A banner day for the rule of law in America!
| The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that the Guantanamo detainees have the right to challenge their detention before a civilian U.S. Court! |
This is such excellent news!
The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights has done the majority of the heavy lift8ing on the legal work that has led up to this decision-- as well as the representation of large numbers of Gitmo detainees.
They urgently need our financial support. Click here to donate whatever you can to them.
The NYT gives some of the reasoning from the SCOTUS's 5-4 decision, which was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy:
- “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court...
In a harsh rebuke of the Bush administration, the justices rejected the administration’s argument that the individual protections provided by the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 were more than adequate.
“The costs of delay can no longer be borne by those who are held in custody,” Justice Kennedy wrote, assuming the pivotal role that some court-watchers had foreseen.
The issues that were weighed in Thursday’s ruling went to the very heart of the separation-of-powers foundation of the United States Constitution. “To hold that the political branches may switch the Constitution on or off at will would lead to a regime in which they, not this court, say ‘what the law is,’ ” Justice Kennedy wrote, citing language in the 1803 ruling in Marbury v. Madison, in which the Supreme Court articulated its power to review acts of Congress.
Joining Justice Kennedy’s opinion were Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter. Writing separately, Justice Souter said the dissenters did not sufficiently appreciate “the length of the disputed imprisonments, some of the prisoners represented here today having been locked up for six years.”
The dissenters were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, generally considered the conservative wing on the high court.
The Gitmo detainees, however, still await their rights.
Agreed, indeed we are reversing the course of this ugly radical period of Bush's impunity and the persistent era of radical Islamist terrorism-
While the idea of a donation to Center for Constitutional Rights is great, we should also be thanking Senator Leahy who has long fought for Gitmo's closure.
Senator Leahy (the CONSCIENCE OF OUR NATION) has also waged another battle for justice, with this case:
Actually, Helena could please delete the string of numbers above-that is personal data-yikes!
Here is link I meant to post:
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200806/061208a.html
It would be nice to nice that the battle for habeus corpus has been won. However, four Supreme Court justics don't support habeus corpus. Nothing shows more clearly how the rule of law hangs perilously in the balance in America today.
McCain apparently doesn't much like habeus corpus, either, and could appoint the decisive vote.
Surely it will be an even better day for the rule of law in America when Gitmo is closed? This ruling says that there will be some judicial oversight of a process which is fundamentally anti-human rights, but does not end the process itself.
I'm afraid that while this is a setback for Gitmo it is just a new opportunity for Blackwater. Jeremy Scahill, in The Nation, has reported that Blackwater is now a one-stop shop for security outsourcing.
Some states in the US are privatizing domestic prisons, why not do the same for "terrorists?" The US is reportedly using foreign jails and floating dungeons for detainees, why not gain complete secrecy and total control by using a discreet private contractor? I wouldn't doubt that a contract proposal and a powerpoint presentation are being prepared by Eric Prince at this moment.
Or we could depend on congressional oversight to stop it . . . naah.
. . .and what about the tens of thousands being held (and possibly tortured) in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Real answers to rhetorical questions may not be welcome, but "Why not gain complete secrecy and total control by using a discreet private contractor?" is tempting.
The reason why not is chiefly financial, I'd say. The Big Management Party’s creeps, their Gordon Liddys and their Ollie Norths, usually come back to bite the (wannabe) invisible hand by way of a cancelled check somewhere.
Furthermore, the Big Managers are only supply-side privateers: on the demand side, they would much rather spend their Uncle Sam’s bucks than their own. Mr. Prince and Blackwater are too well known to be useful any more, but replacements would be easy enough to find. Not so easy to find, though, is somebody who can raise money for AEI-GOP-DOD conspiracy purposes as furtively as dozens of crooks can spend it.
Another part of the trouble may be that the creeps of Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology do not altogether want "complete secrecy." They hanker to be acclaimed as Saviours of the Fatherland, over and above actually savin’ it. Definitely a weak point, that.
But God knows best. Happy days.