January 25, 2008 12:03 am
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The Associated Press
NORMAN, Okla. — The U.S. Supreme Court is working to balance the civil liberties of individuals with national security in the age of terrorism when they take up legal cases brought by foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Justice Stephen Breyer said Thursday.
Breyer said federal judges and their counterparts in other nations are struggling to preserve the civil liberties of suspected terrorists held by military and law enforcement authorities while also protecting the public from possible terrorist attacks.
“They are all having this kind of problem,” Breyer said during a public appearance at the University of Oklahoma College of Law.
The U.S. military is holding about 300 men at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, and many have been there for nearly six years. The administration opened the detention facility shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to hold enemy combatants, or people suspected of ties to al-Qaida or the Taliban.
The high court has twice ruled that people held at Guantanamo Bay without charges can go into civilian courts to seek their freedom. Each time, the administration and Congress, then controlled by Republicans, has changed the law to try to close the courthouse doors to the detainees.
In a case decided in 2006, detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who once was the driver for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, brought a successful challenge to the military commission system created by President Bush following the terror attacks.
Breyer compared legal issues surrounding detainees to those raised by the relocation of Japanese-Americans to internment camps in 1942 following the outbreak of World War II. In 1944, the Supreme Court said it was permissible to curtail the civil rights of a racial group when there is a pressing public necessity.
Breyer said his comments about the detainees were not a reference to any case currently pending before the court. Last month, the court heard oral arguments in a case that could determine whether detainees receive prompt hearings that might result in freedom for some or face many more months, even years, of legal proceedings and imprisonment.
Speaking to students, judges and others, including former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Breyer said a judge’s power to interpret the Constitution has long been settled in the U.S. and that the public and officials who are not judges have accepted their obligation to follow the rule of law.
The strength of court orders was reinforced following the 1954 Brown vs. the Board of Education decision in which the Supreme Court said separate schools were inherently unequal, Breyer said.
When former Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus ordered National Guard troops to stop black students from attending Little Rock’s Central High School, President Dwight Eisenhower sent elements of the 101st Airborne Division to Arkansas to protect the black students and enforce the Supreme Court’s order.
“That was a great victory for law, a great day for the United States,” Breyer said. “It is a victory for the rule of law.”
Over the years, the public has become more accepting of their obligation to follow court orders — even those they vehemently disagree with, Breyer said.
“Will people do it? The answer is yes,” he said. “People understand the importance of it.”
Breyer’s appearance was part of investiture ceremonies for Judge Robert Henry as chief judge of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
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