[JURIST] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] said Wednesday that strengthening human rights is an integral part of the rebuilding process [statement, PDF] in Haiti. In her remarks, Pillay mentioned the role that the inhumane living conditions may have had in the high casualty numbers resulting from the January 12 earthquake [NYT backgrounder; JURIST news archive], placing blame on the Duvalier regime for those conditions. According to Pillay, the high number of casualties could have been predicted by the damage sustained in that country following a series of tropical storms in 2008 [CNN report]. Pillay concluded her remarks with a call to action, saying:

As the Secretary-General noted we must help Haiti build back better. This also entails re-constructing and strengthening the national human rights protection systems through an effective and independent judiciary and a law enforcement apparatus respectful of human rights. A reliable National Human Rights Institution and a vigilant civil society must be empowered to be active partners in this endeavour.

[JURIST] The UK Supreme Court [official website] ruled [judgment, PDF; press release, PDF] Wednesday that executive orders allowing the government to freeze the assets of suspected terrorists are illegal. The five men involved in the court's inaugural case [JURIST report] argued that the government exceeded its power when the Treasury Department [official website] froze their assets without the approval of Parliament. They are accused by the British government of terrorism offenses, but have not been formally charged by any court. Justice Lord Hope said the orders, which can be extended indefinitely, are unduly burdensome on those accused of links to terrorism:

The consequences of the Orders that were made in this case are so drastic and so oppressive that we must be just as alert to see that the coercive action that the Treasury have taken really is within the powers that [Parliament] has given them. Even in the face of the threat of international terrorism, the safety of the people is not the supreme law. We must be just as careful to guard against unrestrained encroachments on personal liberty.

[JURIST] A Yemeni government official said Wednesday that Yemen will build a rehabilitation center for Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archives] detainees. According to the anonymous official, Yemen will begin building [Reuters report] once it receives funding for the $11 million project promised by the US. It is believed the rehabilitation center will be internationally financed and monitored [Telegraph report]. The project will be discussed on Wednesday at a meeting intended to garner international support in the wake of discovering that a Yemeni branch of al Qaeda trained the Nigerian man involved in the attempted Christmas day bombing [JURIST news archive].

The White House announced earlier this month that the US government will suspend transfers [JURIST report] of Guantanamo Bay detainees to Yemen based on security concerns. Most of the nearly 200 detainees remaining at Guantanamo are Yemeni, and many detainees have been transferred back to Yemen. Earlier this month, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [official website] upheld the detention [JURIST report] of Yemeni Guantanamo detainee Ghaleb Nassar Al-Bihani [NYT materials], ruling that he can remain in US custody, but, last month, the US government transferred six detainees [JURIST report] back to Yemen. Also last month, a federal judge granted Yemeni detainee Saeed Hatim's petition for habeas corpus, ordering his release [JURIST report].

[JURIST] China's Supreme People's Court (SPC) [official website, in Chinese] on Wednesday announced new anti-corruption rules in an effort to increase public confidence in the rule of law. The new regulations [Xinhua report] prohibit various activities including accepting bribes, having sex with litigants, intimidation, and intentionally prolonging court proceedings, with punishments ranging from demerits to removal. Chinese courts are under the control of the Communist Party of China (CPC) [GlobalSecurity backgrounder], which announced plans [JURIST report] earlier this month to increase its oversight of the families of government officials to control corruption. A communique released by the CPC's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), which is in charge of detecting and preventing corruption in the CPC, ordered other CPC organs to carefully monitor officials to make sure they are not accepting bribes or receiving improper gifts.

China's new judicial regulations come after the conviction [JURIST report] of former SPC vice president Huang Songyou on bribery and embezzlement charges earlier this month. Huang is the highest-ranking judge to be charged with corruption since the founding of the People's Republic of China. Between 2005 and 2008, Huang allegedly embezzled 3.9 million yuan (about $574,000 USD) while serving as vice president of the SPC, and he allegedly embezzled 1.2 million yuan (about $175,000 USD) while serving as president of the Intermediate People's Court of Zhanjiang in 1997.

