Anna Ryzhova, Kyiv, Ukraine: "Yesterday, Dec. 8th, the Parliament of Ukraine adopted a number of landmark lawmaking decisions. The purpose of these decisions was to apply measures that would prevent fraud in future elections, to remove some powers from the presidency, and to appoint a new Central Election Commission. Generally, the Dec 8th session was [...]

The Zimbabwe parliament Thursday passed a controversial bill banning foreign-funded human rights groups from operating in the country and requiring all other rights groups to register with the governmet. Pro-government legislators have accused outside rights groups of being tools of western governments opposed to the regime of President Robert Mugabe; critics of the legislation see [...]

Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma signed a decree Thursday effectively firing the country's Prosecutor-General, according to Russia's Interfax news agency. Gennady Vasilyev had submitted his resignation Wednesday, which Kuchma had accepted as part of a parliamentary deal to pass a package of electoral law and constitutional reforms opening the way for a new presidential vote on [...]

Ellen Podgor, Georgia State University College of Law: "While Martha Stewart remains incarcerated, the world is continuing outside the prison grounds of "camp cupcake." The latest, according to Reuters, is that Martha Stewart will star in a new TV show upon her release. It sounds from the Wall Street Journal article like the new "cooking [...]

Military planners are seeking $25 million to build a state-of-the-art 200-cell permanent detention facilty in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be guarded by a special 324-member professional guard force, according to a story running Thursday in the Miami Herald. The permanent building, based on the layout of a medium-security prison in Indiana, would replace cells made [...]

The UK House of Lords ruled Thursday that immigration controls set up by the British government had systematically discriminated against Roma Gypsies trying to enter Britain, largely from the Czech Republic where many faced prosecution. Roma, known for their nomadic lifetsyle, have traditionally been a suspect social group across Europe, and have frequently been victims [...]

Reference re Same-Sex Marriage, Supreme Court of Canada, December 9, 2004 . Read the judgment here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Acting at the instance of President Lucio Gutierrez, the Ecuadorian Congress has narrowly voted to dismiss all 31 members of the country's Supreme Court on grounds that the institution had become too politicized. The mass dismissal, approved by 52 of the Congress's 100 members, is being sharply criticized by opposition politicians as unconstitutional and likely [...]

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has announced that his state will sue the federal government to block enforcement of the so-called Weldon amendment, a provision in a massive federal appropriations bill awaiting signature by President Bush that could deny California federal funds if it is found to discriminate against any health care provider because they [...]

CTV News is reporting that the Supreme Court of Canada has approved a proposed federal law that would make same-sex marriage legal across Canada. Lower courts in six Canadian provinces and one territory have already ruled that the traditional legal definition of marriage as between a man and a woman is unconstitutional under the Canadian [...]