WilI Bush use “lawful sanctions” to condone torture and cruel or inhuman

[jody]

treatment? :tinfoilhat:

Bush’s bill S.3861 “Bringing Terrorists to Justice Act of 2006” says:
QUOTE
`(11) TORTURE- Any person who commits an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control for the purpose of obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, coercion, or any reason based on discrimination of any kind, shall be guilty of torture and subject to whatever punishment the commission may direct, including, if death results to one or more of the victims, the penalty of death. `Severe mental pain or suffering' has the meaning provided in 18 U.S.C. 2340(2).

`(12) CRUEL OR INHUMAN TREATMENT- Any person who commits an act intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions), including severe physical abuse, upon another person within his custody or physical control shall be guilty of cruel or inhuman treatment and subject to whatever punishment the commission may direct, including, if death results to one or more of the victims, the penalty of death. `Severe mental pain or suffering' has the meaning provided in 18 U.S.C. 2340(2).
UNQUOTE

Note that Attorney General Gonzales was involved in NURU v. GONZALES before the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in which a question was whether the punishment was “lawful sanctions”.

QUOTE
C. Lawfulness of Torture
The immigration judge ultimately denied Nuru relief on the ground that the punishment he received did not constitute torture because it was lawful punishment duly sanctioned by official authority. Specifically, the judge stated that it is within the sovereignty of the government to “require military service of its youth punish those violators in any lawful manner.” He also determined that the treatment to which Nuru was subjected by the Eritrean army was appropriate, given the circumstances. As the judge declared, “his Court is not convinced that the beating the respondent received here was not out of line in consideration of what he was doing in the middle of a combat zone.” In this respect, he committed clear legal error.

<8> The Convention excludes “pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions” from the definition of torture. CAT, art. I.1. However, because it does not provide a definition of “lawful sanctions,” the United States Senate was concerned when it ratified the Convention that the “lawful sanctions” exception could be interpreted too broadly. Although the Senate did not adopt a reservation defining the term, it did qualify its ratification with the understanding that a state “could not through its domestic sanctions defeat the object and purpose of the Convention to prohibit torture.” 136 Cong. Rec. 36,198 (1990). In light of this qualification, the Attorney General promulgated implementing regulations defining “lawful sanctions” as “judicially imposed sanctions and other enforcement actions authorized by law, including the death penalty,” but only so long as those sanctions do not “defeat the object and purpose of to prohibit torture.” 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(a)(3).9 Accordingly, Nuru is entitled to relief under the Convention if he has shown that “he is more likely than not to suffer intentionally-inflicted cruel and inhuman treatment that either (1) is not lawfully sanctioned by that country or (2) is lawfully sanctioned by that country, but defeats the object and purpose of CAT.” Wang v. Ashcroft, 320 F.3d 130, 134 (2d Cir. 2003) (emphasis added).

A government cannot exempt torturous acts from CAT’s prohibition merely by authorizing them as permissible forms of punishment in its domestic law. Discussing the applicability of the Convention to situations in which a state has inflicted torturous punishment authorized by its laws, the Second Circuit recently held that,

It would totally eviscerate the CAT to hold that once someone is accused of a crime it is a legal impossibility for any abuse inflicted on that person to constitute torture . . . . When the Senate considered the CAT, its concern over the CAT’s reference to ‘lawful sanctions’ led it to qualify its ratification with the understanding that a state ‘could not through its domestic sanctions defeat the object and purpose of to prohibit torture’. . . . It was Congress’ aim for the CAT’s protections to extend to situations where the victim has been accused of a crime.
UNQUOTE

Is it possible for Bush to add another of his signing statements to a bill passed by Congress where the statement defines “lawful sanctions” to be exactly what Bush wants to do regarding torture and cruel or inhuman treatment?

[Monkeyman]

1. He will use the pen