The Basic Truth of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Sometimes a man gets it just right. From Salim Ahmed Hamdan’s lawyer in the navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps:
Justice is based on a simple idea: it can happen to you.
— Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift
quoted by Marie Brenner, “Taking on Guantánamo”
(Vanity Fair, March 2007)
In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court of the United States found for Hamdan and against the defendants, holding that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try detainees at Guantánamo Bay “violate both the UCMJ [Uniform Code of Military Justice] and the four Geneva Conventions.”
Coincidentally passed over for promotion, Swift must retire under the navy’s “up or out” promotion system.
Read more about Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
Read the Hamdan summary on SCOTUSblog.
An up-to-date summary from the Council on Foreign Relations — Guantanamo: Confessions and Questions.
tags: human rights guantanamo guantánamo supreme court of the united states
