Supreme Court Deals Blow to Bush 'War on Terror'


Just when you thought there wasn't any hope left, the Supreme Court comes to its senses...

from Reuters.com:

The U.S. Supreme Court placed the first limits on President Bush's war on terrorism on Monday and ruled that terror suspects can use the American judicial system to challenge their confinement.

The historic moves on the day before the end of the high court's term marked a bitter defeat for Bush's assertion of sweeping presidential powers to indefinitely hold "enemy combatants" after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It was the court's first rulings on Bush's terrorism policies.

In one ruling, the court said the nearly 600 foreign terror suspects held for two years at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba could turn to American courts to challenge their confinement. In another ruling, it said an American terror suspect held in his nation is entitled to a chance to contest the government's decision.

"Today's historic rulings are a strong repudiation of the administration's argument that its actions in the war on terrorism are beyond the rule of law and unreviewable by American courts," Steven Shapiro of the American Civil Liberties Union said.

By a 6-3 vote, the justices ruled American courts can consider the claims of Guantanamo Bay prisoners -- suspected al Qaeda members or Taliban fighters -- who said in their lawsuits they were being held illegally in violation of their rights.

"What is presently at stake is only whether the federal courts have jurisdiction to determine the legality of the executive's potentially indefinite detention of individuals who claim to be wholly innocent of wrongdoing," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.

The ruling did not address the merits of the claims, and the detainees still could face a long legal battle to win their release or major changes in the conditions of their confinement.

But families of some Guantanamo Bay detainees and their lawyers said in London the ruling could mean the beginning of the end of the prison camp.

And lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought the case to the high court, said they would seek access to their clients within the week.

In the second ruling, the court divided by a 5-4 vote to rule that Bush has the power to detain American citizen Yaser Hamdi, who was captured in Afghanistan as a suspected Taliban fighter and who has been held in a U.S. military jail. It said the U.S. Congress authorized the detention of combatants in the narrow circumstances alleged in the case.

There's more... check it out .

Posted: Mon - June 28, 2004 at 07:42 PM          

©