Reply #34: Gesetzvertretende Verordnungen [View All]

[Jcrowley]

The neocons have now completed "the arrogation of all power into the hands of a ‘unitary executive’ Presidential dictatorship,” and have their own gesetzvertretende Verordnungen or “law-substituting decrees,” or rather Constitution-substituting decrees, in particular scrubbing the Fourteenth Amendment.

“The military trials bill approved by Congress lends legislative support for the first time to broad rules for the detention, interrogation, prosecution and trials of terrorism suspects far different from those in the familiar American criminal justice system,” explains the Washington Post. “President Bush’s argument that the government requires extraordinary power to respond to the unusual threat of terrorism helped him win final support for a system of military trials with highly truncated defendant’s rights…. Included in the bill, passed by Republican majorities in the Senate yesterday and the House on Wednesday are unique rules that bar terrorism suspects from challenging their detention or treatment through traditional habeas corpus petitions. They allow prosecutors, under certain conditions, to use evidence collected through hearsay or coercion to seek criminal convictions.”