Court: Guantanamo Bay detainees do not have the right to challenge their imprisonment in U.S. courts.
Obviously a victory for the administration.
WASHINGTON ” A federal judge upheld the Bush administration’s new terrorism law Wednesday, agreeing that Guantanamo Bay detainees do not have the right to challenge their imprisonment in U.S. courts.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge James Robertson rejects a legal challenge by Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Usama bin Laden whose case prompted the Supreme Court to strike down the Bush administration’s policy on detainees last year.
Following that ruling, Bush pushed for and got a new law that established military commissions to try enemy combatants and stripped them of the right to seek their freedom in U.S. courts.
Robertson said Congress clearly intended to keep cases such as Hamdan’s out of federal courts and, because of that, he no longer has jurisdiction to hear it.
The ruling is a legal victory for the Bush administration, which has been fending off criticism of the new law from Democrats and civil libertarians.
The ruling does not affect the fate of hundred of detainees whose cases are awaiting a ruling by a Washington appeals court, which is reviewing two precedent-setting detainee cases challenging the new law.
December 13, 2006 - 04:53 PM on December 13th, 2006
This is terrible, very bad news for the American Left! This decision must be appealed and overturned, and the rights of our enemies restored to the fictional level that previously existed!
American Liberals, Socialists, and Democrats have hugely invested in this challenge to the Bush administration! It was a centerpiece of the recent election! It was an essential element of our ceaseless propaganda campaign to overwhelm weak-minded voters to make sure they voted Democrat!
We worked so hard to convince voters that Bush was wrong, and now it has backfired! We have been shown to be the idiots and asswipes that we are! WE MUST QUICKLY SPIN THIS, EVEN AS WE ARE WORKING TO GET IT OVERTURNED!
Uh, let’s see…Halliburton paid off the judge, who is corrupt? More evidence of the Republican Culture of Corruption? There’s gotta be an angle.
Help me, fellow Libs!
December 13, 2006 - 07:40 PM on December 13th, 2006
A win for the good guys.