White House Gets "Significant Win" on Gitmo

A federal appeals court ruling Tuesday denies Guantanamo detainees trial in U.S. civilian courts -- to challenge their detention -- except for appeals.

In a 2-1 ruling the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the Military Commissions Act, or MCA, that says U.S. civil courts don't have the authority to consider whether the military is illegally holding foreigners any more.

The MCA, which Bush pushed through Congress last year bars detainees from the U.S. court system. Instead, the act sets up an alternative system of trying the Gitmo detainees in military proceedings.

Deputy press secretary Dana Perino hailed the court's decision as a "significant win" for the Bush administration and added the MCA provides "sufficient and fair access to courts for these detainees."

But most criticized, primarily by Democrats and civil libertarians, is that habeas corpus -- the fundamental right to ask a judge for release from unjust imprisonment -- appears to be suspended for the detainees.

Benjamin Tuttle at Ben's Blog disagrees, stressing the detainees' lack of citizenship:

. . . the idea that habeas corpus is being removed is proposterous. Those detained at Gitmo are not US citizens. This seems to be so difficult for many Leftists to understand who are so angry at President Bush that they can’t make a rational decision. If President Bush actually removed habeas corpus from an American citizen, I would agree completely with the ACLU and would join protests and petitions to get that law changed. The problem is that the detainees, since they are not citizens, don’t even HAVE the right of habeas corpus. Why is that difficult?

I appreciate the ideas of those that think that all individuals should be entitled to certain rights that happen to be in our Constitution. Maybe instead of trying to warp the laws, they could introduce a Constitutional Amendment to that affect, saying that “rights herein apply to all humans the United States interacts with” or something to that affect. Though I think that would be proposterous, it would at least be honest. Smearing the administration with more screaming over a non-issue, because once again detainees are not United States citizens and therefore do not have our rights, is dishonest and does not contribute to the process.

Katharine at Cut to the Chase is of a different mind saying habeas corpus does not only apply to U.S. citizens:

I have been meaning to write about Tuesday's really B-A-D federal appeals court decision FOR Bush's terror kangaroo court system and against detainees. While I am NOT a constitutional lawyer, I have been back and forth over it today and before and I do not see that its tenets are limited exclusively to American citizens. And that's not even arguing the never-never-land of limbo Bush has put many of these folks into at Gitmo and in secret prisons the world over!

This ruling is likely to be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.

-Dippold

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