God bless America. It's pretty rare you hear anyone say that these days outside the US, but the Supreme Court has rejected the Government's motion to dismiss Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
The Court has ruled that the military commissions proposed to try detainees do not have the power to proceed. One of the arguments central to the Opinion of the Court (you can read it in full here) is that the commissions are not acceptable because they deny defendants the basic right to see the evidence against them.
As a result, detainees will have to be tried either by courts-martial, civilian courts or be released, depending on their status as established by the Combatant Status Review Tribunals.
During his recent meeting with EU leaders, President Bush gave assurances that Guantanamo would be closed, though he did not provide a timetable. VORD's money is still on Dubya sending most detainees quietly back to the countries from which they came (or whose passports they hold) and only trying the obvious villains. So unfortunately this ruling still does not guarantee what we would recognise as acceptable legal process for detainees. It's probably back to Bagram for many.
But it is an example of the checks and balances that result from the separation of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches (damn, those Founding Fathers were smart). The Opinion of the Court also rips into the Detainee Treatment Act, which was hastily railroaded through the Senate (as described in an earlier post).
This ray of hope is too late, however, for those who commited suicide in the camp last month, an act outrageously described as a "good PR move" and "act of war" by officials.
The Opinion of the Court describes the 13-paragraph charging document that was eventually produced against Hamdan (following two-and-a-half years of detention and interrogation). Only two paragraphs refer to him specifically. He is accused of being Bin Laden's driver (which he has admitted) and thereby knowing about plans to attack the US, but he is not charged with devising or executing those plans. Way to go--$438 billion spent and we've got the chauffeur.
