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June 16, 2008 - 11:36am.
The Justice Department has announced that the Supreme Court's decision last week to allow habeas corpus rights to Bush's "enemy combatants" should not affect the military trials process. They say the government plans to go ahead with military commissions for those who are facing war crimes charges. (WaPo has the story here.) This flies in the face of our system of government, where the powers of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial balance each other out. Essentially the Bush Administration is saying they will ignore the Supreme Court ruling and do as they please. As the Court noted, "few exercises of judicial power are as legitimate or as necessary as the responsibility to hear challenges to the authority of the Executive to imprison a person." Yet the Bush Administration is going to continue as if the case never happened. Business as usual for the Administration of war criminals. This is a Constitutional crisis. Should the Bush Administration continue on this course they are forcing a showdown between the Executive and the Judicial branches like we have never seen. If the Administration is allowed to continue, then the Constitution is essentially null and void and we are officially a military dictatorship. Congress, SCOTUS, and POTUS, ARE WE A MILITARY DICTATORSHIP OR NOT?
Capitol Hill Blue's columnists, blogs and reader comments Capitol Hill Blue is an independent, non-partisan news site that belongs to no political party and subscribes to no political or philosophical point-of-view. Our columnists are welcome to their opinions but readers should understand that their views do not necessarily reflect the editorial policies of this web site. We also welcome comments to selected opinion columns and in our popular ReaderRant discussion forum. Please remember, however, that we believe in civility on this web site and comments may be reviewed, moderated or removed if we feel they contain obscenities, racism, bigotry, anti-Semitic remarks or attack other posters. Our goal is reasoned discussion on issues facing this nation and we do not feel that goal is served by personal attacks and by seeing how many cute adjectives you can attach to an elected official or politician's name. Copyright © 2008 Capitol Hill Blue
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Woody: I think you are
Submitted by Ted Remington on June 16, 2008 - 1:59pm.Woody:
I think you are mixing apples and bananas here. The trials by military commission may continue, but that does not mean that the current administration has decided to flout the opinion of the Supreme Court. What that decision said was that the civilian court system in the US retains the right to review decisions of the military commissions or tribunals or whatever you call them.
Where you could have a violation of the decision down the road would be if the civilian court system ordered a detainee freed if, for example, the conviction were based upon evidence presented by or on behalf of an accuser whom the accused could not cross examine.
My guess would be that the prosecutors would strive mightily to prevent any further confrontation between the tribunal system and the civilian court system. How this will work out if they have no case without presenting such unimpeachable (in the sense that the accused couldn't cross examine) evidence because they know where the Supreme Court stands. Of course, they could also hope for a vacancy of one of the five associate justices who made up the majority, but what do you think the chances are that Bush would be able to get a confirmation rammed through the Senate twixt now and 20th January? Somewhere between Slim and None and Slim just headed west.
Ted
Considering most of these
Submitted by woody188 on June 16, 2008 - 3:32pm.Considering most of these people have been detained since 2002, they should have a right to dispute the evidence against them and their very detention. 5 years is a long time to be detained without reason.
As you pointed out, and the WaPo article stated, most of the prisoners will not have access to, or even know the name of their accuser, or the charges, or even the evidence that is against them.
"...they may be barred from reviewing highly classified evidence and might not have access to the intelligence agents who interrogated them, according to the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions."
Let's not even touch on the fact that civilian courts would toss out coerced statements as inadmissible.
So should the Military Commissions continue as they have been proceeding, which is what the Justice Dept. has indicated, then it is in violation of the Constitution as the Supreme Court has pointed out. What is the point of making convictions that are known to be un-Constitutional, that the SCOTUS will toss out given the chance?
Why can't we hold the Bush Administration to the same laws as everyone else and force them to respect habeas corpus?
Why would we enforce laws we know are un-Constitutional? And since we know they are un-Constitutional, aren't they no longer official laws?
With estimates of up to half of detainees being innocent, why would the Bush Administration still be pushing this at all? http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/story/38773.h...