With the approval of Congress and no outcry from corporate media, the Military Commissions Act (MCA) signed by Bush on the 17th October 2006, ushered in military commission law for U.S. citizens and non citizens alike. Although the media, including the lead editorial in the New York Times 19th October, due to the false comfort that we, as American citizens, will not be victims of draconian measures legalized by this Act, such as military roundups and life-long detention with no rights or constitutional protections, Robert Parry points to text in the MCA, which provides a military alternative to the constitutional justice system for "any person" regardless of American citizenship. MCA effectively eliminate habeas corpus rights for "any person" arbitrarily deemed "enemy state". the court about who is considered "enemy combatant" is solely at the discretion of President Bush.
the oldest human right defined in the history of English-speaking civilization is the real challenge government forces arrest and detention through the use of habeas corpus laws, considered to be the most critical parts of the Magna Carta, signed by King John in the 1215th
Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist # 84 in August 1788:
establish a decision on habeas corpus are perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any it [the Constitution] contains. practice of arbitrary arrests, in all age groups, the favorite and most difficult instruments of tyranny. observations reasonably [British eighteenth-century legal scholar] Blackstone, in relation to the other, are well worthy of the concert:
"To rob a man of life, " he says, "or violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must immediately communicate the alarm of tyranny throughout the nation, but the confinement person who secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, less striking, and therefore more dangerous engine of arbitrary government ."
While it is true that some parts of the MCA target non-citizens, other sections clearly apply to U.S. citizens, as well, putting citizens inside the same tribunal system with non-citizen residents and foreigners.
Section 950q of the MCA states that: "Any person is punishable as a principal under this chapter [the MCA] who commits a criminal offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, encourages, advice, orders, or purchase your commission. "
Section 950v. "crimes triable by military commission" (26) in the MCA seems to specifically target American citizens by stating that "Any person subject to this chapter who, in contravention of allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States, or one of the co -belligerents of the enemy, shall be punished as a military commission under this chapter may direct ."
"Who, " warns Parry, "is" allegiance or duty in the United States, if not a U.S. citizen? "
Besides allowing "any person" to swallow Bush's system, the law prohibits detainees from the trust in a traditional American courts until after prosecution and verdict, which could translate into an indefinite imprisonment since there is no timetable for Bush's tribunal process to play.
Section 950j law further states that a person deprived of liberty ", not withstanding any other provision of law (including section 2241 title 28 or any other habeas corpus provision) no court, justice or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause of action at all concerning the prosecution, trial, or sentencing of a military commission under this chapter, including challenges to the lawfulness of procedures of military commissions. "1
Other constitutional protections in the Bill of Rights, such as a speedy trial, right to reasonable bail and the ban on "cruel and unusual punishment," it seems out of reach of prisoners, as well.
Parry warns that "In fact, what the new law seems to do is to create a parallel 'star chamber' system for the persecution, imprisonment and possible execution of enemies of the state, whether those enemies are foreign or domestic.
"Under the guise of setting up military tribunals to try al-Qaeda suspects and other so-called unlawful enemy combatants, Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress effectively created a parallel legal system for 'any person'-American citizen or otherwise, that exceeds some ill-defined line ."
In one of the most chilling public statements ever made by an American lawyer, Alberto Gonzales opined at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on 18 Siječanj 2007, "The Constitution does not say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas corpus. It does not say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended ."
is more important than its sophomoric nature, Parry warns, is that Gonzales statement suggests he is still looking for arguments to make habeas corpus optional, subordinate to the executive authority to President Bush's neoconservative legal advisers claim are virtually unlimited during "time of war. "
0 comments:
Post a Comment