An American victory in the supreme court
Declaring that "a state of war is not a blank check for the president,"
the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that those deemed enemy combatants by
the Bush administration, both in the United States and at Guantánamo
Bay, Cuba, must be given the ability to challenge their detention
before a judge or other "neutral decision-maker." (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/29/politics/29DETA.html)
These decisions have
brought some measure of due process to the plight of so-called enemy
combatants, particularly those held in Guantanamo. There are already many interpretations of their meaning. Some of the discussion is partisan. Some wish to show
this as a repudiation of the Bush administration. Some feel the limited new
requirements make it only the mildest rebuke and actually allow the
administration nearly a free hand in
their treatment of these detainees. I feel both interpretations are at play. The
decisions say that detainees, non-citizens and citizens both , have some access
to American courts to challenge the basis for their detention. They do not spell out procedures and do not
even guarantee trials. Some
commentators have even read the decisions to mean that as long as the military
executes some kind of procedure, such as a tribunal, that may mean there is no need to
bring in the American court system. By striking down precedents from World War II, a clear invitation has been presented to
congress to provide legislation to address the need for due process in the
context of the unique situation in which we find ourselves, the first war
against organizations as opposed to nations.
The Bush administration had proclaimed that the president,
as commander-in-chief has the sole unmitigated power to decide who is an enemy,
how that decision will be made and how that person would be treated. That attitude has prevailed far beyond the
issue of the detainees. In secret, they planned the Iraq war for nearly a year while
pretending in public to be searching for alternatives. They decided they could
ignore the Geneva conventions regarding treatment of prisoners and the means of
interrogation. These supreme court
decisions have repudiated that view. The president is only one powerful force
governing our nation. The courts and the congress, therefore the people, have a meaningful role to play. Though we have a long way to go to redress the excesses of this administration, I call that a victory for America.
Melvyn Polatchek
1:22:06 PM 
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