Baltasar Garzón is a Spanish judge known for his cases on human right abuses by south american dictatorships under international law, specially the case against Augusto Pinochet. Now, after admitting a case against abuses during Franco's Era, he is facing accusations by extreme right groups of deliberately ignoring the Amnesty Law of 1977, possibly questionable under the same universal jurisdiction that gained him international renown. In a controversial decision, the case has been admitted by the Spanish Supreme Court, and so Garzón is facing the possibility of up to 20 years of suspension. [more inside]
posted by valdesm on Apr 14, 2010 - 14 comments

Nearly one million people who seek help for civil legal problems, such as foreclosures and domestic violence, will be turned away this year. A new report by the Legal Services Corporation, a non-profit established by Congress in 1974 to ensure equal access to justice, finds that legal aid programs turn away one person for every client served. The full report, "Documenting the Justice Gap in America" is available here (pdf). The 2009 report is an update and expansion on a 2005 report (available here) finding that 80% of the poor lacked access to legal aid. [more inside]
posted by lunit on Sep 30, 2009 - 8 comments

The dirty underbelly -- I'm sick and tired of these hypocritical Hoosier legislators who think that my sex life or relationship status is any of their business. Do I intrude on who they're sleeping with? I didn't, but I'm going to start now. ...Consider this a call to arms gossip. ... -- Bilerico, a GLBT blog in Indiana, fighting their proposed state Constitutional Amendment to ban marriage and all other rights for gay and lesbian couples and families.
posted by amberglow on Jan 25, 2007 - 40 comments

We libertarians can be forgiven for suspecting that legal sanctions against vice are not the concern of normal, healthy human beings. They are the concern of busybodies. And busybodies, for the record, are people who spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about what other people do in private. They hatch plans to catch their victims, engage in voyeurism as they peep into windows, and then break into homes and businesses to arrest their prey with the help of professional“busybody enablers”(pdf) called vice cops.
posted by dejah420 on Feb 24, 2004 - 11 comments

Lost Liberties? Salon has an interesting two part series on the tensions between antiwar protesters and law enforcement. Part 1: "Outlawing dissent: Spying on peace meetings, cracking down on protesters, keeping secret files on innocent people -- how Bush's war on terror has become a war on freedom." Part 2: "A thousand J. Edgar Hoovers: State and local police are taking it upon themselves to investigate antiwar activists -- and in the computer age, the threat to our civil liberties is even greater than it was in Hoover's day." Does Protester = Criminal?
posted by homunculus on Feb 20, 2004 - 2 comments

Terrorists should be tried in front of military tribunals instead in civilian courts in front of juries.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Sep 29, 2001 - 19 comments

Say goodbye to personal liberty if this bill gets passed. A bill aimed at fighting drugs on and off line will limit your freedom of speech, allow police to enter your house with a warrant but not telling you what it's for. One step closer to the Police state. And one heck of a supreme court case in the wings.
posted by eljuanbobo on May 9, 2000 - 3 comments