing to issue protest permits for the Group of 20 (G-20) [official website] summit scheduled in Pittsburgh [official website] on September 24-25. The ACLU claims that the failure to issue protest permits for certain areas of the City, notably Point State Park, Schenley Park [official websites], East Park, and Riverfront Park to groups including Thomas Merton center [advocacy website], is a violation of the First Amendment right to peaceful protest. In its complaint, the rights group argued for injunctive and declaratory relief claiming that only two protest permits have been issued so far for the G-20, and those two permits were far away from downtown Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl [official profile] said previously that the city has issued eight permits [Chicago Tribune report] so far and may issue more in the future. The City has also announced that it will lease [AP report] a downtown parking lot and two other sites [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report] for the benefit of protesters. A law to ban masks and hoods [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report] was voted down by the City Council last week.

[JURIST] A federal appeals court on Friday rejected [opinion, PDF] a lawsuit brought against private contractors by Iraqi plaintiffs alleging torture at the Abu Ghraib prison [JURIST news archive]. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia [official website] held that federal law concerning "combatant activities" preempted the state tort claims brought by the former detainees. Redefining the test set out in the district court opinion, the DC Circuit ruled that, during wartime, tort claims arising out of a private service contractor's activities, over which the military holds command authority, shall be preempted. On appeal, the plaintiffs claimed [brief, PDF] that Titan Corporation and CACI International [corporate website] were liable for "serious abuse" occurring during their stay in the prison facility. They additionally asserted that the district court erred in failing to consider breach of contract and the military's inability to control or discipline contractual employees. A dissenting justice argued that employees of private contractors are not immune from civil lawsuits since they are not within the military's chain of command.

The actions of private military contractors in Iraq are considered to have been the impetus behind provisions in the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement [PDF; JURIST report] that grant Iraqi courts limited jurisdiction over foreign contractors. In June, Iraqi authorities released three private contractors from custody [JURIST report] due to insufficient evidence that they killed another contractor in Baghdad's Green Zone. In May, US military contractor Don Ayala was sentenced [JURIST report] in US federal court to five years probation and a $12,500 fine after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the 2008 shooting of an Afghan detainee.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] on Friday refused to grant a request by the state of California to temporarily stay a lower court order to come up with a plan to reduce the number of inmates in its prisons [JURIST news archive]. In a brief order [text, PDF], the Court said that it would not stay an earlier order [text PDF; opinion summary, PDF] by a special federal court panel compelling California to create a plan [JURIST report] that will reduce the state's overcrowding from its current level of 190 percent of maximum capacity to a more manageable 137.5 percent. The Supreme Court noted that California was only appealing its need to create a plan to reduce prison overcrowding and that, ultimately, the plan would not be implemented until the Supreme Court had an opportunity to review the special panel's final order.

In its earlier order, the lower court noted that that due to extremely poor medical care, one inmate was "dying needlessly every six or seven days." In August 2008, California's court-appointed prison medical overseer J.Clark Kelso [official profile] asked the court to force the state to add 8 billion dollars [JURIST report] over the next five years to bring prison healthcare to constitutionally acceptable standards. In response to a 2006 order [JURIST report] to reduce overcrowding, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger [official website] ordered [JURIST report] the transfer of some prisoners out-of-state.