George Bush is reported this morning as hailing the signing of the Military Commissions Act into law as the one of the most successful steps in the fight against terrorism.
George Bush and Phillip Ruddock, and that ilk, may be happy with the Act but not so lawyers and civil libertarians. As the Center for Constitutional Rights in the US states:
"The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) denounced President Bush's signing into law of the Military Commissions Act (MCA) on October 17, 2006. The final version of the bill emerged only four days before the Senate's 11th hour vote. Although President Bush declared that "time was of the essence" when he called for the legislation, he has waited nearly two weeks to sign it into law. Congress has once again been cowed into doing the President's bidding and abdicated their Constitutional powers in the process, say attorneys.
The new law strips the right of non-citizens to seek review of their detention by a court through the filing of a writ of habeas corpus, the venerated legal instrument that for centuries has protected people from arbitrary detention, disappearance and indefinite detention without charge. The Act is also meant to erase the hundreds of habeas corpus petitions that CCR and others have brought on behalf of many of the 450 men being held at Guantánamo Bay, a move already once denied by the Supreme Court."
Read the full Statement by the CCR here.
George Bush and Phillip Ruddock, and that ilk, may be happy with the Act but not so lawyers and civil libertarians. As the Center for Constitutional Rights in the US states:
"The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) denounced President Bush's signing into law of the Military Commissions Act (MCA) on October 17, 2006. The final version of the bill emerged only four days before the Senate's 11th hour vote. Although President Bush declared that "time was of the essence" when he called for the legislation, he has waited nearly two weeks to sign it into law. Congress has once again been cowed into doing the President's bidding and abdicated their Constitutional powers in the process, say attorneys.
The new law strips the right of non-citizens to seek review of their detention by a court through the filing of a writ of habeas corpus, the venerated legal instrument that for centuries has protected people from arbitrary detention, disappearance and indefinite detention without charge. The Act is also meant to erase the hundreds of habeas corpus petitions that CCR and others have brought on behalf of many of the 450 men being held at Guantánamo Bay, a move already once denied by the Supreme Court."
Read the full Statement by the CCR here.
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