Posted on 06/15/2008 12:16:25 PM PDT by Red Steel
WASHINGTON -- When the Supreme Court goes on recess at the end of this month, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy will be off to his summer teaching job in Salzburg, Austria. For the 19th year, he will teach a class called "Fundamental Rights in Europe and the United States" for the McGeorge Law School.
He tells his American and European students that the belief in individual freedom and the respect for human dignity transcends national borders. There is, he once said in an interview, "some underlying common shared aspiration" in legal systems that protects the rights and liberties of all.
That international perspective was on display Thursday as Kennedy spoke for the Supreme Court in extending legal rights to the foreign military prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "Security subsists too in fidelity to freedom's first principles. Chief among these are freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by adherence to the separation of powers," Kennedy said.
The 5-4 ruling highlighted the sharp divide over the law and the war on terrorism. The dissenters, agreeing with the Bush administration, said foreigners captured abroad in the war on terrorism had no rights in American courts.
Justice Antonin Scalia dissented with the decision "to extend the right of habeas corpus on alien enemies detained abroad by our military forces in the course of an ongoing war." The ruling "warps our Constitution," he wrote in his dissent.
The majority, led by Kennedy, was more in tune with the views across Europe and of civil libertarians in this country, who have condemned the prison at Guantanamo Bay as a "legal black hole" where foreigners are shackled and held in harsh conditions without due process of law. The justices in the majority said that when U.S. authorities take someone into
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
He wrote the regulations for the conduct of the hearings - his legal staff did an he signed them after they went through a thorough staff review and he had the opportunity to review comments. Of course it could be that SecDef staff wrote them, and then directed SECNAV to sign them, so it is really on SECDEFs head. I just posted the Supreme Courts problems with them. Assuming the SC is accurate, then they messed up, again again again.
Well, not only do I have a majority, but I have the US constitution, Aricle I Secion 9 The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
Breathtaking arrogance. Now the Scotus can decide which Art III restrictions apply. Reductio ad absurdam. God save our republic.
Stunning how naieve you are.
There is actually no definable battlefield. The enemy is all over.
You are just being silly if you think the war is only on a certain acreage somehow defined by what some lines and those in are combatants and those out of the lines not combatants and we just don’t know how to keep the war inside the lines?
What about someone planting an IED way off any battlefield?
Is he not the enemy and can’t be captured without a hearing producing evidence?
Your position is absurd.
If I read the decision correctly the court held that the Constitution’s provision for suspending habeas takes precedence over the MCA or the DTA and that congress did not properly suspend habeas corpus because the conditions today don’t meet the justifications in the Constitution. And since the Court have assumed the role of final arbitrator for what is constitutional Article III Section 2 did not come up.
You got shit
One more Justice for me and all your arguments would be moot. In fact you wouldn’t be posting at all
There you go again.
The constitution is the supreme law of the land, i.e. the U.S. not the supreme law of the world.
I cannot find anywhere that the dissent raises the issue, and surely if they felt the majority were in fact vulnerable here they would have blazoned it.
Exceptions and Regulations clause of the United States Constitution (Art. III, § 2, Cl. 2) grants Congress the power to make exceptions to the constitutionally-defined appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.
In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.
Thanks for all the details on that. I knew there would be trouble the second those maggot lawyers landed in Guantanamo. All they care about is jerking the system around for their own self glorification. Bullshit civil rights is their god
They get to brag at cocktail parties how they tweaked the US Government by doing pro bono work for Jihadist scum.
Yeah, I know what side I’m on and what side they are on
Yes I read it. The dissent did not raise it as an issue, and since this is a separation of powers case under the constitution I don’t know that the Congress can keep the SC out of it. It is a case that arises under Article I section 9.
Thanks. I will.
Those not killed immediately will be taken into custody by Iraqi or Afghan or Free Persian* (God willing) forces, who may grant access to them multi-agency US interrogators, but not one D-——d US lawyertraitor.
This will not be official policy. Issuance of an official policy will not be required. It will simply just happen that way.
*See tag.
Exactly.
Another series of unintended consequenses will arise. There will suddenly be no more prisoners held by the U.S. and given humane treatment. Detainees will be held by “others” and will not get humane treatment by any standards.
Just like the lefty enviros who feel good in saving polar bears yet have no compassion in bankrupting the entire nation.
Bad legal advice has been a hallmark of this administration. Remember these are the same DOD folks who didn't seem to mind when they lost 6 nukes.
This argument is absurd. The prosecutor will produce what evidence there is against them at trial (military) and they will be judged accordingly.
A laptop with phone numbers picked up in Iraq. A phone number leads to a potential throat slitter in Pakistan who has a record (according to Pakistan) of being part of a terrorist network. Intercepts from NSA indicate this phone was used by “someone” to converse with folks in Iran.
Sufficient evidence - guilty - 10 years at hard labor.
Part of this program is to “send a message” that these
creeps will get the short circuit after 6 years in jail.
The only right they got was the right to a habeas review. That's it. That's all. Nothing more. It isn't that bad. While I understand the other side, I support this decision. We pretend to be a member of the civilized nations, and rule of law. Due process is part of that. Establishing fair rule of law in India is a lot of how England maintained the Raj for so long. The otherwise resentful natives saw it as better than all the alternatives.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.