A court in Mauritania acquitted 24 defendants on trial for assorted crimes under anti-terror laws Tuesday, finding that confessions and testimonies obtained from the suspects were inadmissible because they were obtained through torture. Only one defendant, who was tried in absentia following his escape, was convicted and sentenced to two-years in prison and fined $340 [...]

US District Judge Eldon E. Fallon of the US Eastern District of Louisiana Tuesday modified his 2006 ruling that rejected a $51 million jury award against pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. , offering the plaintiff $600,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages. The plaintiff, Gerald Barnett, a former FBI agent who alleged [...]

The California State Assembly voted 42-34 Tuesday to approve the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act which would restore California's marriage statute to its pre-1977 gender-neutral language and define marriage as "a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between two persons" capable of giving consent and issued a license by authorized officials [...]

Judges on Ecuador's new Constitutional Tribunal Tuesday selected Patricio Pazmino Freire, a supporter of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa , to head the court. The new membership of the tribunal, elected last week by the pro-Correan Ecuadorean Congress , is expected to fall in line with Correa's policies. In April, Congress dismissed the prior constitutional tribunal [...]

The Constitutional Court of Hungary ruled Tuesday in favor of a proposed referendum on unpopular economic reform proposals advanced by Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany . A coalition of opposition parties including the Hungarian Civic Party (FIDESZ), the Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP), and the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) had sought a referendum on Gyurscany's [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an appeal Tuesday against the dismissal of immigration fraud charges against anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles . US District Judge Kathleen Cardone ruled in May that the indictment against Carriles should be dismissed because the US government's tactics in its investigation of Carries were "so grossly shocking and [...]

The New Haven, Connecticut Board of Alderman has voted 25-1 to fund a program advanced by Mayor John DeStefano Jr. that will provide a municipal identification card to all residents, including the approximately 15,000 undocumented immigrants that reside in New Haven. DeStefano hailed Monday's vote as a "great decision for New Haven," saying that "no [...]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday that Russia will not raise the issue of withdrawing from the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty when it meets with other CFE Treaty signatories in Vienna next week. Lavrov's statement comes amid tension between the US and Russia over US plans to locate parts of a [...]

France's practice of expelling non-citizens accused of links to violent extremism lacks sufficient procedural safeguards and undermines human rights , according to a report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch . The report found that the current French policies allow the expulsion or deportation of a suspect once an initial decision has been reached in [...]

JURIST Contributing Editor Marjorie Cohn of Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president of the National Lawyers Guild, says that while the Bush administration may attempt to fix the procedural problem that resulted in the recent dismissal of US military commission cases against two Guantanamo detainees on the basis that they were not "unlawful" enemy combatants, [...]