Ruling: Court failed its duty to Muslim scholar
Lawyer Blogs
U.S. officials should have given a Muslim scholar a chance to show he was no supporter of terrorism before barring him from the country, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
Tariq Ramadan, a professor sympathetic to Palestinian resistance to Israel, had his U.S. visa revoked in 2004 as he was about to take a tenured teaching job at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.
His subsequent applications for a new visa were denied on the grounds that he had donated $1,336 to a charity that gave money to Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that it was legal for the government to bar Ramadan from the country, but said it had an obligation to inform him of the concerns about his donations and give him a chance to prove he didn't know his money would go to Hamas.
The three-judge panel said it was possible that a consular official had, in fact, given him that opportunity, but there was no record of it before the court.
The case will now return to a lower court and the government will be given a chance to figure out more about the exact details of the conversations between Ramadan and the consular staff in Bern, Switzerland that handled his visa application.
Ramadan could also reapply for the visa, the court said.
Jameel Jaffer, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who argued Ramadan's case before the appeals court, said he was hopeful the Obama administration would allow the professor to enter the U.S. without further litigation.
"Over the next few weeks, we'll be encouraging the administration to take a new look not only at Ramadan's case but at the cases of other foreign scholars and writers who were excluded by the Bush administration on ideological grounds," he said.
Related listings
-
Washington court reverses ban on homeless camp
Lawyer Blogs 07/17/2009A Seattle suburb violated the state's constitution by using a temporary ban on development to block a church's effort to set up a tent city for the homeless, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday. The high court's unanimous decision reversed lower c...
-
Mich. minister wins appeal on free-speech grounds
Lawyer Blogs 07/16/2009A Michigan appeals court overturned a ruling on Wednesday that had sent a minister to prison for six months after warning a judge that he could be tortured by God. The Rev. Edward Pinkney was convicted in 2007 of paying people $5 to vote in a recall ...
-
Sotomayor says Obama didn't ask about abortion
Lawyer Blogs 07/15/2009Judge Sonia Sotomayor said Wednesday neither President Barack Obama nor anyone else in the administration asked her views on abortion rights before she was nominated for the Supreme Court. "I was asked no question by anyone including the president ab...
Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.