In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a 91-year-old precedent (Humphrey’s Executor) that had barred presidents from firing members of independent federal agencies without cause. The ruling upheld President Trump’s 2025 dismissal of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, effectively turning FTC commissioners into at-will employees who serve at the president’s discretion. Writing …
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 …
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 …
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told a House Appropriations subcommittee in June 2026 that the Trump administration has scrapped its controversial $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, declaring “we are not moving forward with the fund, period.” The fund—which would have paid people who claimed the federal government was weaponized against them—stemmed from a settlement of Trump’s …
Four of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, including two for the Southern District of Texas, declined under oath to answer whether Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election or whether the U.S. Capitol was attacked on January 6, 2021, during Senate Judiciary Committee testimony, instead saying Biden had been “certified” as the winner and characterizing …
NPR reports that the U.S. Department of Justice has advanced a proposed rule that would let the Attorney General intervene in — and potentially delay or block — state bar investigations into federal prosecutors. The proposal, advanced under former AG Pam Bondi and still pending after her removal on April 2, has drawn pointed opposition …
The Washington Times reported on April 12 that senior DOJ officials themselves attribute the department’s growing courtroom difficulties to three compounding factors: the sheer volume of litigation (particularly immigration cases), an unprecedented wave of adverse judicial rulings, and decimated staffing at U.S. Attorneys’ offices across the country. A senior official described the removal of experienced …
On March 24, 2026 — the eve of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year — human rights organizations documented a new phase in Iran’s systematic use of judicial institutions to suppress political dissent, describing the Islamic Republic’s strategy as “Official State Terrorism and Arbitrary Deprivation of Life.” Iranian courts have processed over 10,000 cases arising from …
As of March 20, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government was poised to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — subject to an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for alleged crimes against humanity in Gaza — at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Budapest, in direct defiance of Hungary’s still-active treaty obligations under the Rome …