The federal courts finally are starting to repair the damage to American prestige wrought by the Bush administration's skirting of the law in its pursuit of terror suspects overseas.
In ordering the release of 17 Chinese separatists from the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center, a federal judge said he hoped to "shine the light of constitutionality on the reasons for detention."
It's about time the hundreds of Guantanamo detainees were accorded the basic legal rights granted any American under arrest.
Even in the midst of a race for the White House, where the Republican vice presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, cynically dismissed reading terror suspects their rights, a federal judge correctly reasserted a core American ideal: This is a nation of laws, and the Constitution doesn't permit jailing people indefinitely without charge.
The order, issued Tuesday by U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo M. Urbina in Washington, is the first step toward fulfilling the promise of the recent historic ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. Following the Bush administration's years-long detention of suspects picked up in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, the high court in June granted detainees the right to challenge their captivity in the federal courts.
At almost every turn, the courts have rebuked the Bush administration's trampling of the Constitution in its zealous pursuit of terror suspects. History books may well liken this misguided episode to the Japanese internment camps after Pearl Harbor. Judge Urbina's ruling restores a fundamental tenet of justice for anyone imprisoned here.
The plight of the Chinese separatists - members of the Uighur Muslim minority in western China - is particularly egregious. The 17 were among others swept up in Afghanistan in 2001 in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. They were held without charge, although five other Uighurs were transferred abroad two years ago. The 17 remained in Cuba because no country would accept them, and they couldn't be sent home to China for fear of reprisals.
That created a Twilight Zone situation - not being released because there's nowhere for them to go. In stepped Judge Urbina, who is trying to end the Catch-22 with his order that the detainees be released to live in the Uighur community in this country, around the Washington area.
Bold move? Risky? Well, the judge listened to both sides and determined the Uighurs pose no threat. His order sensibly calls for monitoring them. The ruling, in effect, grants the detainees legal-immigrant status - a move that administration lawyers argue is beyond Urbina's power. Perhaps. But if the Bush administration had a case, it had plenty of time to prosecute.
Indeed, the administration created the mess that has resulted in the aliens staying in the United States. But it would have been a travesty to deport them after keeping them in prison for years with no charges.
This ruling rights that wrong.