High Court blocks Guantánamo trials
By John O'Neil and Scott Shane
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 29, 2006
Delivering a sweeping rebuke to the Bush administration, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the military tribunals it created to try terrorism suspects violated both American military law and the Geneva Conventions.
In the 5-to-3 ruling, the justices also rejected an effort by Congress to strip the court of jurisdiction over habeas corpus appeals by detainees at the prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
And the court found that the plaintiff in the case, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, could not be tried on the conspiracy charge lodged against him because international military law requires that prosecutions focus on specific acts, not broad conspiracy charges.
In the majority opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens declared flatly that "the military commission at issue lacks the power to proceed because its structure and procedure violate" both the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs the U.S. military's legal system, and the Geneva Conventions.
Stevens rejected the administration's claims that the tribunals were justified both by President George W. Bush's inherent powers as commander in chief and by the resolution passed by Congress authorizing the use of force after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. There is nothing in the resolution's legislative history "even hinting" that such an expansion of the president's powers was considered, he wrote.
The Supreme Court's ruling represented a decisive rejection of the administration's approach to the handling of suspects captured in the campaign against terrorism, legal experts said.
But they also said it might open the way out of a legal morass created by contradictory court rulings and inconsistent policies.
Bush, in preliminary remarks after what he called a "drive-by briefing" on the ruling, hinted at such an outcome, saying "the Hamdan decision was the way forward" as the administration worked with Congress to revise its policies.
But he stressed his determination not to release terrorism suspects merely because the administration's tribunals had been rejected.
"The ruling won't cause killers to be put out on the streets," he said. "I'm not going to jeopardize the safety of the American people."
Legal experts agreed that the court's decision had no bearing on the administration's right to hold prisoners at Guantánamo, but focused instead on the conditions under which they might be tried.
The majority ruling was written by Stevens, who was joined in parts of it by Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion.
Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito Jr. dissented. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. did not take part in the case because he had ruled in favor of the government as an appeals court justice last year.
Thomas took the unusual step of reading his dissent from the bench, the first time he has done so in his 15 years on the court. He said that the ruling would "sorely hamper the president's ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy."
Hamdan, who was captured by Afghan troops in November 2001 and turned over to U.S. military custody, has been held at Guantánamo Bay since 2002.
His case has been seen as crucial to deciding the future of the several hundred prisoners held at the camp, which has come under steady and increasing criticism from countries around the world.
In a ruling two years ago written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the court said that powers given to the administration by Congress for the fight against Al Qaeda did not amount to a "blank check," and said that prisoners were entitled to a judicial process that met minimum legal standards.
But it did not spell out what those standards entailed, and the military tribunals have essentially been frozen as appeals by prisoners worked their way through the legal system.
Bush has said that he would like to close the camp, but needed to wait for the Hamdan ruling to see whether the military could proceed with its tribunals or if another form of trial would have to be found for those detainees the administration wishes to keep in custody.
Commander Charles Swift, the Navy lawyer assigned by the military to represent Hamdan, said at a televised news conference outside the Supreme Court that the logical next step would be for Hamdan to be tried either by a traditional military court-martial, as provided for under the Geneva Conventions, or by a federal court.
He called Thursday's ruling "a return to our fundamental values."
"That return marks a high-water point," Swift said. "It shows that we can't be scared out of who we are, and that's a victory, folks."
Richard Stamp, a lawyer with the Washington Legal Foundation, which filed briefs supporting the government in the case, called the ruling a "disappointment" and an example of judges "clearly making it up as they go along."
Stamp said the court had ignored its own precedents justifying the use of tribunals instead of courts-martial and was substituting its own judgment for the president's in his role of commander in chief.
Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, which represents more than 200 Guantánamo inmates, said he was "thrilled" by the ruling, which he said fully vindicated the views of administration critics.
"What this says to the administration is that you can no longer decide arbitrarily what you want to do with people," Ratner said in a telephone briefing for reporters. "It upheld the rule of law in this country and determined that the executive has gone beyond the constitution and international law."
Michael Greenberger, who teaches the law of counterterrorism at the University of Maryland School of Law, said the court could easily have found technical reasons to avoid so sweeping a ruling.
"Obviously they felt strongly not only about the legal issues involved but about what this meant for the United States' position as the pre-eminent supporter of the rule of law worldwide," Greenberger said.
He said the ruling showed that "it's not enough to repeat the mantra that we're fighting a war on terror and therefore all power resides in the executive branch."
Despite the rebuke to administration policies, Greenberger said, the ruling may clear the way to a resolution of the murky status of prisoners at Guantánamo. It might also clarify the status of those held in Afghanistan and in secret detention centers run by the Central Intelligence Agency.
