Three Strikes & You're Out, Mr. Bush

In yet another blow to the Bush administration's torture regime, the Supreme Court ruled today that terrorism suspects at the Guantánamo Bay branch of the Rumsfeld Gulag have constitutional rights and can appeal their cases to civilian courts.

The 5-4 vote, with liberal justices in the majority, was the third setback handed the Bush administration by the top court over the treatment of prisoners who are being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba and sought to balance personal liberties and national security concerns.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times." Translation: Habeas corpus cannot be suspended at the whim of the president.

It was not immediately clear whether this ruling would lead to prompt hearings for the detainees, some who have been held more than six years. The White House basically stonewalled after the first two rulings and with the president becoming a lamer duck with every passing day there is little motivation to do the court's bidding. Besides which, it is probable that Guantánamo will be closed if Barack Obama is the next president.

Roughly 270 men remain at the island prison, classified as enemy combatants and held on suspicion of terrorism or links to Al Qaida and the Taliban. It has been harshly criticized at home and abroad for the detentions themselves and the aggressive interrogations that were conducted there.

The court said not only that the detainees have rights under the Constitution, but that the system the administration has put in place to classify them as enemy combatants and review those decisions is inadequate,

The administration had argued that the detainees have no rights, but later backed off somewhat in contending that the classification and review process put in place for them was a sufficient substitute for the civilian court hearings that the detainees have long sought.

In dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts criticized his colleagues for striking down what he called "the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants."

Lyle Denniston, the dean of Supreme Court correspondent, writes at SCOTUSBlog that the ruling is huge, but notes that:

"The Court stressed that it was not ruling that the detainees are entitled to be released — that is, entitled to have writs issued to end their confinement. That issue, it said, is left to the District Court judges who will be hearing the challenges. The Court also said that 'we do not address whether the President has authority to detain' individuals during the war on terrorism, and hold them at the U.S. Naval base in Cuba; that, too, it said, is to be considered first by the District judges."

Guantánamo is considered to be U.S. territory and the ruling did not apply to detainees held elsewhere.

More here.