US court grants Guantanamo rights
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| Thu, 12-18-2003 - 4:37pm |
The court said their detention was contrary to US ideals.
It did not accept that the US Government had "unchecked authority".
The ruling relates to the case of a Libyan national captured in Afghanistan and currently being held at Guantanamo.
About 660 people are currently being held as "enemy combatants" at the base.
"Even in times of national emergency... it is the obligation of the judicial branch to ensure the preservation of our constitutional values and to prevent the executive branch from running roughshod over the rights of citizens and aliens alike," said the ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
It added it could not accept the position that anyone under the jurisdiction and control of the US could be held without "recourse of any kind to any judicial forum, or even access to counsel, regardless of the length or manner of their confinement".
The decision comes shortly after another US federal appeals court ruled that US authorities did not have the power to detain an American citizen seized on US soil as an "enemy combatant".
That ruling, by the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals, related to the case of so-called "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla.

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Oh, you don't agree with a need for checks and balances or judicial review?
Of course I do.
The same limitations and protections the Clinton administration had been attempting to negotiate for 8 years.
We are now signing Article 98 agreements with countries all over the world. They are bilateral agreements negotiated between two countries agreeing to how they operate with each other in terms of the ICC. This article was created because the UNSC didn't want to address our concerns or amend the perameters of the ICC. Instead they said that we should negotiate with every country individually. We have signed Article 98 agreements with over 70 countries and intend eventually have one with every country in the world.
They guarantee "protection to our media, delegations of public and private individuals traveling to international meetings, private individuals accompanying official personnel, contractors working alongside official personnel (particularly in the military context), participants in exchange programs, former government officials, arms control inspectors, people engaged in commerce and business abroad, students in government sponsored programs, to name just a few categories of persons. The orderly conduct of news reporting, diplomatic relations, economic activity, tourism, military operations, humanitarian programs, cultural and education exchanges, and other contacts between peoples around the world depend upon rules that are fair, well understood, and subject to appropriate due process."
"n each agreement, the United States makes clear its intention to bring to justice those who commit genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. This is the stated goal of ICC supporters, and a goal that the United States has and will maintain."
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That's a diffent conversation, and one that the Supreme Court will decide. The ICC, on the other hand, is completely without oversight or review.
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Fortunately our constitution & system of checks & balances are in place to act as safeguards. The Supreme Court will have the final say as to the constitutionality of the Patriot Act or the holding detainees at Gitmo, and if the majority of Americans disagree with thier ruling, Congress and the states can amend the constitution. See how it works? No branch of govt. has that corrupting ultimate power. It always comes back to the will of the electorate.
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Then why didn't he sign it before his last day in office? He had 2 terms to persuade Congress to ratify it if it meant anything to him. His signature was a pay off to special interests. Orgnizations that supported the world court, bragged afterwards that all the pressure they'd been putting on the White House finally paid off.
<< Charges can be brought for anything - with the world's support behind the US for rooting out bin Laden, Al Qaeda & the Taliban, I doubt that any such 'charges' would have been made or, if they had been, they would have been thrown out.>>
That's a lot of faith for you, who doesn't believe a word our government says, to put in the hand of an unelected and unaccountable tribunal made up of you have no idea who.
Especially since the short lived World Court in Belgium turned into a politically motivated circus and had to be shut down and was finally shut down when the Belgium government became it's target.
"Proponents of the ICC refuse to concede that the Court poses any problems for the United States. One of the principal arguments of the ICC's supporters has been that it will function, in effect, as a court of last resort. For countries that have functioning judicial systems, they contend, there is no reason to question the legitimacy of those countries investigating and prosecuting their own nationals accused of crimes covered by the Rome Statute. Indeed, this concept, given the name complementarity, was touted in the debates leading up to the Rome Statute, and in the lobbying campaign in the United States after the signing of the Statute, as perhaps the main reason the United States had nothing to fear from the ICC.
This is certainly the view that most European governments hold. They tell us in our bilateral discussions with them about Article 98 agreements that the ICC is mostly for use in failed states, where there is no functioning judicial system, and where, absent the ICC, there would be no capacity whatever to administer justice, as defined in the Rome Statue. In many cases, these governments have told us that they would envision investigating and prosecuting their own citizens in their national courts, rather than resorting to the ICC in the first instance, thus asserting their prerogatives under the doctrine of complementarity. One major problem with this view, of course, is that the doctrine itself is untested, and whether and under what circumstances the ICC's Prosecutor will accept assertions of national jurisdiction remains essentially unknown..."
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/031105/2003110523.html
Renee
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