[JURIST] Indian lawmakers on Monday introduced a bill to ensure that one-third of seats in parliament are reserved for women, marking International Women's Day [official website]. The Women's Reservations Bill [2008 text, PDF], introduced in the Rajya Sabha [official website], or Council of States, would increase the number of women [Times report] serving in the 543-seat legislature, which currently has no gender quota, from 59 to at least 181. The bill is supported by the ruling Congress Party [party website] and also has support [press release] in the Bharatiya Janata Party [party website] and the Communist parties. The bill would require a constitutional amendment, meaning it must be passed by at least a two-thirds majority. Voting was postponed [Calcutta Telegraph report] until Tuesday after opposition MP's tore up the bill in protest.

The controversial legislation was originally proposed in 1996, but has been repeatedly blocked. Last year, India elected its first woman president and first woman speaker of parliament. India currently reserves one-third of seats on local governing bodies for women, and, last year, increased the quota to 50 percent.

[JURIST] A Haitian judge on Monday ordered the release of one of the last two US missionaries out of a group of 10 who were arrested on kidnapping charges [JURIST report] following the January 12 earthquake [JURIST news archive]. The judge announced last month that both missionaries would be released, following the release [JURIST reports] of the other eight members of the missionary group affiliated with the Central Valley Baptist Church [church website] of Idaho and the New Life Children's Refuge Charity [BBC profile]. Charisa Coulter was released from prison Monday, while Laura Silsby, the group's leader remains behind bars. Silsby and Coulter have consistently denied any wrongdoing and said they only sought to help children who were suffering after the quake.

The Americans were charged [JURIST report] in connection with their attempt to take 33 children across the Haitian border into the Dominican Republic, where the group stated they hoped to start an orphanage. Haitian authorities asserted, however, that many of the children were not orphans, but had been given up by their parents when the missionaries promised a better life for the children. The 10 were each charged with one count of kidnapping and one count of criminal association. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake caused massive damage to property and infrastructure in Haiti, and the death toll has been estimated at 230,000.

[JURIST] The International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] on Monday postponed the trial [press release] of former Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba [case materials, JURIST news archive], originally set to begin April 27 [JURIST report], until July 5. The trial was delayed to allow the court more time to consider the defense's motion on the admissibility of the case, filed in February. The prosecutor and the victims' legal representatives will have until March 29 to submit their observations. The court will hold a status conference on April 27 to hear arguments on the defense motion.

In December, the ICC ordered [text, PDF] Bemba to remain in custody [JURIST report] until his trial. The ruling reversed a decision [JURIST report] issued in August ordering Bemba's conditional release. The order for release was opposed by ICC prosecutors who appealed [JURIST report] the original decision. The ICC in June ordered Bemba to stand trial [JURIST report] for war crimes allegedly committed in the Central African Republic (CAR) [BBC backgrounder] from October 2002 to May 2003. Bemba was arrested [JURIST report] in Belgium in May 2008 after the ICC issued a warrant for his arrest for his actions in the CAR. He was indicted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity and transferred [JURIST report] to the ICC in July 2008.

[JURIST] The top rights official at the Council of Europe [official website] on Monday rejected [press release] the notion of banning Muslim burqa [JURIST news archive] and niqab garments. Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg [official profile] noted in a written statement [text] marking International Women's Day [official website]:

Those who have argued for a general ban of the burqa and the niqab have not managed to show that these garments in any way undermine democracy, public safety, order or morals. The fact that a very small number of women wear such clothing has made proposals in such a direction even less convincing.

Nor has it been possible to prove that these women in general are victims of more gender repression than others. Those who have been interviewed in the media have presented a diversity of religious, political and personal arguments for their decision to dress themselves as they do. There may of course be cases where they are under undue pressure - but it is not shown that a ban would be welcomed by these women.

[JURIST] Thousands of Spaniards gathered Sunday to protest recently approved changes [JURIST report] to Spain's abortion [JURIST news archive] laws. Protesters marched in cities across Spain to protest the new law [El Pais report, in Spanish], which will allow abortion up to 14 weeks in most cases. Organizers [advocacy website] in Madrid estimated that as many as 600,000 people [press release, in Spanish] took part in the protests. Pro-life activists urged the conservative Popular Party (PP) [party website, in Spanish] to make good on promises to seek the law's repeal. The new law, set to take effect on July 5, replaces the current law dating back to 1985, which allowed abortions only in the case of rape, up to 12 weeks, severe fetal malformation, up to 22 weeks, or if the woman's physical or mental health was in danger.

