Colombian President Alvaro Uribe announced Tuesday that his administration is planning to draft a bill which would effectively disband the right-wing paramilitary fighters supported by umbrella group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) . The US recently criticized the Colombian government for its leniency towards the paramilitary groups, which were created in the 1980s to [...]

Leading Tuesday's states brief, the Supreme Court of Ohio heard arguments today in a case concerning the visitation rights of grandparents. Since the 2002 US Supreme Court decsion in Troxel v. Granville Ohio courts have issued conflicting rulings on the state's custody law. The grandparents are appealing the decision of the Court of Appeals Ninth [...]

A New Jersey appellate court Tuesday ruled against seven same-sex couples who had argued that they were entitled to marry under the state constitution . The court ruling upheld a lower court decision that had concluded that state legislators must first change marriage laws in New Jersey before same-sex marriages would be allowed. AP has [...]

Financial filings released Tuesday show that Bill and Hillary Clinton have finally paid off the legal bills incurred during Whitewater and the impeachment scandal. Lucrative book contracts and numerous speaking arrangements helped settle their debt, the result of assembling a costly legal defense team that was built up during the six years an independent counsel [...]

A US federal court judge Tuesday renewed for a fouth time a restraining order prohibiting former UN Oil-for Food Independent Committee Inquiry investigator Robert Parton from releasing confidential documents to the two US congressional committees that had subpoenaed the documents . Parton took the boxes of documents after resigning from the inquiry committee in April [...]

Leading Tuesday's international brief, the Argentine Supreme Court has struck down the nation's two amnesty laws preventing former military and government officials from being investigated and prosecuted for alleged crimes and human rights abuses during the 1970s and '80s military dictatorship and the anti-leftist campaign called the Dirty War . By a 7-1 margin with [...]

A Romanian court Tuesday freed the militant leader of the Mineworkers Confederation of Romania, a man who led the 1991 miners' riot that overthrew Romania's first post-communist government. Miron Cozma had served seven years of his eighteen year jail sentence when former President Ion Iliescu granted him a pardon last December, which he retracted two [...]

The chairman of the Kyrgyzstan Supreme Court said Tuesday that the court was getting back to work on Tuesday after a month of disruptions cause by protests and occupation of their courthouse in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. Supporters of defeated political candidates from elections earlier in the year had occupied the building to demonstrate against [...]

The US Senate Tuesday confirmed former Senate Legal Counsel Thomas Griffith to the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by a vote of 73-24 . President Bush had originally chosen Miguel Estrada for the seat, but the Senate Democrats had objected to his nomination and he eventually withdrew . Griffith was [...]

Ten Kuwaiti legislators signed a request Tuesday to put Sunday's appointment of Massouma al-Mubarak as the first female Cabinet minister in Kuwait up for debate in parliament, claiming it to be unconstitutional . The move comes a month after Kuwait granted women the right to vote and run for office . The legislators claim that [...]