October 09, 2007
Judicial Jackassery update
It's an article of faith amongst American leftists that the United States is the biggest violator of human rights in the history (or is that herstory?) of the world, and the military prison at Gitmo where Muslim terrorists are held is the worst of the worst, a veritable black hole of purported torture, rudeness and Koran-abuse.
So, you'd think that a member of the pointy-headed, pseudo-intellectual, America-hating elite (aka, a federal judge) would be overjoyed at the thought of a poor, profiled and oppressed jihadi being released from his extra-constitutional prison and returned to his rightful place in the exotically ethnic, untainted-by-Western-Christianist-ideals Third-World paradise from whence he came.
But then you hadn't figured for the x factor: judicial jackassery.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A federal judge in Washington blocked the Pentagon from transferring a Guantanamo Bay detainee to Tunisia, where he allegedly faces torture, according to a ruling unsealed Tuesday that marked a milestone in the treatment of detainees.
The order by U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler was unprecedented as a direct intervention in the case of a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, where some 330 men accused of links to Al Qaeda or the Taliban are held, the detainee's lawyers said.
"It's the first time the judiciary has given a detainee any substantive right — in this case it is the right not to be tortured by the Tunisian government," said Joshua Denbeaux, the lawyer for Mohammed Abdul Rahman, the Tunisian detainee.
Kessler said that Rahman, who has a heart condition, was convicted in absentia in Tunisia, sentenced to 20 years in prison and allegedly would face torture there, demonstrating "the devastating and irreparable harm he is likely to face if transferred."
In the Oct. 2 ruling kept under seal until Tuesday, Kessler granted a preliminary injunction to halt the Defense Department's move to transfer Rahman to Tunisia. He was captured in Pakistan and allegedly handed over for a bounty.
The judge issued the halt to Rahman's transfer pending a decision by the Supreme Court on detainee rights at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.
The high court has been asked to determine whether Guantanamo detainees can use civilian courts to challenge their indefinite imprisonment under an age-old right known as habeas corpus. The justices twice before have ruled that suspected terrorists could pursue such challenges in civilian courts, but each time, the Bush administration and Congress, then under Republican control, changed the law to try to limit the detainees' rights.
In her ruling, Kessler said "it is imperative" that her court "protect its jurisdiction until the Supreme Court issues a definitive ruling."
Yeah, it's "imperative" that we retain jurisdiction over this terrorist turd, so he can avoid some old-school justice back in the old country.
Well whattay know? Suddenly there seems to be worse places to be be incarcerated than the Navy brig at Gitmo. At least in the eyes of Judge Kessler, self-appointed guardian of the welfare of brigands and cutthroats who would saw her head off and post the video on the internet if given the chance.
Will no member of the executive or legislative branch stand in the path of the runaway judicial juggernaut and cry, "Enough!"?
Pres. Bush, the commander in chief, should order this thug onto a military transport forthwith and deliver him unto his Tunisian brethren.
Once Muhammed is airborne, he should follow the lead of Pres. Andrew Jackson -- who resolved his own dispute with the judiciary by ignoring a high court ruling, saying, "The Supreme Court has made its decision, now let them enforce it." -- and tell Kessler and her brethren to piss off.
Posted by Mike Lief at October 9, 2007 09:21 PM
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