The firing of eight U.S. attorneys is only the beginning of Bush's politicizations of justice [View All]

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from TomPaine.com:


The Quality Of Justice
Aziz Huq
March 13, 2007



Aziz Huq directs the Liberty and National Security Project at the Brennan Center for Justice. He is co-author of Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in Times of Terror, and recipient of a 2006 Carnegie Scholars Fellowship.

As Shakespeare might ask, what happens when the quality of justice becomes strained? That is the question raised by new evidence of improper politicization of the Department of Justice. This evidence—but the latest in a string of revelations of justice (small “j” and big) pushed from its proper place—ought to prompt new laws to guard the propriety and independence of those who enforce the nation’s laws.

On one day in December 2006 “Main Justice,” as the Department of Justice’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., is known, fired seven of the country’s United States Attorneys. Another who is considered part of the purge was fired months earlier. They are prosecutors responsible for enforcement of criminal law in the federal courts around the country.

The president has always had the power to fire U.S. attorneys, and, indeed, incoming presidents of both stripes generally remove all sitting prosecutors and replace them with new people. But until the Patriot Act was reauthorized last March, new prosecutors had to be vetted and approved by the Senate. Thanks, however, to a provision slipped into that bill by one of Senator Arlen Spector’s aides—rather tellingly without the senator’s knowledge —the president now has power to appoint replacement prosecutors without involving a coordinate branch.

Previously, local senators and federal judges had a say in who the U.S. attorney would be, so this not only shifts authority north-west from Capitol Hill: Scorning federalism, the Patriot Act provision pulls power back to the center. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/13/the_quality_of_justice.php