Prisoners without Trials – Blumner: Treatment of Guantanamo prisoners unprecedented in U.S.
In the 1660s, England’s Lord Clarendon was in the habit of sending prisoners to remote islands and military garrisons in order to put them out of reach of the due process protections afforded by English courts. For these misdeeds, Clarendon was impeached, and in 1679 Parliament passed the Habeas Corpus Act, which made it illegal to ship prisoners away to deprive them of their rights.
It appears the Bush administration never got that memo.
Just an “oh ho!” moment after following up on a detail from This American Life’s feature today on Guantanamo, habeas corpus, and Lord Clarendon, that old rat-bastard.
Of course, it won’t be recognized as a precedent from US law, but then habeas corpus is a British concept anyway, so… it’s a fantasy, and not terribly reality-based of me to think of tar, feathers, and that incompetent rancher from Crawford in the same thought.
