SCOTUS: Bush overstepped authority at Gitmo

[Fenian_Bastard]

1) The decision says that the US is obliged to abide by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions even in the case of alleged AQ defendants. It specifically threw out the "They're not wearing uniforms" defense.
2) It also says that the defendants must be tried by a "regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples." This could be something under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And that means right to counsel, right to see evidence against you.
3) Again, to me, the most important part of the decision longterm is the Court's refusal to see the AUMF as anything but a specifically limited statute.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

Earl Warren had as much to do with making the 1960s an era of turmoil as he did making it an age of linear progress. That makes him an instrument of his times, not his corrupt administration like Scalia and Thomas.

You're either not reading what I wrote or you're missing the point. I didn't say Earl Warren created the social ills of the 50s and 60s. I said that the Supreme Court was not meant to play the role that elected officials should have been.

I'm not disputing your post, though I don't understand the last sentence.

In a perfect world:

"It can be of no weight to say that the courts, on the pretense of a repugnancy, may substitute their own pleasure to the constitutional intentions of the legislature. This might as well happen in the case of two contradictory statutes; or it might as well happen in every adjudication upon any single statute. The courts must declare the sense of the law; and if they should be disposed to exercise WILL instead of JUDGMENT, the consequence would equally be the substitution of their pleasure to that of the legislative body. The observation, if it prove any thing, would prove that there ought to be no judges distinct from that body."

http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa78.htm

 

[The Big Ragu]

Exactly. Thanks.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

"If an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void, does it, notwithstanding its invalidity, bind the courts, and oblige them to give it effect? Or, in other words, though it be not law, does it constitute a rule as operative as if it was a law? This would be to overthrow in fact what was established in theory; and would seem, at first view, an absurdity too gross to be insisted on. It shall, however, receive a more attentive consideration.
It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each."

John Marshall was there and gave James Madison, who wrote it, what-for.

 

[Boom_70]

But we have to hold them AS POW's and under Geneva. ALL of Geneva. This takes a big chunk out of what the administration perceives to be its virtuallly limitless power during wartime. No more water-boarding. No more hypothermia. Regular investigations by human-rights organizations. The works. Also "military tribunals" are dead.

Not so fast.

 

[YankeeFan]

Bubbler must be really pissed about Clarence Thomas not asking questions by now.