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End Legal Limbo
Our position: Congress should follow Gitmo court ruling with clear process.
Editorial
Orlando Sentinel
July 5, 2006
A U.S. Supreme Court majority made the right call in ruling that President George W. Bush's administration must follow the law rather than its own rules for trying suspected terrorists. Now it is up to Congress to write that law, and reclaim its constitutional role as an equal branch of government.
In a ruling issued last week, five of the eight voting justices on the high court agreed that the Bush administration did not have the authority on its own to set up military commissions to try detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The administration could try suspected terrorists using existing laws for courts-martial, but leading members of Congress have expressed interest in writing new laws for the detainees.
Congressional action would mark a welcome break in a pattern since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In areas ranging from interrogating prisoners to tapping telephones, the Bush administration has asserted unchecked power in the war on terrorism, and Congress has largely stood aside.
As justification for its power play, the Bush administration has cited the president's inherent authority as commander in chief and a post-Sept. 11 resolution from Congress authorizing the president to use force against al-Qaeda. The high court's majority sensibly rejected those arguments in its ruling on the Guantanamo detainees.
And as Justice Stephen Breyer argued, the court's insistence that the administration consult with Congress "does not weaken our nation's ability to deal with danger. To the contrary, that insistence strengthens the nation's ability to determine -- through democratic means -- how best to do so."
Unrestricted government power is more likely to be abused. That's why the Founding Fathers created three branches of government and a system of checks and balances.
While it claimed the authority to try suspected terrorists according to rules written by its lawyers rather than by Congress, the Bush administration dragged its feet. Just 10 of some 450 detainees at Guantanamo have been charged. Some detainees have been held since the prison opened in January 2002.
Criticism, at home and abroad, has grown -- even from staunch U.S. allies such as Britain. America's reputation as a champion of human rights and the rule of law has suffered, and its ability to rally international support in the war on terrorism has diminished.
Ideally, Congress will now expeditiously craft a legal process that ensures suspected terrorists are tried without undue delay, and that the guilty ones stay locked up. But with members of both parties involved, there is a risk that Congress could get bogged down in political posturing -- especially in an election year.
Prolonging the legal limbo of prisoners at Guantanamo for the sake of politics would hinder, not help, the war on terrorism. Now that the Supreme Court has given Congress the opportunity, members need to get on with it.
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