Three International Criminal Court judges — Kimberly Prost (Canada), Solomy Balungi Bossa (Uganda), and Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini-Gansou (Benin) — filed a lawsuit in a Manhattan federal court on June 24, 2026, challenging sanctions the Trump administration imposed on them last year. The judges argue the sanctions were unlawful, exceeding the scope of the International …
In this opinion piece for THISDAY, Dr Eyimofe Atake, SAN, condemns what Nigeria’s Court of Appeal recently labeled “judicial rascality”—the practice of lower-court judges deliberately ignoring orders from higher courts. The article centers on a case in which the Court of Appeal stayed proceedings over the deregistration of five political parties, yet a Federal High …
The Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA) has condemned the detention of Ugandan lawyer Erias Lukwago by the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) on June 15, 2026. Lukwago is a lead defence counsel in the ongoing treason trial of Dr. Kizza Besigye and Hajji Obeid Lutale before Uganda’s High Court. The CLA also raised alarm that his …
A prominent Ugandan lawyer, Erias Lukwago, was charged on June 17, 2026 with “misprision of treason”—failing to report treason to authorities—days after security forces arrested him. Lukwago, a senior opposition figure and former mayor of Kampala, denied the charge in court and was remanded in custody. He represents detained opposition leader Kizza Besigye in a …
A new OHCHR dataset, Human Rights Count 2026, reported by UN News on June 17, 2026, finds that attacks on human rights defenders—a category that includes lawyers and other legal advocates—reached record levels over the past year. Preliminary data indicate that roughly 950 human rights defenders, journalists, and trade unionists were killed or forcibly disappeared …
In Ecuador, prosecutor Gloria Alexandra Bravo Cedeño was shot and killed in the coastal city of Manta on June 14, 2026, in an attack that also killed her sister, Human Rights Watch reported on June 16. Bravo handled homicide, kidnapping, and organized-crime cases and had investigated recent drone strikes on fishing vessels; the Attorney General’s …
On June 17, 2026, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the 2025 Commission report on Türkiye that delivers one of its most forceful indictments to date of the Turkish judiciary’s role in dismantling the rule of law. The text condemns the harassment and prosecution of defense lawyers for their professional work, naming the continued …
A New York Times opinion essay by Julia Angwin and Ami Fields-Meyer argues that grassroots opposition to the Trump administration is more robust than many Americans assume. Drawing on a year of interviews with activists and dissidents worldwide, the authors contend that effective resistance to authoritarian leaders rarely hinges on a single march or election. …
In the country of Georgia, an Amnesty International report released June 15, 2026 documents how the judiciary and prosecution service have become integral to a coordinated state apparatus for suppressing dissent over a roughly 500-day crackdown. The report finds that judges arbitrarily imposed ruinous fines, administrative detention, and prison sentences in protest-related cases following unfair …
A European Parliament report set for a vote on June 17, 2026 calls on the EU to consider targeted human rights sanctions against Turkish Justice Minister Akın Gürlek over his role in politically sensitive prosecutions, including investigations targeting İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and other opposition figures from the Republican People’s Party (CHP). Drafted as the …