Court Gives Detainees Habeas Rights ~ Lawyers Thrilled

“The Nation will live to regret what the Court had done today,” Justice Antonin Scalia writes at the end of his dissent in Boumediene v. Bush, the case in which a bare majority of the Supreme Court, for the first time ever, extended rights under the U.S. constitution to enemy combatants who have never set foot on U.S. soil.
Court gives detainees habeas rights

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.

Justice Scalia

Both the Chief Justice and Justice Antonin Scalia issued dissenting opinions, and all four dissenters joined in both dissents. In his dissent, Justice Scalia writes, “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. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.” Justice Scalia’s 25-page dissenting opinion concludes, “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today. I dissent.”

Chief Justice John Roberts

Chief Justice John Roberts says the rule of law and the American people have lost out–and with this ruling, we “lose a bit more control over the conduct of this Nation’s foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges.”

So who has won? Not the detainees. The Court’s analysis leaves them with only the prospect of further litigation to determine the content of their new habeas right, followed by further litigation to resolve their particular cases,followed by further litigation before the D. C. Circuit— where they could have started had they invoked the DTA procedure. Not Congress, whose attempt to “determine— through democratic means—how best” to balance the security of the American people with the detainees’ liberty interests, see Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U. S. 557, 636 (2006) (BREYER, J., concurring), has been unceremoniously brushed aside. Not the Great Writ, whose majesty is hardly enhanced by its extension to a jurisdictionally quirky outpost, with no tangible benefit to anyone. Not the rule of law, unless by that is meant the rule of lawyers, who will now arguably have a greater role than military and intelligence officials in shaping policy for alien enemy combatants. And certainly not the American people, who today lose a bit more control over the conduct of this Nation’s foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges. I respectfully dissent.”

UPDATE :
The District Court judges in Washington who will hear the detainees’ habeas challenges mandated by the Supreme Court will meet soon to decide how to proceed, that Court announced shortly after the Supreme Court ruled. Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth said “I expect we’ll call in the lawyers for both sides to see what suggestions they have for how we can approach our task most effectively and efficiently.”

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Wild Thing’s comment…..
Lock and load comes to mind.
It was bad enough when McCain said he would close GITMO the day after he becomes President and how all on the left want to shut it down too. And now this????!!!
“The Nation will live to regret what the Court had done today”
No truer words.
Supreme Court, for the first time ever, extended rights under the U.S. constitution to enemy combatants who have never set foot on U.S. soil.
Unbelievable!
This is just outrageous. Never before in the history of US warfare have we had to go out and Mirandize prisoners of war. That’s what we’re going to effectively have to do. We’re going to have to read prisoners of war their rights just as we would a thief at the local convenience store. These 270 prisoners now have access to the US Constitution as though they are citizens.
This is a victory for the enemy. It is a disgrace. is bad for the country. This is bad for US national security.