By John O'Neil and Scott Shane
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 29, 2006
Delivering a sweeping rebuke to the Bush administration, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the military tribunals it created to try terrorism suspects violated both American military law and the Geneva Conventions.
In the 5-to-3 ruling, the justices also rejected an effort by Congress to strip the court of jurisdiction over habeas corpus appeals by detainees at the prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
And the court found that the plaintiff in the case, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, could not be tried on the conspiracy charge lodged against him because international military law requires that prosecutions focus on specific acts, not broad conspiracy charges.
In the majority opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens declared flatly that "the military commission at issue lacks the power to proceed because its structure and procedure violate" both the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs the U.S. military's legal system, and the Geneva Conventions.
Stevens rejected the administration's claims that the tribunals were justified both by President George W. Bush's inherent powers as commander in chief and by the resolution passed by Congress authorizing the use of force after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. There is nothing in the resolution's legislative history "even hinting" that such an expansion of the president's powers was considered, he wrote.
The Supreme Court's ruling represented a decisive rejection of the administration's approach to the handling of suspects captured in the campaign against terrorism, legal experts said.
But they also said it might open the way out of a legal morass created by contradictory court rulings and inconsistent policies.
Bush, in preliminary remarks after what he called a "drive-by briefing" on the ruling, hinted at such an outcome, saying "the Hamdan decision was the way forward" as the administration worked with Congress to revise its policies.
But he stressed his determination not to release terrorism suspects merely because the administration's tribunals had been rejected.
"The ruling won't cause killers to be put out on the streets," he said. "I'm not going to jeopardize the safety of the American people."
Legal experts agreed that the court's decision had no bearing on the administration's right to hold prisoners at Guantánamo, but focused instead on the conditions under which they might be tried.
The majority ruling was written by Stevens, who was joined in parts of it by Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion.
Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito Jr. dissented. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. did not take part in the case because he had ruled in favor of the government as an appeals court justice last year.
Thomas took the unusual step of reading his dissent from the bench, the first time he has done so in his 15 years on the court. He said that the ruling would "sorely hamper the president's ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy."
Hamdan, who was captured by Afghan troops in November 2001 and turned over to U.S. military custody, has been held at Guantánamo Bay since 2002.
His case has been seen as crucial to deciding the future of the several hundred prisoners held at the camp, which has come under steady and increasing criticism from countries around the world.
In a ruling two years ago written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the court said that powers given to the administration by Congress for the fight against Al Qaeda did not amount to a "blank check," and said that prisoners were entitled to a judicial process that met minimum legal standards.
But it did not spell out what those standards entailed, and the military tribunals have essentially been frozen as appeals by prisoners worked their way through the legal system.
Bush has said that he would like to close the camp, but needed to wait for the Hamdan ruling to see whether the military could proceed with its tribunals or if another form of trial would have to be found for those detainees the administration wishes to keep in custody.
Commander Charles Swift, the Navy lawyer assigned by the military to represent Hamdan, said at a televised news conference outside the Supreme Court that the logical next step would be for Hamdan to be tried either by a traditional military court-martial, as provided for under the Geneva Conventions, or by a federal court.
He called Thursday's ruling "a return to our fundamental values."
"That return marks a high-water point," Swift said. "It shows that we can't be scared out of who we are, and that's a victory, folks."
Richard Stamp, a lawyer with the Washington Legal Foundation, which filed briefs supporting the government in the case, called the ruling a "disappointment" and an example of judges "clearly making it up as they go along."
Stamp said the court had ignored its own precedents justifying the use of tribunals instead of courts-martial and was substituting its own judgment for the president's in his role of commander in chief.
Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, which represents more than 200 Guantánamo inmates, said he was "thrilled" by the ruling, which he said fully vindicated the views of administration critics.
"What this says to the administration is that you can no longer decide arbitrarily what you want to do with people," Ratner said in a telephone briefing for reporters. "It upheld the rule of law in this country and determined that the executive has gone beyond the constitution and international law."
Michael Greenberger, who teaches the law of counterterrorism at the University of Maryland School of Law, said the court could easily have found technical reasons to avoid so sweeping a ruling.
"Obviously they felt strongly not only about the legal issues involved but about what this meant for the United States' position as the pre-eminent supporter of the rule of law worldwide," Greenberger said.
He said the ruling showed that "it's not enough to repeat the mantra that we're fighting a war on terror and therefore all power resides in the executive branch."
Despite the rebuke to administration policies, Greenberger said, the ruling may clear the way to a resolution of the murky status of prisoners at Guantánamo. It might also clarify the status of those held in Afghanistan and in secret detention centers run by the Central Intelligence Agency.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 7:45 AM
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