Military thinks the tribunal system is a crock 'o crap too

[Bullypulpit]

<blockquote>The government’s new system for trying Guantánamo detainees was thrown into turmoil Monday, when military judges in separate decisions dismissed war crimes charges against two of the detainees.

The rulings, the latest legal setbacks for the government’s effort to bring war crimes charges against detainees, could stall the military’s prosecutions here.

The decisions did not turn on the guilt or innocence of the detainees, but rather made essentially the same determination that the military had not followed procedures to declare the detainees “unlawful enemy combatants,” which is required for the military commission to hear the cases.

Pentagon officials described the rulings as raising technical and semantic issues, and said that they were considering appeals. If appeals failed, they said, they could go through the process of redesignating the detainees.

But military lawyers said the rulings exposed a flaw that would affect every other potential war-crimes case here. And the rulings brought immediate calls, including from some on Capitol Hill, for Congress to re-examine the system it set up last year for military commission trials and, perhaps, to consider other changes in the legal treatment of Guantánamo detainees.

In an interview, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said after the first of the two rulings Monday that the decision raised significant issues and could prompt Congress to re-evaluate the legal rights of detainees, including Congress’s decision last year to revoke the rights of detainees to file habeas corpus suits to challenge their detentions. - <a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/world/americas/05gitmo.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=print>The New York Times</a></blockquote>

It seems that the Bush administration failed to differentiate between 'lawful' and 'unlawful' enemy combatants, being that the Military Commissions Act specifically limits the tribunals to hearing the cases of 'unlawful' combatants. Turns out that the two men named in the two separate cases in which the charges were dismissed were 'lawful' combatants.

Of course, this ruling helps highlight the fact that the basis of jurisprudence in America is the rule of law, not Presidential decree, a notion the Bush administration is particularly resistant to.

 

[Bullypulpit]

bump

 

[Gunny]

bump

Obviously your thread title doesn't quite add up to the article. The two detainees got their due process and were released. That's the way it's supposed to work.

 

[Bullypulpit]

Obviously your thread title doesn't quite add up to the article. The two detainees got their due process and were released. That's the way it's supposed to work.

They haven't been released yet pending appeal by the Bush administration. Just coincidentally, the appeals board set up by the Military Commissions Act has yet to be empaneled.

 

[Gunny]

They haven't been released yet pending appeal by the Bush administration. Just coincidentally, the appeals board set up by the Military Commissions Act has yet to be empaneled.

There is no "appeals board" in the military judicial system. All decisions as well as appeals automatically go for review to the next higher-up in the chain of command.

I have no problem with detaining suspected terrorists/enemy combatants in GTMO, but if the tribunal says there's no case against them, they need to kick them free and move on to the next case.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

There is no "appeals board" in the military judicial system. All decisions as well as appeals automatically go for review to the next higher-up in the chain of command.

I have no problem with detaining suspected terrorists/enemy combatants in GTMO, but if the tribunal says there's no case against them, they need to kick them free and move on to the next case.

Well except the Tribunal made no such finding. What it DID find is the Government failed to classify the defendents according to the requirements of the Tribunal to judge them. Leaving it to the Government to either classify them properly OR release them.

This provides the evidence that the Tribunals are NOT Kangaroo courts nor political courts. They are serious about what they do and the authority under which they can operate.