Supreme Court Edging Toward the Dark Side
The present composition of the Supreme Court is increasingly showing a dark side. Today's decision is hardly encouraging, either.
While there is hope that detainees' rights may be preserved in some form, it is looking dismal for the Rule of Law in this country at the present time. A hearty electoral victory in 2008 is going to be necessary to avoid the continued advances against U.S. citizens' rights as well as those held outside the U.S. and outside our laws.
Another decision today gave the victory to environmental concerns, although four dissenting voices tried to stop this from happening.
This highly independent branch of our government has little room for error, but so thin a margin is left to good public interest concerns that we stand in some danger of watching a long proud tradition of laws destroyed.
The Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from Guantanamo detainees who want to challenge their five-year-long confinement in court, a victory for the Bush administration's legal strategy in its fight against terrorism.
The victory may be only temporary, however. The high court twice previously has extended legal protections to prisoners at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. These individuals were seized as potential terrorists following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and only 10 have been charged with a crime.
Despite the earlier rulings, none of the roughly 385 detainees has yet had a hearing in a civilian court challenging his detention because the administration has moved aggressively to limit the legal rights of prisoners it has labeled as enemy combatants.
A federal appeals court in Washington in February upheld a key provision of a law enacted last year that strips federal courts of their ability to hear such challenges.
At issue is whether prisoners held at Guantanamo have a right to habeas corpus review, a basic tenet of the Constitution that protects people from unlawful imprisonment.
While there is hope that detainees' rights may be preserved in some form, it is looking dismal for the Rule of Law in this country at the present time. A hearty electoral victory in 2008 is going to be necessary to avoid the continued advances against U.S. citizens' rights as well as those held outside the U.S. and outside our laws.
Another decision today gave the victory to environmental concerns, although four dissenting voices tried to stop this from happening.
The Supreme Court ordered the federal government on Monday to take a fresh look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from cars, a rebuke to Bush administration policy on global warming.
In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.
Greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the landmark environmental law, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his majority opinion.
The court's four conservative justices -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- dissented.
This highly independent branch of our government has little room for error, but so thin a margin is left to good public interest concerns that we stand in some danger of watching a long proud tradition of laws destroyed.
Labels: Guantanamo Bay, habeas corpus, Supreme Court, The Environment
posted by Ruth at 9:28 AM
1 Comments:
Ruth, I, too, was disappointed initially at the Supreme Court's refusal to take the Gitmo case. However, a closer reading of what actually happened leaves me with a little more hope. There were three justices who were willing to hear the cases as is, and there were two justices who basically took the position that the appeal was premature, that the detainees had to go through the rigamarole of the military commissions before they could challenge the procedure.
Now, while I would certainly argue that the detainees who have already spent, some of them, five years in that hell hole without charges or any ability to challenge their conditions should get the benefit of the doubt and be given the fast track to the Supreme Court, the fact is that the Supreme Court has long taken the position that you have to exhaust your remedies in the lower courts before you can appeal to the Supremes. It's more a matter of "ripeness" than it is a rejection of the underlying issues.
The way I read it, there are five justices who are very concerned about the provisions of this law, and if and when the detainees go through the military commission process, we may see cert granted fairly quickly.
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