Separation of Powers

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Separation of Powers

Posted at 11:22am on Jun. 12, 2008 Dear President Bush: Defy this Opinion

By Leon H Wolf

“The latter would permit a striking anomaly in our tripartite system of government, leading to a regime in which Congress and the President, not this Court, say what the law is.”

-Justice Anthony Kennedy

According to the United States Constitution, Article III section 2:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

On two separate occasions now, the United States Congress has duly enacted painstakingly specific laws to lawfully and Constitutionally strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction to hear cases involving non-citizens currently detained outside of sovereign territory held by the United States. As Dan McLaughlin has noted, today the Supreme Court purports to ignore this clear limitation on its own authority to even hear the case before it (which by law has been confined to the CADC) and issue an opinion declaring the act which removed their jurisdiction unconstitutional. Savor the irony for a moment, if you will.

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