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Habeus rights for Guantanamo Bay detainees

Earlier today, Liss at Shakesville noted the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling stating that Guantanamo Bay detainees have the constitutional right to challenge their detention in civilian courts.

Kennedy, Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter, and Stevens formed the majority. Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas dissented, with Roberts admonishing his colleagues in the dissent for striking down what he called “the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants.” Snort.

A rare victory for human rights under the executive excesses of the Bush administration. SCOTUSblog provides more details:

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 message from the court: The president is not a king. This essential fact was cast aside by those in power after 9/11, ushering in an age of diminished liberties of the most basic sort, an age of unchecked electronic surveillance and the Patriot Act. In misguided efforts to protect ourselves, we rubbished much of the best of who we are.

We yield the floor to Glenn Greenwald:

Our political and media elite were more than willing — they were eager — to relinquish that right to the President in the name of keeping us Safe from Terrorists. Today, the U.S. Supreme Court, in what will be one of the most celebrated landmark rulings of this generation, re-instated that basic right, and in so doing, restored one of the most critical safeguards against the very tyranny this country was founded to prevent.

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