I feel that this will be a very important test to what some have called, one of the final steps to the administrations push Ultimate Power. Read On. >>>
A group lawyers for the prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay military prison, have ask the courts to review the cases of that were started before the MCA was signed. The lawyers are being joined by a group of retired judges from both sides of the political spectrum, that argue the foreign Nationals cannot be held indefinitely with out seeing the evidence against them.
On October 17, of this year George W. Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006, that allowed the rules under which detainees are allowed to be held and tried. As soon as the act was signed, the government lawyers pushed to have any and all case of detainees (Known as Habeas Corpus cases.) dismissed.
Acorrding to the Washington Post, the group feels that the courts must rule in favor of the detainees, or the laws becomes unconstitutional.
"We do not believe Congress wiped out our cases in this act, and we feel strongly if Congress had done that, it would be unconstitutional," said David H. Remes, one of the lawyers. "The only time Congress can suspend the writ of habeas is in cases of invasion and rebellion. We are not being invaded, and there is no rebellion."
No truer words have been spoken.
The main reason the Administration push as hard as they did for the passage of this law was because of a ruling handed down in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. The court ruled that the pending habeas cases could go on. The government strongly objected, stating that pervious law ended those rights.
One of Neo-Cons biggest, defense or should I say talking points on this issue is, President Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus during the Civil War. The key point in this statement is that it was a Civil War, a Rebellion. One thing that I must point out here is, the Congress did not give Lincoln the power to suspend Habeas Corpus, which made what Lincoln did unconstitutional. Robert Taney, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court at the time, warned Lincoln that under the constitutional powers granted a President, that was not one of them.
Cases that point to the misuses of Acts that run along the same lines are the following:
John Adams used the Sedition Act, that he signed into power, to jail American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote about America, and the administration.
President Woodrow Wilson told the congress, that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, only to turn around and use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt basically suspended Habeas Corpus when he issued “Executive Order 9066” gathering Japanese and German American citizens up and put them in Detainment Camp, during World War Two. FDR stated that it was for the protection of the citizens of Japanese, and German decent. What I find disturbing in this case is that FDR took innocent people and imprisoned them for crimes that others might commit against them. So with that logic in mind, the Bush administration could lock away anyone disagreeing with the administration, because of what could be done to them.
Although I doubt the last statement could happen, (or could it.) The early history of the United States shows that laws like the Military Commissions Act were used for some devious reasons.
Therefore the ruling handed down in this action will be very important to the people of this country. If the court rules in the favor of the administration, they strengthen the notion that this administration has an unlimited power. But if they rule in favor of Habeas Corpus, it will show that the are not above the constitution, and their actions will be held in check.
ABA
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