The Supreme Court Has Restored My Faith in American Justice
Supreme Court Rejects Guantanamo War Crimes Trials
The Supreme Court today delivered a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration over its plans to try Guantanamo detainees before military commissions, ruling that the commissions violate U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of war prisoners.In a 5-3 decision, the court said the trials were not authorized by any act of Congress and that their structure and procedures violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949.
Yes!
For the first time in his 15-year tenure on the court, [Justice Clarence] Thomas took the unusual step of reading part of his dissenting opinion from the bench. The court’s willingness “to second-guess the determination of the political branches that these conspirators must be brought to justice is both unprecedented and dangerous,” he said.
Excuse me? What “conspirators”?? Most of the people being held at Guantanamo are only alleged conspirators — if they’ve been charged with anything at all. Seems to me, Justice Thomas is operating under the presumption of guilt. I didn’t think that was how we did things in the United States. There’s nothing wrong with the idea of bringing conspirators to justice. We’re all in favor of that. You’ve got to do it in a manner that’s just, though. You’ve got to obey the law. Bush broke the law. He should be impeached for that.
Posted by RebeccaHartong on June 29, 2006 under Uncategorized
Anytime you talk to anyone who supports the Bush administration’s actions in Guantanamo, you’ll hear them make the assumption-without even stopping for one moment to consider it-that every single person being held in Gitmo is a deadly terrorist. Remind of these facts: the Bush administration has ordered the release of hundreds of detainees at Gitmo, apparently because they have found them not to be terrorist suspects. Remind that we know as certainl as we can that despite the administration’s claims, not all of the men being held there were picked up from the battlefield. And remind them that some of the “terrorist” that we held were children at the time of their capture. If there is even a sizeable portion of the population of Gitmo that are not terrorists and are not affiliated with terrorists, we owe it to them to get to the truth of the matter, and no arbitrary “military tribunal” will do that, as the Supreme Court rightly held today.
Absolutely.
I have no doubt that some of the people being held at Guantanamo really are very VERY bad guys. Terrorists. Killers. They want to destroy Democracy.
Here’s the thing, though: Democracy is not protected by denying even one of those bad guys a fair trial.
Justice Thomas: “The court’s willingness to second-guess the determination of the political branches that these conspirators must be brought to justice is both unprecedented and dangerous.”
Quite the contrary, I think. “Second-guessing” is *exactly* the role of the court. Sometimes the court will agree with the previous decision, and sometimes it won’t, but the whole concept of “balance of powers” is defeated if one branch is not allowed to “second-guess” another.
What is dangerous (if unfortunately NOT unprecedented) is the idea that any branch of government is beyond question.
I haven’t read the opinion yet (it is 185 pages) although I plan to do that this weekend. It is good to know that even if Roberts had been part of this decision, the opinion still would have gone the way it did. Scalia, Alito and Thomas were pretty predictable, but GOOD for Kennedy!