[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] announced [press release] Monday that a Chicago man has been charged in connection with the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, India [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. US citizen David Coleman Headley, arrested in October for allegedly conspiring to bomb a Danish newspaper, was charged [text, PDF] Monday with six counts of conspiracy to bomb public places in India, to murder and maim persons in India and Denmark, to provide material support to foreign terrorist plots, and to provide material support to terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) [CFR backgrounder], and six counts of aiding and abetting the murder of US citizens in India. Headley allegedly traveled several times to Mumbai to take pictures and videos of various targets, several of which were attacked. No date has been set for Headley's arraignment before the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois [official website]. Also Monday, the DOJ unsealed a complaint [text, PDF] against retired Pakistani major Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed for conspiracy in planning to attack the Danish newspaper and its employees.

The lone surviving suspected gunman from the Mumbai attacks, Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab [NDTV profile], is currently on trial in India. Last month, the judge hearing the trial removed Kasab's defense lawyer after finding that the lawyer lied when he denied being informed of the special public prosecutor's intent to examine 340 more witnesses of the attack. Kasab's previous lawyer was also removed [JURIST report] in April for ethical violations after agreeing to represent both the accused and a victim of the attack. The Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan has indicted [JURIST report] seven men accused of planning the attacks, charging them under Pakistan's Anti-Terrorism Act [text]. The men, who allegedly belong to LeT, have pleaded not guilty. Pakistan has postponed the trial [JURIST report] of five others allegedly connected with the 2008 attack, which claimed at least 170 lives at ten locations across the city.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] heard oral arguments [day call, PDF; merit briefs] Monday in two cases. In Free Enterprise Fund and Beckstead and Watts, LLP v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board [oral arguments transcript, PDF; JURIST report], the Court heard arguments on whether the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 [text] violates constitutional separation of powers by affording members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) [board website] executive power while removing any presidential authority to control the exercise of such power. The law was passed in 2002 to reform business practices and prevent corporate fraud by overseeing the accounting industry and punishing corrupt auditors. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] that the Act is constitutional because Congress is able to restrict the president's removal power in any way it "deems best for the public interest" and because the constitutional authority to appoint implies the authority to limit, restrict, and regulate the removal of such appointments. Counsel for the petitioners argued:

The board is unique among Federal regulatory agencies in that the President can neither appoint nor remove its members, nor does he have any ability to designate the chairman or review the work product, so he is stripped of the traditional means of control that he has over the traditional independent agencies.

On the other side of the balancing test, Congress provided no reason for stripping him of these traditional means of control.

As Courts have recognized, Miranda warnings protect Fifth Amendment rights and promote voluntary confessions, confessions important to seeking truth, solving crimes, and securing justice. Yet the Florida Supreme Court erred in two ways to suppress a voluntary confession relied upon for Kevin Powell's conviction.

First, the Florida court misapplied the analysis. Rather than evaluating the warning under a reasonably conveyed standard for the right to an attorney, the court strictly parsed the warning, seeking certain words in a certain order.

Second, the court incorrectly found the warning to be misleading. The court ignored the totality of the warning. The court overemphasized the order in which the rights were given, and furthermore, the court applied a hypertechnical analysis of the warning's language.

[JURIST] The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [official website] announced Monday a finding that greenhouse gases threaten [press release] public health and the environment. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson [official profile] signed two separate findings [materials] Monday: that greenhouse gases "threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations," and that emissions from motor vehicles contribute to greenhouse gas pollution. With these findings, the EPA can now take steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act [text, PDF], which the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 gave the EPA authority [JURIST report] to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases by automobiles. At a press conference Monday, Jackson said [prepared remarks]:

In 2007, the US Supreme Court handed down perhaps the most significant decision ever reached in environmental law. The Court ruled that the Clean Air Act, the landmark 1970 law aimed at protecting our air, is written to include greenhouse gas pollution. That verdict echoed what many scientists, policymakers, and concerned citizens have said for years: there are no more excuses for delay.

