The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.
The ruling, a strong rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and international Geneva conventions.
The ruling raises major questions about the legal status of about 450 men still being held at Guantanamo and exactly how, when and where the administration might pursue the charges against them.
It also seems likely to further fuel international criticism of the administration, including by many U.S. allies, for its handling of the terror war detainees at Guantanamo in Cuba, Abu Ghraib in Iraq and elsewhere.
"Trial by military commission raises separation-of-powers concerns of the highest order," Kennedy wrote in his separate opinion. "Concentration of power (in the executive branch) puts personal liberty in peril of arbitrary action by officials, an incursion the Constitution's three-part system is designed to avoid."
The court's ruling was a resounding loss for the Bush administration. Justices also rejected the administration's claim that the case should be thrown out on grounds that a new law stripped their authority to consider it.
It looks like Bush still doesn't quite have the Court stacked just the way he wants it. It isn't for lack of trying, but it appears that the law still matters to some of them. In this instance, anyway.
Watch the wingnuts climb the Gray Lady's frame for daring to print it.
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