Comment Of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.),

Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee,

On Supreme Court Ruling In Boumediene v. Bush
June 12, 2008

 

There is nothing more fundamental than the right of habeas corpus.  In three separate decisions, the Supreme Court in recent years has rejected this administration’s erosion of fundamental rights.  These protections set the United States apart from those who wish to harm us.  This decision echoes earlier court opinions that have solidified our constitutional system of checks and balances.  The administration has rolled back essential rights that have long guided our nation’s conscience. 

 

Today’s Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush is a stinging rebuke of the Bush administration’s flawed detention policies, and a vindication for those who have also argued from the beginning that it was unwise as well as unconstitutional. 

 

A majority of the Court has ruled that provisions in the 2006 Military Commissions Act designed to strip away all habeas rights for detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center are unconstitutional.  The Court has ruled that the Constitutional right to habeas corpus extends to territories, including Guantanamo Bay, where the United States exercises de facto control.  The Court further held that the administration’s detention procedures were constitutionally inadequate, and that those detainees who have been determined to be “unlawful enemy combatants” are entitled to seek habeas relief in Federal court.

 

The Court’s 5-4 decision sustains the long-held and bipartisan beliefs that I and others have always maintained: Congress made a grave error when, for the first time in its history, it voted to strip habeas corpus rights, instead leaving in place hopelessly flawed procedures to determine whether detainees can be held indefinitely with no meaningful court review merely by the Executive’s decree.

 

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