06.29.06

Constitution: Satisfied

Posted in military, due process at 2:42 pm by misstyrios

In a decision that made me want to make out with certain Justices, the Supreme Court has issued a bitch slap to Bush, ruling that using military tribunals for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay violates both the Geneva Convention and American military law.

In the majority opinion, Justice Stevens declared flatly that “the military commission at issue lacks the power to proceed because its structure and procedure violate” both the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs the American military’s legal system, and the Geneva Convention.

Justice Stevens rejected the administration’s claims that the tribunals were justified both by President Bush’s inherent powers as commander in chief and by the resolution passed by Congress authorizing the use of force after the Sept. 11. There is nothing in the resolution’s legislative history “even hinting” that such an expansion of the president’s powers was considered, he wrote.

I not only love the substance of this opinion (due process is sort of an important concept to me), but I truly love that the Court put Bush and his dangerously enormous head in its proper place. Michael Greenberg, a terrorism law professor, told the New York Times that the decision could have come out the same way based on “technicalities,” demonstrating that the Court chose to make a statement by so broadly rebuking Bush and his abuse of executive power.

My guess is that most of the talking heads are going to start spewing crap about terrorists and threats to the American people and that they should be punished, for fuck’s sake! But that just misses the point entirely - if the prisoners are the horrible terrorists that the administration claims they are (and there is a lot pointing to the fact that they are not), then come to that conclusion through the proper process of law. Bring them to trial, with lawyers, evidence, and all the processes that the American legal system has in place. If a fair trial results in a finding of terrorism, then deal with it then. But proclaiming them to be terrorists is not enough. To just say they are terrorists and are thus not deserving of legal processes is to puke on the Constitution and the American legal system in its entirety. And thankfully, the Supreme Court has recognized that.

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