Supreme
Court ruling restores habeas corpus
A couple of weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-4
vote that detainees held at Guantanamo Bay have the right to habeas corpus.
Habeas corpus is a writ ordering a prisoner to be brought
before a judge.
The Supreme Court ruling merely says that inmates held at
the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay had a right to challenge their detentions
in U.S. courts.
Many of the 270 prisoners being held have been there for
years without seeing any court or judge.
President George W. Bush, Republicans, right wing talking
heads, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., all have said that this is a bad ruling
that will make our country less safe.
Some of these same people also have said that because the
detainees are not Americans they are not entitled to the same protections under
the constitution because it only applies to American citizens.
Well that’s just not true. There are many laws that have
come from the Constitution that do apply to non-Americans, and one of those
laws is habeas corpus.
Bush knows this because he is the one who pushed through
the Military Commissions Act of 2006, part of which suspended the right of
habeas corpus for the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.
The Supreme Court ruling said Bush was wrong and he could
not suspend habeas corpus because the detainees were being held at a U.S.
military base and, for that reason, they are covered by the constitution.
McCain criticized the Supreme Court ruling and said it is
“one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”
One of the four dissenting Supreme Court justices, Antonin Scalia, wrote that the decision “will almost
certainly cause more Americans to be killed.”
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has been attacked by Sen.
McCain and his spin machine because of what he said;
“I have Confidence that our system of justice and that
our traditions of rule of law are strong enough to deal with terrorists. Sen.
McCain does not. That is not the same as
suggesting that we should give detainees the full privileges that afforded
American citizens. I never said that,
the Supreme Court never said that, and I would never do that as president of
the United States.”
Obama went on to say: “So, either Sen. McCain‘s campaign
doesn‘t understand what the court decided or they are distorting my position,
which is that we need not throw away 200 years of American jurisprudence while
we fight terrorism. We need not choose
between our deeply-held values and keeping this nation safe.”
So where does that leave us? What will happen to the
detainees now that the Supreme Court ruling has confirmed their right of habeas
corpus?
Attorney General Michael Mukasey
said of the ruling, “I think it bears emphasis that the court’s decision does
not concern military commission trials, which will continue to proceed.”
For almost eight years now, the Bush administration has
whittled away at the constitution, not only with the suspension of habeas
corpus, but with other rights, such as warrants being required for wiretaps on
telephone calls, e-mails, financial records, education records, and searches
and seizures of both business and homes, etc.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “They that can give up
essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty
nor safety.
But on this one day, the Supreme Court said no, and
upheld our constitution.