There are currently cases in 28 states challenging the provisions of the PPACA and the lower court rulings on issues surrounding the legislation have been mixed. Earlier this month, a federal judge in Mississippi dismissed a lawsuit challenging the law [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] on the basis that the plaintiffs lacked standing because their allegations were insufficient to show "certainly impending" injury. In January, a judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida [official website] struck down [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] the law as an unconstitutional overreaching of Congress' Commerce Clause power. The entire law was voided in that case, as the judge found the individual insurance mandate to be unserverable. That decision is expected to be appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website]. Earlier in January, a judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Virginia [official website] dismissed [JURIST report] a lawsuit challenging a provision of the health care reform law. In October, a federal judge in Michigan ruled [JURIST report] that the law is constitutional under the Commerce Clause as it addresses the economic effects of health care decisions, and that it does not represent an unconstitutional direct tax.

In October, the Seventh Circuit rejected [JURIST report] Sherman's challenge to the constitutionality of an Illinois statute that mandated a daily moment of silence in public schools. The court reversed an April 2009 ruling [JURIST report] that the Illinois Reflection and Silent Prayer Act [text] is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion in public schools. The appellate court instead found that the statute had a secular legislative purpose that neither advanced nor inhibited religion.

Egypt's government has reached out [JURIST report] to various opposition leaders since demonstrations erupted in the country, including the Muslim Brotherhood [official website], the oldest and largest Islamic political group in the world and currently banned from Egypt. Cooperation in the constitutional review, the Brotherhood said, will only continue if the current regime continues to meet other demands. These demands include the removal of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the repeal of emergency laws that have been in place for more than thirty years. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] on Friday called on Egyptian authorities to immediately release lawyers, journalists and human rights activists [JURIST report] who have been arrested and for the government to investigate whether the violence against protesters [JURIST report] has been planned. Pillay condemned the arrest last Thursday of 20 activists and lawyers [HMLC news release] from the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre [advocacy website, in Arabic] in Cairo.

The violent response to the protests comes at a time of uncertainty in the region. Demonstrations against the 30-year reign of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak [Al Jazeera profile] began last week [JURIST report] and have become more violent since Mubarak announced Tuesday that although he will not seek re-election [transcript, text], he does not plan on stepping down nor leaving Egypt. Some reports allege as many as 300 deaths and 1,500 injuries [Ria Novosti report] as a result of the protests. Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei [Nobel Prize profile] last week expressed his willingness to lead a transitional government [BBC report]. He has returned to Egypt and is reported to have joined the protests. According to some commentators, the unrest in Egypt is closely related to the recent civil unrest in Tunisia [JURIST op-ed] that culminated last month with the resignation of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali [JURIST report].

My conclusion is that our present funding arrangements do not satisfactorily guarantee our institutional independence. We are, in reality, dependent each year upon what we can persuade the Ministry of Justice of England and Wales to give us by way of "contribution". This is not a satisfactory situation for the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. It is already leading to a tendency on the part of the Ministry of Justice to try to gain the Supreme Court as an outlying part of its empire.

The Supreme Court was created to emphasize the split between the judicial and legislative branches of government. The court has said that "it will transform the public's awareness of justice at the highest level" and a "fundamental aim is to be as transparent as possible." The court is the first in the UK to record proceedings [JURIST report] and make them available to the media. In most cases, the court stands as the final court of appeal for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Additionally, the justices of the Supreme Court are no longer able to sit or vote with the House of Lords as they had done in their capacity as Law Lords. The Law Lords issued their final ruling [JURIST report] in July 2009.

The House should be commended for refusing to rubberstamp the continuation of these provisions. For the nearly 10 years it has been law, the over-reaching Patriot Act has been abused by law enforcement to violate innocent Americans' privacy. We urge both the House and the Senate to keep up this momentum and continue to fight the extension of these provisions that put Americans' privacy at risk.

In September 2009, the Obama administration asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to extend the Patriot Act, which it did in February 2010 [JURIST reports]. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] dismissed [JURIST report] a constitutional challenge to the Patriot Act in December 2009 due to lack of standing. The US District Court for the District of Oregon [official website] had previously ruled that certain provisions of the act were unconstitutional [JURIST report]. The Patriot Act was passed in 2001, on the heels of the 9/11 attacks, greatly expanding US law enforcement's powers of surveillance and discretion when conducting terrorism investigations, and the US Government's ability to regulate foreign individuals' and immigrants' financial transactions.