Regrettably, there was continued delay. But this administration will not ignore science or the law any longer, nor will we avoid the responsibility we owe to our children and grandchildren. Today, I'm proud to announce that EPA has finalized its endangerment finding on greenhouse gas pollution, and is now authorized and obligated to take reasonable efforts to reduce greenhouse pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] on Monday rejected [judgment, PDF] a motion [text, PDF] filed by former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic [case materials; JURIST news archive] challenging the legitimacy of the court. Karadzic claimed [JURIST report] that the UN Security Council [official website] overstepped its powers when it created the court in 1993. The tribunal summarily rejected this argument:

Whether the UNSC legally established the Tribunal is an issue that was unambiguously settled in 1995 in the Tadic case, when the Appeals Chamber held that the establishment of the Tribunal fell squarely within the powers of the UNSC under Article 41 of the Charter of the United Nations. On the basis of the reasoning set out in that decision, the Trial Chamber finds that the Accused's argument that the Tribunal was not legally constituted because it was not established through an international treaty is without merit. Indeed, the establishment of an international tribunal through an international treaty, as in the case of the International Criminal Court, is but one of the methods by which to set up such a tribuna1.

[JURIST] A special 17-member panel [press release, PDF] of the Supreme Court of Pakistan [official website] on Monday began hearing [press release, PDF] a legal challenge to an order [text] that grants President Asif Ali Zardari [official website] and 8,000 other government officials immunity from corruption charges. There has been speculation [Daily Times report] that the case may also address separate constitutional immunity granted to Zardari as head-of-state. Opponents of the National Reconciliation Ordinance claim that it violates Article 25 [text] of Pakistan's constitution, the UN Convention against Corruption [text, PDF], and general principles of justice. It is expected that Zardari will face numerous corruption charges [Telegraph report] if the order is invalidated.

The NRO was signed [JURIST report] by former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] in 2007 as part of a power-sharing accord allowing former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto [BBC profile] to return to the country despite corruption charges [JURIST report] she had faced. The ordinance also applies to similar charges against politicians who were charged, but not convicted, of corruption between 1988 and 1999.

[JURIST] Many rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories are granted only conditionally according to a report [text, PDF, in Hebrew; press release] released Sunday by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) [advocacy website]. The report found that the state infringes on the fundamental rights of political and religious dissenters as well as those of Arabs and the poor. The report cites arbitrary arrests of those opposed to last winters' Operation Cast Lead [GlobalSecurity backgrounder; JURIST news archive] and attempts to pass laws requiring citizens to swear loyalty to the state and preventing residents from recognizing Israel's independence day as a day of mourning as evidence of increasing restrictions on freedom of speech. Other evidence of a decline in civil rights included Israel's rejection of independent investigations into Operation Cast Lead, increased reports of racism, housing discrimination and the increasing inability of the poor to afford health care. An English version of the report is expected soon.

Last month, the UN General Assembly [official website] adopted a resolution [JURIST report] giving Israel and Palestine three months to conduct independent investigations into possible war crimes committed during last winter's Gaza conflict. The General Assembly voted 114-18 with 44 abstentions [press release] expressing support for the Goldstone Report [text, PDF], the result of a UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) [official website] fact-finding mission, which accused both Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) [official website] and Hamas [GlobalSecurity backgrounder] fighters of war crimes during the conflict. Israel criticized the report as biased, questioned the objectivity of the fact-finding, and urged the UN not to adopt the report's findings.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Monday summarily reversed and remanded [opinion, PDF] a Michigan Court of Appeals decision that found officers violated a defendant's Fourth Amendment [text] rights when they entered his home. In a per curiam opinion, the Court relied on its 2006 ruling in Brigham City v. Stuart [opinion, PDF] to conclude that the officers correctly applied the emergency aid exception to the Fourth Amendment:

It was error for the Michigan Court of Appeals to replace that objective inquiry into appearances with its hindsight determination that there was in fact no emergency. It does not meet the needs of law enforcement or the demands of public safety to require officers to walk away from a situation like the one they encountered here. Only when an apparent threat has become an actual harm can officers rule out innocuous explanations for ominous circumstances. But "[t]he role of a peace officer includes preventing violence and restoring order, not simply rendering first aid to casualties." It sufficed to invoke the emergency aid exception that it was reasonable to believe that Fisher had hurt himself (albeit nonfatally) and needed treatment that in his rage he was unable to provide, or that Fisher was about to hurt, or had already hurt, someone else. The Michigan Court of Appeals required more than what the Fourth Amendment demands.

