Sanity Returning

The decision just reached with respect to a detainee at Gitmo is a high note in a long medley of bass, calling on the government to do better - and to acquire some proof of its charges.

The Chinese Uighur held at Gitmo on charges that being found at a training camp made him a terrorist, despite circumstances that left no choices open to him, is at least able now to present evidence. That habeas corpus is being required by the court should never have been a dramatic event, but the rule of law has been subjugated by the worst administration ever, and requiring that basic legal practice be followed is sadly an advance in justice in the Gitmo cases.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit wrote in a 39-page opinion released yesterday that tribunals and courts must be able to assess whether evidence is reliable before determining the fate of detainees.

That did not happen in the case of Huzaifa Parhat, a Chinese Uighur determined to be an enemy combatant by a tribunal that relied heavily on questionable evidence in classified documents, the appeals court found.

The ruling, the first successful appeal of a detainee's designation as an enemy combatant, ordered the government to release, transfer or hold a new hearing for Parhat. The opinion was issued on June 20 and was declassified and released yesterday.

The opinion could have broad implications for scores of other detainees classified as enemy combatants by Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The opinion is also likely to guide federal judges weighing evidence in up-coming hearings.
(snip)
"Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, the fact the government has 'said it thrice' does not make an allegation true," wrote Judge Merrick B. Garland, quoting from Carroll's poem "The Hunting of the Snark."

The panel, which included Chief Judge David B. Sentelle and Judge Thomas B. Griffith, also expressed skepticism about the evidence because the Chinese government may have supplied some of it.

"Parhat has made a credible argument that -- at least for some of the assertions -- the common source is the Chinese government, which may be less than objective with respect to the Uighurs," Garland wrote.

This is no joking matter, but then, Snark is not really joking. As noted in a post yesterday, the occupied White House uses language as a device to misdirect rather than to explicate. Evidence is not technically evidence if it is no more than a baseless statement - any more than 'opportunity' describes action against reason.

The basic good sense that has been absent in the occupied White House seems to be returning in its subjection to the legal system. The country desperately needs judgment in conducting all its affairs, but most especially Gitmo.