The Spanish Senate [official website, in Spanish] gave final approval to the law last month. Spain's lower house of parliament, the Congress of Deputies [official website, in Spanish], passed the bill in December after it received approval [JURIST reports] from the Council of State in September. In October, hundreds of thousands of protesters rallied in Madrid [JURIST report] in opposition to the proposed legislation. The changes were proposed [JURIST report] last March by a panel of legal and medical experts led by Minister of Equality Bibiano Aido [official website, in Spanish], eliciting widespread protests [JURIST report] throughout Spain. The panel was formed [JURIST report] in September 2008 at the request of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero [official profile, in Spanish] as part of a series of social reforms that have included same-sex marriage [JURIST report] and streamlined divorce proceedings. The PP has repeatedly expressed the opinion [El Pais report, in Spanish] that relaxed abortion laws would stand in opposition to Article 15 of the Spanish Constitution [text, PDF], which guarantees the right to life.

[JURIST] The Chinese National People's Congress (NPC) [official website, in Chinese] on Monday opened consideration of election reforms designed to afford equal representation to residents of rural and urban administrative areas. China's current electoral law provides more congressional representatives to residents of urban districts than residents of rural ones. The draft amendment aims to eliminate the disparity in representation. Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee Wang Zhaoguo offered this rationale [text] for the presentation of the draft amendment:

Since 1995, China's industrialization and urbanization have accelerated further, the economic and cultural level in rural areas has increased dramatically, and profound changes have taken place in the social structure. The urban population in China has increased from 29.04% in 1995 to 46.6% in 2009. At the same time, people's congresses at all levels have gone through many terms of elections, accumulated abundant experience, achieved enormous results in developing socialist democratic politics and a socialist legal system, and the class base and mass foundation for the people's democratic dictatorship led by the Party has been consolidated and expanded. The objective conditions are in place for revising the Electoral Law and electing deputies to the people's congresses based on the same population ratio in urban and rural areas.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Monday granted certiorari [order list, PDF] in three cases. In Snyder v. Phelps [docket; cert. petition, PDF], the court will take up the controversial issue of picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in combat. Reverend Fred Phelps and members of the Westboro Baptist Church [church website; JURIST news archive] have been traveling around the country picketing military funerals in recent years, claiming US soldiers have been killed because America tolerates homosexuals. The court has been asked to consider three issues:

1. Does Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell [opinion text] apply to a private person versus another private person concerning a private matter?

2. Does the First Amendment's freedom of speech tenet trump the First Amendment's freedom of religion and peaceful assembly?

3. Does an individual attending a family member's funeral constitute a captive audience who is entitled to state protection from unwanted communication?

[JURIST] Vietnamese human rights lawyer and activist Le Thi Cong Nhan [AI backgrounder; JURIST news archive] was released from prison on Saturday after serving a three-year sentence for allegedly spreading propaganda against the state. Although she has been released [AP report] from jail, she will now serve an additional three years of house arrest. Nhan was convicted and imprisoned in 2007 for allegedly violating Article 88 [text] of the Vietnamese criminal code by advocating for a multi-party system in Vietnam with her activism, which included posting articles on the Internet and hosting discussions on human rights law. Nhan was convicted alongside another human rights lawyer, Nguyen Van Dai who is still serving his jail sentence.

Nhan and Dai were arrested [JURIST report] in early 2007 after hosting a discussion on human rights. They were convicted [JURIST reprot] a few months later of spreading propaganda against the state, and Nhan was sentenced to four years in prison while Dai was convicted to five. In late 2007, an appeals court lowered [JURIST report] their sentences by a year, citing both lawyers's lack of a prior criminal record and because their activism had not yet caused serious damage to the country. During their appeal, both lawyers challenged the Vietnamese government's lack of democracy and human rights. Le Cong Dhin, who represented Nhan in 2007, was convicted and jailed in January on unrelated charges [JURIST reports] of subversion for allegedly "colluding with foreign reactionaries to sabotage the Vietnamese state."

