William Hibbitts is JURIST’s Deputy Editorial Director. He files this report from Halifax, Nova Scotia. A Canadian Federal Court judge ruled Tuesday in Ottawa that the Canadian government exceeded its authority and violated some protesters’ constitutional rights by invoking the federal Emergencies Act in response to the 2022 Freedom Convoy protests, which brought Canada’s capital [...]
Legal News
The Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection of Beijing, China on Wednesday rolled out a list with 10 categories of wrongdoings to avoid for government officials who deal with entrepreneurs in the city to give a push to the private sector. China’s private sector contributes to more than 60 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product [...]
Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave testimony to the COVID-19 Inquiry, a body examining the UK’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, on Wednesday and Thursday. During the hearing, he acknowledged that his government “may have made mistakes” in their handling of the pandemic and said he was “deeply sorry for the pain and suffering” [...]
The National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) of Romania announced Thursday the initiation of a criminal investigation into a high-profile case involving the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines targeting three individuals, including former Prime Minister Florin Cîțu and former Ministers of Health Vlad Voiculescu and Ioana Mihăilă, for alleged crimes of abuse of office. In a press release, [...]
The Hanoi People’s Court sentenced 54 government officials and business people on Friday for charges related to bribery, as reported by the state-run Vietnam Plus. Former government officials, diplomats, and business owners were found guilty of soliciting, offering, and being complicit in the taking of bribes, along with fraud and abuse of power for the [...]
The UK High Court of Justice held Thursday that the Cabinet Office must hand over all documents Covid-19 Inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett requests, including former prime minister Boris Johnson’s diaries and WhatsApp messages. The Cabinet Office launched a judicial review case against Hallett’s request last week. While Hallett argued she should determine which documents [...]
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled Thursday that Hungary’s restrictive asylum laws passed during the COVID-19 pandemic violated European Union (EU) law. The law requires that foreign nationals seeking international protection in Hungary first submit declarations of intent at the Hungarian embassies in Belgrade, Serbia or Kyiv, Ukraine. The Court found that the condition [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Monday that former government employees can sue the city of San Francisco, California for infringing on their religious freedom after they were denied exemptions from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. The court found that the vaccines are remotely “derived” from aborted fetal stem cells and that [...]
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a bill into law Wednesday that will provide disability benefits to first responders who contracted COVID-19 before vaccines were available. House Bill (HB) 3162, known as the Act-of-Duty Bill, previously only provided disability pay for various physical and mental conditions, including heart attacks. Specifically, the law provides benefits for those [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Thursday blocked President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal employees. The decision came from an en banc rehearing of the appeal, which was previously decided in favor of the government by a three-judge panel of the same court. The case turned on the central issue [...]