The Supreme Court has ruled against Bush on his plans to try Gitmo detainees. The court ruled that the trials must follow the UCMJ. It also ruled that the Geneva Conventions do apply to detainees. So I guess that settles that. Now we will see how much this administration actually respects Supreme Court Rulings.
The ruling was 5-3, so Roberts' recusal would not have had any effect.
The government will have to revamp its plans for trials, essentially still leaving Gitmo detainees in limbo.
I'll be reading as much analysis as I can find, but I won't be blogging on it; I'm not a constitutional scholar.
However, this is an important repudiation of Bush policies vis-a-vis enemy combatants. The ruling is a blow to what some people have termed an Imperial Presidency.
The right will be wailing, the left hooting.
The only thing I will say is that this ruling seems to mean two things: that the United States is more obligated than al Qaeda in the treatment of detainees, and possibly, in other areas of the conflict, and that miscreants from around the world are now afforded the same legal rights and protections that Americans citizens enjoy.
MORE: Two questions and one observation:
Can this be construed as a defacto recognition of the Taliban and al Qaeda by the Supreme Court?
What are the likely next steps the government will be required to take?
President Bush has stated that he has been waiting for this ruling, and must have known that Justice Kennedy would swing towards the liberals. There must be some contingency plan drawn up.
Okay, one more observation: This does not seem to mean that the detainees are now free to go, but that the government has to set up a different process, by statutes that would establish military tribunals for detainees.
MORE: Tom Maguire has an open thread on the decision.
I found this comment very interesting, and one I was wondering about:
Hope I haven't made any silly claims, though.
MORE: There are some rumblings that there will be some "big news" following the ruling. Some are saying that Justice Stevens will announced his retirement, others that there is some bigger news still to come out of the ruling itself. We'll see, of course, if any of this is true or just your run ofthe mill blog hysteria.
If as I understand, the S.Ct. affirmed that the prisoners can be held during hostilities, just that the war crimes trials are not legal, then practically this is not a defeat for the Bush administration. The administration did not really want to hold criminal proceedings but was pushed to do so politically by critics of Guantanamo Bay. I suspect that the Bush administration is actually pleased with the ruling.
No doubt we'll see a lot of silly claims about this ruling.