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Supreme Court Says Bush Went Too Far at Guantanamo
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in creating military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies.
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion, which said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and the Geneva Convention.
The case, one of the most significant involving presidential war powers cases since World War II, was brought by Guantanamo prisoner Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who was a driver for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
The vote was split 5-3, with moderate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joining the court's liberal members in ruling against the Bush administration. Chief Justice John Roberts, named to the court last September by Bush, was sidelined in the case because as an appeals court judge he had backed the government over Hamdan.
More
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13592908/
The case focused on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a body guard and driver for Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo. He faces a single count of conspiring against U.S. citizens from 1996 to November 2001.
Two years ago, the court rejected Bush's claim to have the authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny them access to courts or lawyers. In this followup case, the justices focused solely on the issue of trials for some of the men.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/newsroom/sns-ap-scotus-guantanamo-trial,1,6670298.story?coll=chi-newsbreaking-hed
The case, one of the most significant involving presidential war powers cases since World War II, was brought by Guantanamo prisoner Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who was a driver for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
The vote was split 5-3, with moderate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joining the court's liberal members in ruling against the Bush administration. Chief Justice John Roberts, named to the court last September by Bush, was sidelined in the case because as an appeals court judge he had backed the government over Hamdan.
More
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13592908/
The case focused on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a body guard and driver for Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo. He faces a single count of conspiring against U.S. citizens from 1996 to November 2001.
Two years ago, the court rejected Bush's claim to have the authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny them access to courts or lawyers. In this followup case, the justices focused solely on the issue of trials for some of the men.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/newsroom/sns-ap-scotus-guantanamo-trial,1,6670298.story?coll=chi-newsbreaking-hed
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The 5-3 ruling means officials will either have to come up with new procedures to prosecute at least 10 so-called enemy combatants awaiting trial, or release them from U.S. military custody.
The case was a major test of President Bush's authority as commander in chief in a wartime setting. Bush has aggressively asserted the power of the government to capture, detain, and prosecute suspected terrorists in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
The high court was ruling on the case of Ahmed Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni native captured in Afghanistan in 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks. He is accused of conspiracy, which his lawyers say is not an internationally approved charge.
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http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/06/29/scotus.tribunals/index.html
In a landmark decision, justices upheld the challenge by Osama Bin Laden's ex-driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, against his trial at Guantanamo Bay.
The court's ruling that the proceedings violated Geneva Conventions is seen as a major blow to the administration.
Mr Hamdan is one of 10 Guantanamo inmates facing a military tribunal.
He is demanding a civilian trial or court martial, where the prosecution would face more obstacles.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5129904.stm
In a powerful rejection of the Bush administration's efforts to place its actions outside the normal judicial process and the reach of international law, the court declared that the president's use of military commissions to try prisoners was unconstitutional because they did not satisfy the requirements of the Geneva Conventions. Of equal importance, the court also opened the way for each of the 450 prisoners presently held at the prison - and presumably at other US bases - to have their day in court and to challenge America's basis for holding them.
"This is a great victory," said Clive Stafford Smith, a British lawyer who represents 36 of the prisoners. "It means the end of Guantanamo, effectively. It means that anyone held around the world has the right to justice. It's a great day for the rule of law in the US in general." Three Britons who were held at Guantanamo for two years before being released without charge - Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Ruhal Ahmed - said in a statement: "We are ecstatic at today's outcome. This is another step in our collective efforts to see that those we left behind are treated fairly under international law."
Last night the immediate impact of the ruling on Guantanamo itself was unclear. President Bush said he would examine whether the military commissions could be reconstituted, adding: "The American people need to know that the ruling, as I understand it, won't cause killers to be put out on the street. I'm not going to jeopardise the safety of the American people... I will protect the people and at the same time conform with the findings of the Supreme Court."
But legal experts said the implications for prisoners were clear. Joe Margulies, a lecturer at the University of Chicago law school, said the Government would have to defend in court its holding of detainees. He said: "The Government has never done that. If it does not do that... it means it will have to let them go."
Michael Ratner, president of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, which represents 200 prisoners, said: "What this says to the administration is that you can no longer decide arbitrarily what you want to do with people."
More
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1147205.ece