JURIST Contributing Editor Ali Khan of Washburn University School of Law says that the suspension of Pakistan Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has pushed the country's lawyers and top judge into an unprecedented confrontation with the executive power of President Pervez Musharraf… A lawyers’ mutiny is making history in Pakistan. The sight of a “strong [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) considered replacing at least 26 of 93 US Attorneys between February 2005 and December 2006, a much higher number than previously acknowledged by officials, according to a report in Thursday's Washington Post. Documents not publicly disclosed indicate that Kyle Sampson , former chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto [...]

Sandra and Roberta Cote-Whitacre et al. v. Department of Public Health, Suffolk Superior Court, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, May 10, 2007 . Read the full text of the order . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Suspended Romanian President Traian Basescu Wednesday continued to speak out against political corruption while facing a Saturday impeachment referendum. Basescu was suspended by the opposition-dominated parliament in April for allegedly abusing his powers; earlier this month, the nation's Constitutional Court upheld an opposition-sponsored bill making it easier to remove Basescu by reducing the number of [...]

US mining executive Richard Ness , the regional chief executive of Denver-based Newmont Mining Corporation , filed a civil lawsuit against the New York Times (NYT) in Indonesia Wednesday. Last month Ness and Newmont were acquitted by an Indonesian court of criminal pollution charges that the now-closed mine had dumped dangerous elements into Indonesia's Buyat [...]

Culture, Media and Sport – Fifth Report, UK House of Commons Culture, Media and Sports Committee, May 16, 2007 . Read the full text of the report. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area v. US Department of the Treasury, US District Court for the Northern District of California, May 16, 2007 . Read the full text of the complaint . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) called for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Wednesday, a day after hearing testimony from former US Deputy Attorney General James Comey regarding an attempt by Gonzales to persuade former Attorney General John Ashcroft to reauthorize the warrantless domestic surveillance program while he was incapacitated in the hospital, critically ill [...]

Fifteen activists involved in a prayer vigil calling for the release of Myanmar Nobel laureate and political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi were arrested Wednesday and released later in the day by the military government of Myanmar . The activists joined a group of 31 others who were arrested Tuesday for similar vigils, although the [...]

A senior official in a Rwanda human rights organization was arrested Wednesday in the capital of Kigali after being implicated by a local gacaca court in the 1994 genocide. The official, Francois-Xavier Byuma, is vice president of the board of the Rwandan League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LIPRODHOR) and president of [...]