Hamdan decided, military commissions invalid
The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Congress did not take away the Court’s authority to rule on the military commissions’ validity, and then went ahead to rule that President Bush did not have authority to set up the tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and found the commissions illegal under both military justice law and the Geneva Convention. In addition, the Court concluded that the commissions were not authorized when Congress enacted the post-9/1l resolution authorizing a response to the terrorist attacks, and were not authorized by last year’s Detainee Treatment Act. The vote against the commissions and on the Court’s jurisdiction was 5-3, with the Chief Justice not taking part.The Court expressly declared that it was not questioning the government’s power to hold Salim Ahmed Hamdan “for the duration of active hostilities” to prevent harm to innocent civilians. But, it said, “in undertaking to try Hamdan and subject him to criminal punishment, the Executive is bound to comply with the Rule of Law that prevails in this jurisdiction.”
Ann Althouse also has comments worth reading.
It seems to me that while this is certainly not what the President wanted, it also may not be a great outcome for the detainees. Pretty much, as it seems to say that they can’t be charged with any crimes via a military tribunal (without authorization from congress at least), but they can be held until ‘the end of hostilities.’ While I suppose that the later was always true, it seems that if there was a way they can be charged in this manner, pressure would develop faster to release those who haven’t been charged with anything.
All that being said, I have not been particularly happy with Guantamo at all. The idea that be having our detention center outside the U.S. would make the actions conducted there outside the reach of the federal courts never sat well with me, and this ruling does seem to be a pretty big blow against that notion. I think Gitmo was a mistake from the beginning, and things would have gone better if the detention center had been established elsewhere.
On a political note, this seems to be a huge benefit to Republicans, who now will be making the approval of these, or similar tribunals, an election year issue.
