Below The Beltway

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Bush Administration’s plans to try so-called “enemy combatants” held at Guantanamo Bay under military tribunals is unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court today delivered a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration over its plans to try Guantanamo detainees before military commissions, ruling that the commissions are unconstitutional.

In a 5-3 decision, the court said the trials were not authorized under U.S. law or the Geneva Conventions. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion in the case, called Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. recused himself from the case.

The ruling, which overturned a federal appeals court decision in which Roberts had participated, represented a defeat for President Bush, who had ordered military trials for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay naval base. About 450 detainees captured in the war on terrorism are currently held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

Details regarding the Court’s ruling can be found at ScotusBlog, which has this summary up this morning:

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Congress did not take away the Court’s authority to rule on the military commissions’ validity, and then went ahead to rule that President Bush did not have authority to set up the tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and found the commissions illegal under both military justice law and the Geneva Convention. In addition, the Court concluded that the commissions were not authorized when Congress enacted the post-9/1l resolution authorizing a response to the terrorist attacks, and were not authorized by last year’s Detainee Treatment Act. The vote against the commissions and on the Court’s jurisdiction was 5-3, with the Chief Justice not taking part.

The Court expressly declared that it was not questioning the government’s power to hold Salim Ahmed Hamdan “for the duration of active hostilities” to prevent harm to innocent civilians. But, it said, “in undertaking to try Hamdan and subject him to criminal punishment, the Executive is bound to comply with the Rule of Law that prevails in this jurisdiction.”

If nothing else, the case is a major rebuke to Executive power in the Post-9/11 world:

The case was a major test of President Bush’s authority as commander in chief in during war. Bush has aggressively asserted the power of the government to capture, detain, and prosecute suspected terrorists in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

“The military commission at issue is not expressly authorized by any congressional act,” said Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority. The tribunals, he said, “must be understood to incorporate at least the barest of those trial protections that have been recognized by customary international law.”

“In undertaking to try Hamdan and subject him to criminal punishment, the executive (Bush) is bound to comply with the rule of law that prevails in this jurisdiction,” Stevens said.

More reaction and analysis below the fold

There will be much discussion of this ruling in the hours and days ahead, and I hardly consider myself sufficiently qualified in Constitutional Law to comment on this without reading more. Initially, though, I think there is significance in the fact that Court specifically stated that it was not ruling on the President’s authority to hold suspected terrorists without trial. What it appears to be saying is that, if they are going to be tried, they have to be tried in a manner consistent with American and International Law. That makes sense to me.

One possible area of wiggle-room for the Bush Administration can be found in Justice Breyer’s opinion, which is summarized at ScotusBlog

Justice Breyer, joined by Ginsburg, Kennedy and Souter, wrote separately to answer the dissenters’ complaint that the ruling would hamper the President’s ability to deal with a new and deadly enemy. The Court’s conclusion, Breyer said, “ultimately rests upon a single ground: Congress has not issued the Executive a ‘blank check.’…Indeed, Congress has denied the President the legislative auhority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here. Nothing prevents the President from returning to Congress tgo seek the authority he believes necessary.” The Breyer opinion included a mini-lecture on the virtue of presidential consultation with Congress, at least “where, as here, no emergency prevents” such consultation. “The Constitution places its faith in those democratic means. Our Court today simply does the same.”

Whether Congress would grant such authority, of course, is another questions.

More coverage at Outside The Beltway, Michelle Malkin, and Andrew Sullivan