[JURIST] The Russian Federation Council [official website, in Russian] on Wednesday voted to ratify Protocol 14 [text] to reform the European Convention of Human Rights [text, PDF]. Council members voted 137-0 [results, in Russian] to pass the legislation, following earlier approval [JURIST report] by the State Duma. The ratification process will be complete once Russian President Dmitry Medvedev [official profile] approves the provision [AFP report]. Russia is the last member of the Council of Europe (COE) [official website] to ratify the protocol, which includes reforms to increase efficiency of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website], such as filtering out inadmissible and repetitive cases. Russia was initially opposed to ratifying the protocol, which it claimed was politically motivated.

In June, the COE harshly criticized Russia's judicial system and called for reform [JURIST report]. In recent years, Russia has had the largest number of cases pending in the ECHR out of any COE member-state. In 2009, Russia had 32,600 cases pending, followed next by Turkey, which had 12,800 cases pending, and in 2008 [statistics, PDF] Russia had 27,250 cases pending, followed next by Turkey, which had 11,100 cases pending. In 2008, Medvedev proposed that Russian courts become more transparent [JURIST report] in order to restore faith in the justice system and prevent people from turning to the ECHR.

[JURIST] Bangladesh officials on Wednesday executed two of five former military officers sentenced to death for the 1975 assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman [Hindustan Times profile], the country's founding president, just hours after the country's Supreme Court [official website] rejected their petitions for review. The five men, Syed Faruk Rahman, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Baziul Huda, AKM Mohiuddin, and Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, had appealed an earlier ruling [JURIST report] that upheld their death sentences. Under Bangladesh law, a convict sentenced to death has the right to appeal the final judgment of his case and can petition the president for clemency. Three of the five men had already made clemency pleas, which were rejected [IANS report] last week by President Zillur Rahman. The remaining three are expected to be executed shortly.

Mujibur was killed at his home, along with his wife and three sons, in a military coup only four years after Bangladesh won independence [TIME backgrounder] from Pakistan in 1971. His daughter, the current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed [official website], was abroad at the time of the killings and had promised to make her father's murder trial a priority of her administration when she was elected in 2008 to a second term in office [JURIST report].

[JURIST] Ugandan Principal Judge James Ogoola said Monday that the newly established War Crimes Division (WCD) [official website, JURIST news archive] of the High Court will seek to recruit foreign judges. Ogoola explained the need [New Vision report] for foreign judges, citing the international nature of the cases. He said that foreign judges would improve both the quality of the WCD's work and the public's perception of the court. In June, WCD officials began reaching out to the areas most affected by the war with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) [BBC backgrounder, JURIST news archive] in the Acholi, Lango, Teso, and District of Adjumani regions of the country, seeking to lay the groundwork for future investigations.

Ogoola appointed three High Court Judges to serve on the WCD in July 2008 after the new division was created [JURIST report] in May of that year. The WCD was formed specifically to try war crimes cases involving the LRA and will not hear other allegations [JURIST report] of war crimes. Uganda's government agreed to create the war crimes court [JURIST report] in February 2008 during peace negotiations with the LRA. At the time, there was speculation that the WCD, which has the authority to try LRA leaders, was created to persuade the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] to drop its arrest warrants for LRA leaders. More than four years after the warrants were initially issued, the ICC is still seeking the arrest [JURIST report] of LRA leader Joseph Kony [BBC profile] and his deputies.

[JURIST] The Zimbabwe High Court [official website] ruled on Tuesday that it is not bound by the decision of the Southern Africa Development Community Tribunal (SADC Tribunal) [official website] that ordered the state to halt its controversial Land Reform Program [official website]. The court refused to register [Zimbabwe Telegraph report] a SADC Tribunal ruling [JURIST report] that prevents the state from acquiring land for the purpose of resettlement. Justice Bharat Patel believed that enforcing the ruling, which was in favor of white farmers whose land was taken over in the government's farm redistribution program [JURIST report], would violate the Zimbabwean Constitution and would be against public policy. Patel believed that a decision in favor the SADC ruling would lead to the removal of the majority of the people that the government was trying to support through the redistribution program.