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Monday ruled [opinion, PDF] 7-2 in Bloate v. United States [Cornell LII backgrounder; JURIST report] that time granted to prepare pretrial motions is not automatically excludable under the Speedy Trial Act [18 USC § 3161(h)(1) text]. The court held that such time may be excluded only when a district court grants a continuance. The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld [opinion, PDF] Taylor Bloate's conviction, ruling that time granted to file pretrial motions is automatically excludable. In reversing that decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote:

This case requires us to decide the narrow question whether time granted to a party to prepare pretrial motions is automatically excludable from the Act's 70-day limit under subsection (h)(1), or whether such time may be excluded only if a court makes case-specific findings under subsection (h)(7). The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that pretrial motion preparation time is automatically excludable under subsection (h)(1). We granted certiorari and now reverse.

[JURIST] The Malaysian Federal Court ruled Monday that the 1998 removal of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim [official profile; JURIST news archive] as deputy prime minister was constitutional. Anwar had challenged his removal on the grounds that the removal was unconstitutional because then-prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who fired Anwar alleging that he had notified the king, lacked the authority to do so. According to Malaysia's constitution [text, PDF], "the appointment of any Minister shall have been revoked by the [constitutional monarch] on the advice of the Prime Minister..." The three-judge panel of the Federal Court unanimously rejected [Malay Mail report] Anwar's claim, reasoning that the Agong, or constitutional monarch, has very limited powers to appoint ministers, and that his role is only a formality. The judges also emphasized that no provision in the laws specifies procedures to remove a minister. Anwar's counsel, Karpal Singh, commented [Malaysian Insider report] that the judgment renders the prime minister's powers akin to those of a dictator.

Anwar is currently facing trial on sodomy charges after his appeal to dismiss the charges was rejected [JURIST report] in February. Anwar is charged of sodomizing his former aid Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan in 2008. He contends that the charge is a politically-motivated government conspiracy seeking to undermine his political career, and has pleaded not guilty [JURIST report]. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison. Anwar was Malaysia's deputy prime minister until he was fired and then jailed in 1998 following corruption and sodomy charges, of which he was acquitted in 2004. He recently reentered Malaysian politics following the expiration of a ten-year ban [JURIST report] against him for unrelated corruption charges.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Monday ruled [opinion, PDF] in Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz v. United States [Cornell LII backgrounder; JURIST report] that attorneys are considered debt relief agencies under the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) [text] when they provide qualifying services. The court also held that the BAPCPA, which requires certain disclosures in advertisements, does not violate attorneys' First Amendment [text] rights. The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled [opinion, PDF] that, while bankruptcy attorneys meet the definition of a debt relief agency, the BAPCPA provisions codified in 11 USC § 526(a)(4) [text] are unconstitutional as applied to attorneys. In partially reversing the opinion below, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote:

Because § 528's requirements that Milavetz identify itself as a debt relief agency and include certain information about its bankruptcy-assistance and related services are "reasonably related to the [Government's] interest in preventing deception of consumers," we uphold those provisions as applied to Milavetz.

[JURIST] An Italian appeals court on Friday upheld the convictions of 15 police officers, prison guards, and medical staff found guilty [JURIST report] of abusing anti-globalization protesters taken into custody during the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. The court also reversed the acquittals [JURIST report] of 29 others. Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] noted [press release] that "the lack of the crime of torture in the Italian criminal code has prevented judges from punishing perpetrators in a manner proportionate to the gravity of the conduct attributed to them," and called on Italian authorities to introduce a crime of torture. None of the convicted will serve any prison time because of the expired statute of limitations for lesser crimes. The director of Amnesty International's Europe and Central Asia Programme nonetheless called the ruling, "an important step towards ensuring accountability for some of the grave human rights violations occurred in Genoa in 2001."

In August, the European Court of Human Rights [official website] ruled [judgment text] that Italy was negligent [JURIST report] in completing an accurate investigation of the death of a protester at the 2001 G8 summit. The court awarded 40,000 euros to the family of Carlo Giuliani, the protester who died after being shot by an Italian police officer as his van was mobbed. On the night of July 21, 2001, police forces conducted a raid on the Diaz school, which was being used as headquarters by some of the protesters. Over the course of the summit as a whole, more than 100 protesters were injured and one was killed. Immediately after the protests and reports of abuse, AI called for a full investigation [press release] into the mistreatment. In July 2006, the group urged the Italian government to institute reforms to prevent future abuses [press release], but said that the government had not done so in the five years since the incident.