Boumediene v. Bush: Why It Was a Great Victory

Boumediene v. Bush is one of the most important Supreme Court decisions in recent years.^[1] The Court held by a 5–4 vote that aliens detained as enemy combatants in Guantánamo have a constitutional right to challenge their detention in American courts. The decision frees none of them, some of whom have been held without trial for six years, but it makes it possible for them to argue to a federal district court judge that the administration has no factual or legal ground for imprisoning them. If that judge is persuaded, he must order their release. American law has never before recognized that aliens imprisoned by the United States abroad have such rights. The disgrace of Guantánamo has produced a landmark change in our constitutional practice.

The case raised complex constitutional issues that I must describe, but the principle the Court vindicated is simple and clear. Since before Magna Carta, Anglo-American law has insisted that anyone imprisoned has the right to require his jailor to show a justification in a court of law. (The technical device through which this right is exercised is called a writ of habeas corpus. Addressed to the jailor, it announces that he has custody of a certain person's body and demands that he justify that custody.)