Gitmo A No Go

The opinion is not up yet, but Scotusblog has this report:

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Congress did not take away the Court’s authority to rule on the military commissions’ validity, and then went ahead to rule that President Bush did not have authority to set up the tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and found the commissions illegal under both military justice law and the Geneva Convention. The vote was 5-3, with the Chief Justice not taking part.

The Court expressly declared that it was not questioning the government’s power to hold Salim Ahmed Hamdan “for the duration of active hostilities” to prevent harm to innocent civilians. But, it said, “in undertaking to try Hamdan and subject him to criminal punishment, the Executive is bound to comply with the Rule of Law that prevails in this jurisdiction.”

That quotation was from the main opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens. That opinion was supported in full by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote separately, in an opinion partly joined by Justices Breyer, Ginsburg and Souter. Kennedy’s opinion did not support all of Stevens’ discussion of the Geneva Convention, but he did find that the commissions were not authorized by military law or that Convention.

Justices Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the dissenters, each wrote an opinion.

Any suggestions on: 1) Who will be the first person to accuse the Court of aiding the enemy, or something equally stupid; 2) Who will be the first person to attack the court for relying on foreign law, i.e. the Geneva Conventions; 3) How long it will take for 1 and 2 to occur; 4) How many times over the next few weeks we are going to hear the usual catch phrases, like “activist courts” “liberal judges” “legislating from the bench” “judicial overreaching” “national security” “important part of the War on Terror” and “9-11”?

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