Thursday, June 29, 2006

An appalling decision...

A round-up of reports on the Supreme Court's Hamdan ruling.

Austin Bay says, "no means no", and we have to adjust. I respectfully disagree. In December, 2005, as part of the Detainee Treatment Act, the courts were told, "hands off" with regards to this subject. Congress got there first, and according to Article III of the Constitution, they have the right to strip jurisdiction from the courts. "Hands off" means "hands off", so the court should have butted out. They didn't, and now we're going to have a constitutional crisis in time of war.

AJ-Strata says, "can't try them, so fry them", which will last until the New York Times reports on the first al-Qaeda cell wiped out to the last thug. Then politicians like Murtha, Durbin, and Boxer will raise their own versions of hell.

Congress needs to pass a joint (or concurrent) resolution that states this ruling is invalid due to the passage of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, and that the President may proceed with military commissions as originally envisioned. In normal circumstances, the Supreme Court is the final word. But this is not a normal circumstance - the Supreme Court crossed the line first, and needs to be reminded that it, too, is subject to checks and balances.

1 comment:

tm said...

Reread the statute, and then read the Stevens's discussion on pp.7-15. It's very clear that the congress didn't suspend habeus for those cases pending. If they'd wanted to do that, it would have been very easy to do, but they declined to do so.

Hence the court has jurisdiction. It's not even a close call; you just have to read the law.