The Zimbabwe High Court had previously ruled [JURIST report] that the SADC Tribunal is not superior to the courts of the individual SADC member countries. In December 2008, four white Zimbabwe farmers were charged with trespassing [JURIST report] on state property for failing to vacate lands that the government seized for the land reform program, in open defiance of the November 2008 SADC Tribunal ruling. One of the farmers, Colin Cloete, filed suit to cause the government and attorney general to register the SADC ruling in the High Court Registry, a step necessary to enable its enforcement in the country. Government officials have expressed that the land reform program is necessary [JURIST report] to correct past racial disparities that favored the white farmers, and the land reform program will continue.

[JURIST] Dozens of countries have illegally used secret detention facilities in their counter-terrorism efforts, according to a joint study [text, DOC; press release] issued Tuesday by four independent UN investigating groups. Information for the detailed study was collected through a questionnaire completed by 44 countries, as well several interviews with former detainees, their families, or their legal counsel. The study was particularly critical of actions taken by the US government since it began its "War on Terror" [JURIST news archive] in 2001. The report also acknowledged [Reuters report] that detainees are being secretly held in Algeria, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Russia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. The study stated:

International law clearly prohibits secret detention, which violates a number of human rights and humanitarian law norms that may not be derogated from under any circumstances. If secret detention constitutes enforced disappearances and is widely or systematically practiced, it may even amount to a crime against humanity. However ... secret detention continues to be used in the name of countering terrorism around the world. The evidence gathered by the four experts for the present study clearly show that many States, referring to concerns relating to national security – often perceived or presented as unprecedented emergencies or threats – resort to secret detention.

[JURIST] Honduran Supreme Court [official website, in Spanish] President Jorge Rivera on Tuesday exonerated six military leaders accused of abuse of power for removing former president Manuel Zelaya [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] from the country last June. Rivera found [Honduras Weekly report] that the leaders did not intend to harm Zelaya and that his removal was necessary in order to preserve the peace. The Supreme Court had charged [JURIST report] the commanders - head of the Joint Chiefs of the Armed Forces Romeo Vasquez, deputy head of the Joint Chiefs Venancio Cervantes, Inspector General Carlos Cuellar, Commandant of the Army Miguel Garcia, Commandant of the Navy Juan Rodriguez, and Commandant of the Air Force Luis Javier Prince - last week and ordered them to remain in the country until after the court had reached its decision. The charges were filed when prosecutors argued [JURIST report] to the court that the military commanders violated the Honduran Constitution [text, in Spanish] when they seized Zelaya and put him on a plane to Costa Rica. If they had been convicted, the military leaders could have faced up to six years in prison. Also Tuesday, the Honduran National Congress [official website, in Spanish] approved amnesty for both Zelaya and the military.

Tuesday's ruling comes the day before Porfirio Lobo is scheduled to be sworn into office as president and Zelaya is expected to leave the Brazilian Embassy in Honduras. Last month, congress voted 111-14 not to reinstate [JURIST report] Zelaya. This followed a non-binding advisory opinion from the Supreme Court that Zelaya could not legally return to office [JURIST report]. Zelaya was ousted [JURIST report] in June, following a judicial order [press release, in Spanish] asserting that he had broken Honduran law by attempting to conduct a controversial referendum on constitutional reform [JURIST report], contrary to a Supreme Court ruling. Zelaya, along with the US, the UN, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the European Union, maintain that his removal was a coup, while the interim government of Roberto Micheletti asserts that it was a lawful transition of power.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] announced [press release] on Tuesday that an Uzbek Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainee has been transferred to Switzerland. The detainee, whose identity will not be disclosed in order to facilitate his transition into life in Switzerland, was unanimously approved for transfer. The Swiss government agreed [JURIST report] to accept the detainee for resettlement "on humanitarian grounds" after reassurances from the US that the man was not convicted of any crime and will not be a threat to public safety. The detainee was originally cleared for release in 2005, but could not return to Uzbekistan for fear of persecution.

The transfer to Switzerland is the latest in series of recent transfers that may demonstrate a renewed commitment from the Obama administration to close the military facility. Other detainees have recently been sent to Slovakia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Somaliland and Yemen [JURIST reports]. Earlier this month, however, the White House announced [JURIST report] that further transfers of detainees to Yemen will be suspended due to security concerns. Last week, a presidential task force recommended [JURIST report] that 35 Guantanamo detainees face trial or military commissions.