Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 30, 2008

By a 5-4 vote, the US Supreme Court has ruled that the 2006 Military Commissions Act was an unconstitutional attempt to scuttle the habeas corpus guarantee.

That fundamental due process protection prohibits the government to detain an individual unless that detention can be reviewed by an independent judicial body. The Bush administration insists that habeas corpus doesn?t apply to those designated unlawful enemy combatants by presidential decree.

The High Court has properly ruled that the protection applies, in some form, to every suspect over whom our government claims jurisdiction.

Some suspects held in Guantanamo can now challenge their detention in federal court. The Bush administration reacted to that news by announcing that it would ?revise? the evidence against those detainees.

That action, in addition to having distinctly Orwellian overtones, reinforces the soundness of the Supreme Court?s decision, since it demonstrates that the detainees were imprisoned on evidence that can?t withstand independent scrutiny.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.