why we vote the Court

because basic rights don't just defend themselves

In a stunning blow to the Bush Administration in its war-on-terrorism policies, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. The Court, dividing 5-4, ruled that Congress had not validly taken away habeas rights. If Congress wishes to suspend habeas, it must do so only as the Constitution allows — when the country faces rebellion or invasion.
The Court stressed that it was not ruling that the detainees are entitled to be released — that is, entitled to have writs issued to end their confinement. That issue, it said, is left to the District Court judges who will be hearing the challenges. The Court also said that “we do not address whether the President has authority to detain” individuals during the war on terrorism, and hold them at the U.S. Naval base in Cuba; that, too, it said, is to be considered first by the District judges.
The Court also declared that detainees do not have to go through the special civilian court review process that Congress created in 2005, since that is not an adequate substitute for habeas rights. The Court refused to interpret the Detainee Treatment Act — as the Bush Administration had suggested — to include enough legal protection to make it an adequate replacement for habeas. Congress, it concluded, unconstitutionally suspended the writ in enacting that Act.

Guess who dissented.

Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion. CJ Roberts, along with Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito dissented. Roberts also authored a dissent joined by Scalia, Thomas and Alito. Justice Scalia filed a dissent, joined by Roberts, Thomas and Alito. Justice Souter issued a concurring opinion, joined by Justices Ginsburg and Breyer.
“The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us,” wrote Justice Scalia in his dissent. “It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.” He concludes: “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today. I dissent.”

and this from the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States: how terribly ungrateful of the Court to take away all those lovely rights the Executive Branch gave the combatants as a gift

In dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts criticized his colleagues for striking down what he called "the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants."

Guy really is bitter about this new-fangled Magna Carta crap, isn't he. Sandra Day O'Connor must be so proud of what she's accomplished.

Let's disappoint her in the fall, shall we?

fyi

I have a post up at FDL about Gov. Gibbons, the Giuliani of the west.