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

[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.