This from the Associated Press:
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.
The justices handed the Bush administration its third setback at the high court since 2004 over its treatment of prisoners who are being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The vote was 5-4, with the court’s liberal justices in the majority.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”
It was not immediately clear whether this ruling, unlike the first two, would lead to prompt hearings for the detainees, some of whom have been held more than 6 years. Roughly 270 men remain at the island prison, classified as enemy combatants and held on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida and the Taliban.
The administration opened the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to hold enemy combatants, people suspected of ties to al-Qaida or the Taliban.
The Guantanamo prison has been harshly criticized at home and abroad for the detentions themselves and the aggressive interrogations that were conducted there.
The court said not only that the detainees have rights under the Constitution, but that the system the administration has put in place to classify them as enemy combatants and review those decisions is inadequate.
Kennedy was the moderate who sided with the liberals here, while the four firm conservatives dissented.
Bush, speaking from Italy where his “farewell tour” has him today, made public his disagreement with the decision, but indicated he would honor it… something he often says but doesn’t do. Nothing has happened due to the first two rulings of the Court.
This does, however, point out the kind of problem which lies ahead for Constitutional rights if McCain is elected President and gets to appoint the next justices. He has already stated his opposition to Roe V. Wade, which would take away women’s rights to their own bodies, and any further rulings against people held at Gitmo (or anywhere else) without right to charges or trial could easily be in our legal future.
