There is a lot of debate in the public space this week over the impact of the United States Supreme Court’s ruling that gives detainees in a “holding pattern” at Guantanamo Bay access to the United States Courts for the purpose of presenting petitions of habeas corpus.
It is a generally accepted misunderstanding that the Court’s ruling gave new rights to the detainees, which seems to be the issue that is the most controversial.
The purpose of today’s discussion is to explain why that view of the ruling is dead wrong...and to offer some thoughts on why this ruling might actually be one of the most important “restraint of government” rulings to have come down the pike in some time.
So off we go, eh?
First, the background. The Supreme Court has ruled in Boumediene et al. V. Bush, President of the United States, et al. that some Constitutional protections do extend to “non” US territory, and that the Military Commissions Act can not restrict the US Courts from having jurisdiction over “any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of detention of an alien detained by the United States since September 11, 2001.”