The Guantánamo decision: good news and bad news

The good news is that the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 that the Bush administration is required to obey international law and American treaty commitments: High Court Rules Out Tribunals for Gitmo Detainees by Joel Havemann Los Angeles Times 06/29/06.

In a blow to President Bush's strategy for dealing with foreigners taken from the battlefields of the war on terror, the Supreme Court ruled today that the administration lacked the power to hold military war crimes trials for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. ...

Rep. Jane Harman of Venice, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said it "makes clear that the president's power is not unlimited when it comes to holding people without due process. It's now time for the Bush administration to close the Guantanamo prison and either return the prisoners to their home countries or bring them to justice in the United States."

The bad news is that on such an important case, three Justices voted that the President should be able to ignore the law, with the Chief Justice abstaining:

The court's basic opinion prevailed on a vote of 5 to 3, with the court's more liberal justices in the majority. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who often sides with the conservatives, provided the majority with its decisive vote.

In the minority were the newest justice, Samuel A. Alito Jr., along with Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Chief Justice John Roberts recused himself because as a federal appeals judge he had voted for the government in the ruling that was overturned by today's Supreme Court decision.

| +Save/Share | |