Legal Significance
The Hamdi decision reaffirmed the importance of separation of powers among the branches of the government, and, in particular, the role of the judiciary in reviewing actions of the executive branch infringing the rights of citizens even in emergencies. After the American Civil War, the Supreme Court prohibited military detention of noncombatant Americans without appeal or writ of habeas corpus, as long as the courts were functioning, the difference with this case being that the Supreme Court waited until the War was over to decide the case. A 1971 law condemned the detention of Japanese-Americans without legal recourse during World War II and prohibited the imprisonment of American citizens except pursuant to an act of Congress.
The Bush administration claimed that U.S. law does not apply to "illegal enemy combatants" and, furthermore, the Bush administration asserted the right to decide which U.S. citizens are "enemy combatants," ineligible for protection of their rights as enshrined in the United States Constitution.
Some legal scholars hailed the Supreme Court decision as the most important civil rights opinion in a half-century and a dramatic reversal of the sweeping authority asserted by the White House after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Read more about this topic: Yaser Esam Hamdi
Famous quotes containing the words legal and/or significance:
“Hawkins: The will is not exactly in proper legal phraseology. Richard: No: my father died without the consolations of the law.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)