I’ve been wandering around legal blogs trying to get a grip on what today’s SCOTUS decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld means, and I find this conclusion one of the more interesting ones. The key to understanding Hamdan is that the Court did not tell the President that he could under no circumstances create military tribunals …
Today the Supreme Court said military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees are illegal, violating both US law and the Geneva Conventions. The case raised core constitutional principles of separation of powers as well as fundamental issues of individual rights. Specifically, the questions concerned: The power of Congress and the executive to strip the federal courts and …