Radio Sawa had an interesting story yesterday on a suit filed in Suleymania by the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan concerning four of their members allegedly having been abducted and a fifth allegedly tortured and killed in custody by the Talabani government during the Kurdish Civil War in the 1990's.  I understand they are asking for information on and release of the four (habeas of sorts I suppose), compensation for the fifth, but hard to know from a news report and there is no way to get the filed papers easily.  

I find this rise in lawsuits of this sort very encouraging.  I don't expect the Islamists to win this, as I think judicial independence is real and budding, but not so real that a court could actually find the government to have abducted people without getting themselves in trouble.  But the fact that they even view it as a possibility, or at least a means to gain helpful publicity, is something.  They could have filed the suit years ago, after all, but either feared reprisals or thought it pointless.  Combine with this with a recent suit by the Kurdish bar to the Iraqi Supreme Court on a matter related to the police detention of two people for publishing cases before they had been reached final decision (as if that's a problem, but anyway) shows a growing interest in the use of the judiciary to limit the government, one never present in Iraq previously and permeating slowly. 

Now might just be the time, then for some NGO impact litigation.  My first case--sue the Interior Ministry for requiring unmarried women to get their father's permission before entitling them to a passport as a violation of Iraq's gender equality provisions.  Should be an easy case, actually.

HAH