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Update II : Good rundown at HotAir: Held: Bush overstepped authority; Geneva Conventions apply

Update: SCOTUSblog Summary: The Court appears to have held that Common Article 3 of Geneva aplies to the conflict against Al Qaeda.

—- END UPDATE —-

The Supreme Court invalidated Guantanamo Bay military tribunals today. This is unquestionably a blow against the war on terror.

We will have to wait for the full impact. I hear that Justice Bryers cited international law (no surprise).

The vote was 5-3 because Chief Justice Roberts recused himself due to a previous ruling he had on a related case. Anthony Kennedy and Souter voted in line with the liberals on the court.

This decision will give the terrorists due process rights that they didn’t previously have. This is a sure victory for the left who want the war prosecuted in the courts.

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Congress did not take away the Court’s authority to rule on the military commissions’ validity, and then went ahead to rule that President Bush did not have authority to set up the tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and found the “military commissions” illegal under both military justice law and the Geneva Convention. The vote was 5-3, with the Chief Justice not taking part.

The Court expressly declared that it was not questioning the government’s power to hold Salim Ahmed Hamdan “for the duration of active hostilities” to prevent harm to innocent civilians. But, it said, “in undertaking to try Hamdan and subject him to criminal punishment, the Executive is bound to comply with the Rule of Law that prevails in this jurisdiction.” – SCOTUSblog

Andrew McCarthy wrote the following pre-mortem before the decision:

For pre-mortem, though, I’ve been poking around, and it seems like there’s a prevailing view that if — as expected — the decision comes out in favor of Hamdan, the theory will be that al Qaeda does have Geneva Convention protections.

Make no mistake: if this happens, the Supreme Court will have dictated that we now have a treaty with al Qaeda — which no President, no Senate, and no vote of the American people would ever countenance. (Compare this.) The Constitution consigns treaty-making to the political branches, not the courts, but a conclusion that Geneva protects Hamdan (and, by extension, his fellow savages) would ominously mean that the courts, under the conveniently malleable guise of “customary international law” can rewrite treaties to mean whatever they like them to mean.

More at The Corner

Michelle Malkin : ‘SCOTUS WATCH: BRACING FOR HAMDAN’

Stop the ACLU: Supreme Court Rules 5-3: No Military Tribunals, Bush Overstepped Authority

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