[JURIST] A group of Swiss intellectuals on Sunday called for a reversal of Switzerland's recent vote to ban the construction of minarets [JURIST report]. The Swiss intellectual group Club Helvetique [advocacy website, in German] told a Swiss newspaper that they plan to institute a new referendum [Reuters report] to overturn the ban imposed through a referendum last week. Swiss Supreme Court President Lawrence Meyer also said [NZZ report, in German] Sunday that two suits have been filed in federal court challenging the ban's legality. Meanwhile, Muslim leaders have continued to speak out against the ban. Libyan leader Muamar Gaddafi [official website] warned [SwissInfo report] Sunday that the ban could make Switzerland an enticing target for al Qaeda. Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki called [IRNA report] Switzerland's Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey Sunday to express Iran's anger and disappointment with the ban, telling Calmy-Rey that the ban is inconsistent with Switzerland's stated dedication to democracy and human rights.

Last week, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official website] condemned the ban [JURIST report] as a form of religious discrimination. Last year, the Swiss government announced [JURIST report] that Swiss nationalist parties had gathered enough signatures on their initiative against the construction of minarets [initiative website, in French] to force a national referendum on whether the country's constitution should be amended to ban the structures. The initiative was originally sponsored by the anti-immigrant Swiss People's Party (SVP) [party website].

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Monday granted certiorari [order list, PDF] in two cases. In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez [docket; cert. petition, PDF], the Court will consider whether a state law school may deny recognition to a religious student organization where the group requires its officers and voting members to agree with its core religious beliefs, thereby excluding gay students. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled [opinion, PDF] in favor of the law school.

In Dillon v. United States [docket; cert. petition, PDF], the Court will consider whether the federal sentencing guidelines [materials] are binding when a federal judge imposes a new sentence. Under the Supreme Court's 2005 ruling in United States v. Booker [opinion text], the guidelines are advisory only, but the Court has never ruled on Booker's application to a sentence modification proceeding. The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held [opinion, PDF] that Booker should not apply in sentence modification proceedings, upholding Percy Dillon's modified sentence.

[JURIST] The Iraqi parliament [official website, in Arabic] on Sunday approved [press release, in Arabic] an amended version of a controversial election law. Iraqi lawmakers had reached an agreement [JURIST report] last month, but amended the legislation in order to avoid a second veto from Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi [personal website, in Arabic]. Al-Hashemi had vetoed [JURIST report] a previous version of the bill, calling for increased representation for Iraqis living abroad. An estimated 1.5 million Iraqis live outside the country, and many are thought to be Sunnis who fled after Saddam Hussein's Sunni regime fell. Under the new version of the law, the number of seats in parliament will increase [NYT report] from 275 to 325, with 310 of those seats allotted to Iraq's 18 provinces and the remainder reserved for Iraqis living outside the country. Al-Hashemi congratulated [press release] the Iraqi people on the adoption of the new law, calling it a "triumph of the will of Iraqis." The White House called [press release] passage of the new law "a decisive moment for Iraq's democracy." Officials said Monday that elections are likely to be scheduled [Reuters report] for February 27.

The Iraqi Constitution [text, PDF] required general elections to be held by January 31 and required the new election law to be approved unanimously by the three members of the Presidency Council [official website, in Arabic], including al-Hashemi, within 60 days of the election, previously scheduled for January 18 of next year. After al-Hashemi's first veto, the Independent High Election Commission [official website, in Arabic] suspended preparations for the election. It remains unclear whether the delay in elections will affect the planned withdrawal of US military forces from Iraq. The elections may also include a referendum on the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) [text, PDF], which allows US troops to remain in the country until the end of 2011. A draft bill requiring the referendum was approved by the Iraqi cabinet [JURIST report] in August. If the SOFA were rejected by Iraqi voters, US troops would have only one year to withdraw, which would be nearly a year ahead of schedule.