News
This section features curated news articles on the role of lawyers and judges in democratic decline in the U.S. and globally. It highlights how legal professionals are implicated in, impacted by, or push back against authoritarianism and democratic backsliding.
Each post includes a brief summary or commentary that connects current events to broader scholarly debates on the legal profession and the defense of democratic norms.
News Regarding Lawyers
Lawyers Against Democratic Decline
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Turkish lawyers allege torture, harsh confinement of detainees jailed before NATO summit
The Progressive Lawyers Association (ÇHD) announced on August 21 that it will file criminal complaints against prison administrators and guards after its members documented evidence of physical abuse during visits to detainees…
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128 retired jurists file ethics complaint over DHS lawyer’s ‘attacks’ via social media on 4 sitting judges
On August 20, 128 retired federal and state judges, joined by the Democracy Defenders Fund and Lawyers Defending American Democracy, filed a Florida Bar complaint against Department of Homeland Security General Counsel…
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Guatemala’s next chapter: How change in the public prosecutor’s office raises hope for democracy
Three months after taking office on May 15, Attorney General Gabriel García Luna — a career judge and former president of the Judicial Disciplinary Board — has closed FECI, the politicized special…
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Statement of American Bar Association Re: Personal attacks against judges are unacceptable
In a statement issued July 28, 2026, the American Bar Association condemned personal attacks on judges by government officials, pointing specifically to recent social media posts in which an administration official criticized…
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Statement of the American Bar Association Re: Personal Attacks Against Judges Are Unacceptable
In a statement issued from Chicago on July 28, 2026, the American Bar Association denounced personal attacks on judges by government officials and urged public officials, lawyers and the public to reject…
Attacks Against Legal Profession
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Turkish police detain second lawyer for Islamic preacher critical of gov’t as investigation expands
Turkish police detained lawyer Alişan İnci on August 21, the second defense lawyer for government critic and Islamic preacher Alparslan Kuytul taken into custody within three days. Bilal İpek, another of Kuytul’s…
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Zimbabwe: Lawyers Targeted During Opposition to Constitutional Changes Expanding Executive Power
Amnesty International issued a follow-up Urgent Action on August 7, 2026, calling on Zimbabwean authorities to drop all charges against human rights defender Bhekimpilo Mbedzi. Mbedzi was arrested on July 15 after…
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Thailand: Investigate Online Attacks Against Rights Defenders
On July 31 (Thailand), Human Rights Watch reported that Angkhana Neelapaijit, a senator and former member of Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission, filed a police complaint after a wave of social media…
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Grave concern over the ICE arrest of Chinese human rights lawyer Wu Shaoping
Lawyers for Lawyers reported that U.S. immigration authorities detained Wu Shaoping, a Chinese human-rights lawyer who fled China after facing pressure connected to his legal work. Wu had sought asylum in the…
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Iran: Defense Lawyer Elham Zeraatpisheh Released on Bail in Shiraz
This July 30 report from the IAPL Monitoring Committee on Attacks on Lawyers (Iran) documents the conditional release of defense lawyer Elham Zeraatpisheh on bail in Shiraz, alongside the recent arrest of…
Lawyers Facilitating Democratic Decline
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Raskin Targets Jeanine Pirro and Other Prosecutors in Misconduct Probe
On August 26, Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, sent letters to the top federal prosecutors in five districts — the District of Columbia, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode…
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Justice Department Argues It’s OK if It’s Under Trump Control
In an August 18 filing in the Eastern District of North Carolina opposing James Comey’s vindictive-prosecution motion, federal prosecutors argued that presidential direction of subordinates exercising executive functions is “a feature, not…
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Attorney General Todd Blanche won’t commit to a DOJ free from White House influence
In this NPR All Things Considered segment, host Sacha Pfeiffer interviews ProPublica reporter Aaron Davis about newly confirmed Attorney General Todd Blanche’s appearance on Meet the Press, where Blanche declined to pledge…
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Did Paul, Weiss Partners Seriously Debate Running The Firm’s Business Past Stephen Miller?
A sweeping New York Times investigation published the weekend of August 2, and analyzed in the legal press, reconstructed how the elite law firm Paul, Weiss chose to strike a deal with…
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How a Top Law Firm Went From Standing Up to Trump to Bending the Knee
A New York Times investigation by Michael S. Schmidt and Jessica Silver-Greenberg examines how Paul Weiss — a firm long identified with civil rights litigation and, during Trump’s first term, with organized…
News Regarding Judges
Targets and Resistance
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Supreme Court lifts 1 of 2 injunctions on Trump’s mail-voting executive order for 2026 elections
Votebeat’s August 24 report details the mechanics of the Supreme Court’s order lifting a stay on Trump’s executive order directing the U.S. Postal Service to restrict mail ballot handling for the 2026…
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Jackson slams Supreme Court majority for injecting ‘chaos’ into midterms as voting advocates blast mail ballot ruling
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson publicly accused the Supreme Court’s conservative majority of injecting “chaos and uncertainty” into the 2026 midterm elections after the Court, on its emergency docket, lifted one of two…
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Judge notices Trump admin ‘creating’ a mail-in ballot ’emergency’ after ‘courts were closed,’ demands immediate answers
Justice Department lawyers filed notice on a Friday evening, “after the courts were closed,” that the U.S. Postal Service had transmitted a final rule to the Federal Register for August 26 publication…
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Judge María Lourdes Afiuni, Once Chávez’s “Personal Prisoner,” Fully Freed After 16 Years
Former Venezuelan judge María Lourdes Afiuni has been granted full freedom, closing a case that ran more than 16 years and became emblematic of the collapse of judicial independence in Venezuela. The…
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‘How to Kill a Federal Judge’ author convicted of threatening US judges
A Minnesota man was convicted by a federal jury in St. Paul on August 7, 2026, on all three counts related to writing and distributing a lengthy manuscript threatening federal judges, Reuters…
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This federal judge ruled against Trump. Then the threats began.
In an August 5 profile, The Washington Post reported on Chief U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island, who spoke publicly about credible death threats and harassment he and…
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Two More Chicago Immigration Judges Fired as Court Becomes Epicenter of Removal Orders
This July 31 report (United States) describes the Trump administration’s dismissal of two additional judges at the Chicago Immigration Court, which has become the national leader in deportation orders. The article notes…
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Threatening Judges Threatens Democracy
This July 29–30 analysis (Nepal) examines allegations by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Commission of Jurists that Supreme Court justices in Nepal were pressured to resign and threatened with…
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Netanyahu government defies court, raising constitutional crisis fears as election nears
A July 20, 2026 PBS NewsHour report by Nick Schifrin, with producer Karl Bostic in Tel Aviv, examines the political landscape after the dissolution of Israel’s parliament set up elections in October.…
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Judges tour the Midwest to offer unusual warning about attacks on courts
In a July 10 report, The Washington Post described a bus tour of retired federal and state judges, dubbed “Justice in Motion,” traveling from suburban Pittsburgh through Ohio to outside Detroit to…
