High Court Rejects
Detainee Tribunals
5 to 3 Ruling Curbs President's Claim Of Wartime Power
The Supreme Court struck down July 3rd the military commissions President Bush established to try suspected members of al-Qaeda, emphatically rejecting a signature Bush anti-terrorism measure and the broad assertion of executive power upon which the president had based it.
Brushing aside administration pleas not to second-guess the commander in chief during wartime, a five-justice majority ruled that the commissions, which were outlined by Bush in a military order on Nov. 13, 2001, were neither authorized by federal law nor required by military necessity, and ran afoul of the Geneva Conventions.
"Where, as here, no emergency prevents consultation with Congress, judicial insistence upon that consultation 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," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote.
"The Constitution places its faith in those democratic means," Breyer concluded. "Our Court today simply does the same."
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