Guantanamo: important legal victory.

[zotz]

Correction: a US federal circuit court has ruled that the Guantanamo Bay prisoners may have the right to be treated as prisoners of war, and therefore the current tribunals are not legal until this point is determined. The federal government are expected to appeal to a higher court. BBC story here.

Comments

[thepaintedone.livejournal.com]

I love this quote

"By conferring protected legal status under the Geneva Conventions on members of Al-Qaeda, the judge has put terrorism on the same legal footing as legitimate methods of waging war," said spokesman Mark Corallo.

Because obviously rolling into someone elses country, grabbing anyone who looks at you sideways, then locking them up in an offshore concentration camp for three years without anything approaching due process, is a well known and documented 'legitimate method of waging war'

[shaunotd.livejournal.com]

Damn! You beat me to it....

[deliberateblank.livejournal.com]

Well, the real problem here is that they have to prove that their captives are terrorists before they can even argue they deserve to have the protections of due process stripped (and hopefully even then they'd lose that argument before an impartial court.)

Claiming that a suspect deserves less protection because they are a terrorist, thus making it easier to 'prove' they are a terrorist in a fixed trial is rather begging the question.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

Well, it's a chink of light in an otherwise insanely dark situation.
Here's hoping...

[zotz]

They could still manage to knobble the supreme court before the case gets there . . .

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was wondering how immediate their 'immediate appeal' is going to be... it might well favour them to be a little relaxed about how fast they chase this up, give themselves time to stack the deck.

[zotz]

Possibly. Actually I suspect that they won't make specific efforts, because they'd have to live with the consequences afterwards. Choosing a supreme court justice is a very broad-brush exercise.

As for timing, I think it has to go to an appeal court before the Supreme Court was consider considering it, so it won't be a fast process however they play it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

Well, actually the US Federal court (as the BBC says) has ruled that a competent tribunal must consider if they should receive the greater protection of the Geneva Convention.
The Court doesn't say they should receive it. The Court says the US Government must create a competent tribunal and put the prisoners before it.

[zotz]

Ah. Thank you. I picked this up wrongly.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

I think the subtext is "Excuse me - we enforce the laws, not you!" from the Court. Judges never like being ignored or feeling like their authority is being undermined, which the current US Government is making quite a habit of.

As a corollary, note that the prisoner's defence lawyer provided by the US Military appears to be doing his job. That soldier looks like an honourable man.

[zotz]

Judges never like being ignored

Indeed. And no court likes being told that something isn't their business. Courts consider everything to be their business, unless possibly they can be convinced that it's another court's business (they are sometimes reluctant to get involved in professional demarcation issues if it involves being one of the disputing parties - it's undignified).

The defence bods have complained about the setup before. It's quite heartening.

[shaunotd.livejournal.com]

The defence bods have complained about the setup before. It's quite heartening.

[ob.cynic] Well they want to at least be seen to be doing their job, just in case the whole nasty business comes back to bite them in the arse later in their careers.