Friday, April 22, 2011

"Remedy is the guts of the judicial power. The rest is book reports."

Per CharleyCarp's suggestion in comments, here is Sabin Willett on what the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court have done to his clients and to the rule of law. A snippet:
In the end it wasn’t about enemies at all. For it was the Uighurs, of all people, upon whom the court house door at last was shut. With so much talk of Palau, people forget that when Judge Urbina ruled — when the stay entered, when Kiyemba I was decided — there was no Palau. And that decision is reinstated. So the options are irrelevant. No judge can order release in any place where his orders have effect. Whatever his view of the law of war, a reader of this blog must wince, a little, at the idea that the judicial power consists of being reassured by the jailer that the jailer will attend to his own unlawful act — at the idea that what controls a judicial remedy is not law, but the politics of Yemen, of Bermuda, of Obamacare, of the New Hampshire Primary. The court can do no more than accept the President’s representation that he is attempting to arrange an “appropriate” resettlement. Imagine that representation from, say, President Trump. Will we call that a judicial remedy?
Read the whole thing. If "Uighurs" makes you go "huh?" try Wikipedia.

4 comments:

  1. Charley's right unless the picture on this page is really, really misleading.

    But man, oh man, that's a great bit of writing, beginning to end. A eulogy for habeas corpus and my understanding of our core commitments.

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  2. Aren't we beyond genders now?

    ... Fixed. The post, I mean.

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  3. (Sabin and his lovely wife came out to visit us last summer. Yes, he talks like that too.)

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