Two Federal courts, in separate decisions, addressed the issue of government
power versus individual rights.
The New York ruling in the case of Jose Padilla, the so-called "dirty
bomb" suspect, is a sharp rebuke to the US detention of hundreds of alleged
terrorists imprisoned without legal recourse on the grounds that they are unlawful "enemy
combatants". The court ruled that the president had no constitutional
authority "to detain as an enemy combatant an American citizen seized
on American soil outside a zone of combat".
Mr Padilla, a US citizen, was arrested in May 2002 in Chicago and has spent
18 months imprisoned at a South Carolina military base without access to
a lawyer.
The court ruled that the detention overstepped Mr Bush's constitutional
authority and that Congress had in no way authorised the president to declare
US citizens to be enemy combatants. [Court
rules Bush has no power to hold suspect]
While expunging citizens' rights by simply calling citizens a name,
as above, is a relatively clear constitutional issue and the administration
is on the wrong side of it, "The Bush administration said it would seek
a stay of the court ruling."
The second case isn't that simple.
Hours later, the U.S. Ninth Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco ruled also
2-1 that the Bush administration lacked authority to imprison foreign "enemy
combatants" indefinitely.
The court said indefinite detention was inconsistent with U.S. law and raised
serious concerns under international law.
"The two cases are different. It's questionable whether people captured
during a war in Afghanistan are entitled to any of the protections of the
U.S. Constitution," said
Robert Levy, a constitutional expert with the libertarian Cato Institute. [Court
Decisions Show Legal Backlash to Bush]
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