Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Roots of Habeas

Lots of us were stunned last week when Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez told a Senate committee that nothing in the Constitution guaranteed the right to habeas corpus (in other words, to petition a court to require the Government to explain why they're holding you in custody). The Constitution, after all, plainly lays out the limitations on suspending habeas corpus, so the right must exist in absence of that suspension, correct? Or could the AG be right, even if just technically? Jack Balkin, with more depth than I'm able to muster, provides the answer - no.

1 comment:

jedijawa said...

That's quite a statement!