I'm surprised. The Supreme Court has actually ruled that the Geneva Conventions matter, and that even the pResident has to comply with the law of the land.
Imagine that!
The SCOTUS blog says this is HUGE.
New York Times snippets:
Supreme Court Blocks Trials at Guantánamo
The Supreme Court today delivered a sweeping rebuke to the Bush administration, ruling that the military tribunals it created to try terror suspects violate both American military law and the Geneva Conventions.
As a result, the court said in a 5-to-3 ruling, the tribunals violated both American military law and the military's obligations under the Geneva Conventions.
...[T]he reasoning adopted by the majority called into question the justification Mr. Bush has used for other programs that have come under Congressional scrutiny, like the warrantless wiretapping conducted by the National Security Agency.
"Nothing prevents the president from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in his own concurring opinion. ..
Neal Kaytal, a professor at Georgetown University Law School who also represented Mr. Hamdan, called the ruling a "rebuke" to a system of "fake courts." He said that the court had left it up to Congress to address the question of whether terror suspects should be treated differently from people charged with other crimes.
"But the court has said that our fundamental values are at stake," he said, arguing that the ruling should be seen as a "caution to those who would rush in."
Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, which represents more than 200 Guantánamo inmates, said ... "What this says to the administration is that you can no longer decide arbitrarily what you want to do with people. It upheld the rule of law in this country and determined that the executive has gone beyond the constitution and international law."
The Opinion
Hat tip to Alternate Brain
Guantánamo Bush Constitution SOTUS Supreme Court Hamdan Geneva Conventions Scalia