(no subject)

[geekchick]

Good news, everyone!</Futurama>

Court gives detainees habeas rights

In a stunning blow to the Bush Administration in its war-on-terrorism policies, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. The Court, dividing 5-4, ruled that Congress had not validly taken away habeas rights. If Congress wishes to suspend habeas, it must do so only as the Constitution allows — when the country faces rebellion or invasion.

The Court stressed that it was not ruling that the detainees are entitled to be released — that is, entitled to have writs issued to end their confinement. That issue, it said, is left to the District Court judges who will be hearing the challenges. The Court also said that “we do not address whether the President has authority to detain” individuals during the war on terrorism, and hold them at the U.S. Naval base in Cuba; that, too, it said, is to be considered first by the District judges.

The Court also declared that detainees do not have to go through the special civilian court review process that Congress created in 2005, since that is not an adequate substitute for habeas rights. The Court refused to interpret the Detainee Treatment Act — as the Bush Administration had suggested — to include enough legal protection to make it an adequate replacement for habeas. Congress, it concluded, unconstitutionally suspended the writ in enacting that Act.

Comments

phew!

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

I hope this signals a return to sanity for our legal system.

[argh-jim.livejournal.com]

The only disgrace, is that it was a bare majority that approved the decision.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the decision would have been different if the Bush admin hadn't gone so far overboard. Military tribunals for combatants accused of violating the laws of war have a lot of precedent..but making it so that a bare majority of tribunal members can decide guilt is a big change, for instance.

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

Great news, but today it's ultra-annoying because Britain's just chucked out habeas rights, more or less. I'm used to being able to think that at least the US has worse civil rights than us ;)