Monday, January 31, 2005

Federal Judge Rules Against Guantanamo Confinements

From NBC News this afternoon....

"A federal judge ruled Monday that some foreign terror suspects held in Cuba can challenge their confinement in U.S. courts and she criticized the Bush administration for holding hundreds of people indefinitely as 'enemy combatants,' saying that doing so unconstitutionally violates their right to due process.

U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green, handling claims filed by more than 50 detainees, said the U.S. Supreme Court made clear last year that the prisoners have constitutional rights that lower courts should enforce.

'The petitioners have stated valid claims under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution that the procedures implemented by the government to confirm that the petitioners are 'enemy combatants' subject to indefinite detention violate the petitioners' rights to due process of law,' Green wrote in her 75-page opinion (requires Adobe Acrobat)."

At last, thank God. My only question is....what took our judicial system so long?

No comments: