The thing that's most amazing is that the Bush administration and the Republican congress tried extra hard to get this case out of the courts. The Republicans even passed legislation last year trying to take away the rights of the combattants to go to court:
The Bush administration has tried to scuttle the case on grounds that the new law stripped the justices' authority to consider it. The law passed late last year bars Guantanamo prisoners from filing petitions to fight their detentions, and the administration claims this law retroactively voided hundreds of lawsuits.A government that routinely tries to take away our rights based on the theory "what do you have to hide?" needs to be asked the same question. In a democracy, it's not quite clear why the Republicans and their friends on the religious right are always so afraid of the courts finding what they do to be illegal and/or unconstitutional. Unless of course, so much of what they propose is just that, un-American and illegal.
Justice David H. Souter said it would be "stupendously significant" for Congress to retroactively close courts to constitutional challenges.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said "it's an extraordinary act, I think, to withdraw jurisdiction from this court in a pending case."
