NYT editorial: A Key Moment for Justice; The Constitution "expressly protects" habeas corpus

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: A Key Moment for Justice
Published: December 5, 2007

The Supreme Court hears arguments today in a case that offers a chance to redress an enormous wrong done by President Bush and Congress when they denied justice to a group of prisoners. It is the latest phase of a battle over whether detainees held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have the right to bring a habeas corpus challenge to their confinement. The narrow legal issues have changed since the court considered the question last year, but the principle remains the same: The detainees have a right to have a court determine whether the government has a valid basis for imprisoning them.

Habeas corpus is an important bulwark against authoritarianism, so vital that the Constitution expressly protects it. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, however, the Bush administration has fought to weaken it both for foreigners held by the United States and for American citizens....

The issue today is whether, after the Supreme Court’s rulings, Congress succeeded in stripping the detainees of their habeas rights when it passed the Military Commissions Act. The act authorized military commissions to hear the detainees’ cases and set up a hollowed-out appeals process in the federal courts. At the same time, the act intended to strip the courts of jurisdiction to hear habeas petitions filed by the detainees.

The Supreme Court should rule that the detainees still have the right to habeas review. The Constitution’s framers put strict limits on Congress’s power to tamper with habeas corpus. The suspension clause says it cannot be suspended “unless, when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.” Since there was neither, Congress had no right to suspend habeas rights, much less take them away permanently.

In rare circumstances, the court has said alternative procedures can substitute for habeas. But it has required them to be almost identical to the protections of habeas. That is far from the case with the shabby regime set up by the Military Commissions Act....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/opinion/05wed2.html