RETURN TO RIGHTS

In a strong rebuke of the Bush administration’s use of military tribunals to try terrorism suspects, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the detainees have the right to challenge their imprisonment in federal courts. The decision likely leaves it up to President Bush’s successor to determine how to handle the nearly 300 men held at the U.S. military detention facility in Guantanamo Bay. Closing the Gitmo prison and using existing military and civilian judicial procedures to try the prisoners has long been a reasonable alternative.

In a 5-4 decision, the court upheld habeas corpus, the constitutional right of prisoners to challenge their detention. “The laws and the Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. Justice Kennedy, often a swing vote, joined the court’s liberal branch in ruling that the tribunal system set up by the Bush administration was not an adequate substitute for constitutional rights. The court’s four conservatives, including Bush appointees John Roberts and Samuel Alito, wrote a strong dissent, warning that the majority’s opinion would cause more Americans to be killed.

It was the high court’s third rejection of the Bush administration’s position after Sept. 11 of stripping foreign detainees of legal rights, with the backing of a Congress too willing to bow to the White House’s disregard for constitutional requirements.

In 2006, the court ruled that trying detainees in secret military tribunals violated U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions. Congress then rewrote the law, known as the Military Commissions Act, to include a specific provision eliminating the right of habeas corpus for noncitizens declared by the executive branch to be “unlawful enemy combatants.” The first two cases to come to trial under the act were thrown out last June.

In 2004, in a case challenging indefinite detention without charges being brought, the court said that detainees were entitled to a judicial process that met “minimum legal standards.” At issue were whether the tribunals, where detainees were not allowed to be present and evidence could be withheld from their lawyers, met that standard. The court ruled that it did not.

As a result, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act in 2005, which eliminated habeas corpus for all detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Dozens of detainees challenged that law in federal court. A federal appeals court ruled against them last February and the Supreme Court declined to review that decision in April 2007.

It reversed itself two months later, deciding to hold hearings on the matter. Thursday’s ruling is a culmination of that review.

As a result of the Supreme Court ruling federal courts could order some detainees freed.

Both Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, one of whom will be elected president in November, have pledged to close down Gitmo. Sen. McCain, who supported the Military Commission Act, would move the prisoners to the U.S. military prison in Kansas. Sen. Obama, who opposed the act, would use civilian courts and military courts-martial to try the detainees.

The court ruling, combined with the candidates’ more reasonable approach, should end an embarrassing chapter and return the U.S. to a country of rights.