Supreme Court rules against Bush administration policy

Frontiersman editorial board

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered two rulings on Monday that have been described as a mixed review of the Bush administration's treatment of detainees in connection with the war on terror. In fact, it would seem the high court's decisions delivered a fairly significant blow to the administration's policy of holding so-called enemy combatants indefinitely without formal charges, and without legal representation.

One of the cases dealt with an American-born detainee, Yaser Esam Hamdi, and the other concerned 600 detainees born outside the U.S. and being held at the U.S. Navy detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The good news for the administration is the court ruled that the U.S. government can hold foreign nationals and U.S. citizens without charges or trial. The bad news for the president is that the court also ruled those detainees can challenge their detention and treatment in court.

The message sent by the court seems to be that it is not willing to weaken our system of law. If the administration wishes to weaken prisoners' rights, it seems it will have to ask Congress to temporarily suspend the writ of habeas corpus, rather than rely on the courts to make a permanent decision.

The administration has contended that these "enemy combatants" do not fall under the protections of the Geneva Convention or the guarantees of the Constitution. With virtually no legal rights, the Guantanamo detainees and others, like Hamdi, could be held indefinitely without any explanation of their alleged crimes, or any way to demand an explanation or a trial.

No matter what your position on the war against terror, this should be seen as a victory for civil rights and for the democratic process. Had the court ruled to grant the president unlimited power to detain U.S. citizens and foreign nationals without due process, it would have dealt a serious blow to the justice system we depend upon to ensure fair and just treatment. It is always the burden of the state to prove a defendant's guilt, but when the state is not required even to make a formal charge, the burden is removed, and no one is safe from false or improper imprisonment.

These decisions may be somewhat mixed, but the balance was clearly tipped in the direction of justice.Supreme Court rules against Bush administration policySupreme Court rules against Bush administration policy