花兔子的……

导语：近年来，关塔那摩监狱不断有疑犯以自杀或绝食等方式表示对关押的抗议。美国最高法院于星期四第三次拒绝了布什总统关于外国囚犯仍然需要由美国在古巴的关塔那摩监狱关押的政策，判决认为人们有权在联邦审判前寻求自由。大法官们指出宪法授予人民人身保护令的特权，所以这些外国人不能在没有任何指控下关押6年。法庭上，法官们分裂为两派观点，但最终以5票赞成，4票反对的微差通过了此判决。对此判决，关塔那摩监狱的嫌疑犯们赞其为法治的胜利；布什总统表示他遵从此决议，但仍然强烈地支持反对意见者；民主党候选人奥巴马也表赞同，而其对手共和党的麦凯恩仍对此判决质疑。但是这次的判决并不代表许多疑犯可被释放，并且还有很多其它相关事宜有待讨论并解决。

Guantanamo detainees have constitutional rights, Supreme Court says

By David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 13, 2008

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected for the third time President Bush's policy of holding foreign prisoners under exclusive control of the military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ruling that the men have a right to seek their freedom before a federal judge.
The justices said the Constitution from the beginning enshrined the "privilege of habeas corpus" -- or the right to go before a judge -- as one of the safeguards of liberty. And that right extends even to foreigners captured in the war on terrorism, the high court said, particularly when they have been held for as long as six years without charges.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court majority: "The detainees in these cases are entitled to a prompt habeas corpus hearing. . . . Within the Constitution's separation-of-powers structure, few exercises of judicial power are as legitimate or as necessary as the responsibility to hear challenges to the authority of the executive to imprison a person."
The court was narrowly split, 5 to 4. The dissenters accused the majority of meddling in a wartime matter better left to the president and the military.
The decision "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a dissent.
President Bush said he would abide by the decision but added: "It was a deeply divided court, and I strongly agree with those who dissented."
About 270 men are still held at Guantanamo. Fewer than 20 are now facing trial before a military commission, and about 60 are in the pipeline.
Thursday's ruling dealt only with the government's power to detain prisoners indefinitely. And though the detainees won a major victory, the ruling does not necessarily mean that many or most of them will go free. The court also left several issues unresolved, making it likely that the controversy will continue into the next presidential administration.
Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, praised the ruling: "This is an important step toward reestablishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus." He said the court had rejected Bush's "attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo."
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP candidate, said that he had not had a chance to read the opinion but that he questioned its reasoning. "These are unlawful combatants. They are not American citizens," he said. He added, however, that he favored closing the prison at Guantanamo.
The justices said the detainees are entitled to legal representation and a chance to rebut the evidence against them. But the court stopped short of deciding whether terrorism suspects can be held for as long as the government believes is necessary.
"It bears repeating that our opinion does not address the content of the law that governs [their] detention," Kennedy said. "That is a matter yet to be determined."
That issue figures to loom large in the years ahead. If Bush or his successor moves to shut down the prison at Guantanamo, the military will have to decide what to do with the prisoners, many of whom are seen as security risks who should not be released and sent home.
If the government wants to hold them, however, it will have to justify that continued detention before a federal judge. Eventually, the Supreme Court -- or perhaps Congress -- will have to decide whether American law permits the government to imprison indefinitely foreigners who are not convicted criminals but who are deemed too dangerous to free.
Representatives of the detainees hailed the decision Thursday as a victory for the rule of law. They said some of the detainees were wrongly picked up by bounty hunters in Afghanistan or Pakistan and turned over to U.S. troops.
"After more than six long and painful years, justice for our family members is finally within reach," said Khalid Odah, whose son Fawzi was a lead plaintiff in the case. He said that his son, a 31-year-old from Kuwait, had gone to Afghanistan in 2001 to teach and do charitable work but was captured by Pakistani bounty hunters after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
His attorney in Washington, David Cynamon, said he has been fighting to get the Kuwaitis a fair hearing before an independent judge. He called the high court's ruling "a powerful repudiation of the Bush administration's efforts to undermine the Constitution."
Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration decided to hold prisoners in the war on terrorism at a military base off the U.S. mainland. Officials believed this would shield them and the prisoners from judges.
But that calculation went awry. The Supreme Court, though closely split, has concluded three times now that the law and the authority of independent judges extend to Guantanamo Bay.
In 2004, the justices ruled in a 6-3 decision that existing laws gave the detainees a right to a hearing and a chance to appeal to a federal court.
In response, the Bush administration gave the detainees a closed hearing before three military officers. The administration also moved to try some of the detainees as war criminals under rules devised by the Pentagon. If found guilty, the prisoners could be executed.
Two years ago, the high court struck down these proposed military trials as flawed and illegal.
After that setback, the administration went to Congress, still under GOP control, and won a law authorizing trials through military commissions. The law also stripped all the foreign "enemy combatants" of their right to go to court via a writ of habeas corpus.
In Thursday's case, Boumediene vs. Bush, the court struck down that latter provision. The Constitution says: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."
The reach of the right to habeas corpus has remained unclear. Thursday's ruling did not finally answer that question, but the court concluded that Congress did not have the power to take away this right from people who are held for years by U.S. officials with no real chance to plead their innocence.
Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer joined with Kennedy in the majority.
In dissent, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. faulted the majority as overreaching. Two years ago, Congress gave the detainees a right to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, and he said the justices should have waited for that process to work.
"Today the court strikes down as inadequate the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants," he wrote. "The majority merely replaces a review system designed by the people's representatives with a set of shapeless procedures to be defined by federal courts at some future date."
Roberts asserted that the court's "ambitious opinion" meant Americans "today lose a bit more control over the conduct of this nation's foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges."
Justices Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. agreed with his dissent.
In a separate dissent, Scalia faulted the majority for extending "a constitutional right to habeas corpus on alien enemies detained abroad by our military forces in the course of an ongoing war. . . . The nation will live to regret what the court has done today." Roberts, Thomas and Alito joined his dissent as well.
In a related pair of rulings Thursday, the court said unanimously that American citizens who commit crimes in Iraq can be turned over to the Iraqis for trial and that they do not have a right to seek their freedom through a U.S. court. The cases were Munaf vs. Geren and Geren vs. Omar.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scotus13-2008jun13,0,2676802.story

Vocabulary

1. abide by：to conform to忠诚地遵守(法律等)；信守（条件，契约等）

2. address  v. to think about a problem or a situation and decide how you are going deal with it 设法解决，处理，对付

3. appeal  v. to make a formal request to a court of law or to sb in authority for a judgment or a decision to be charged上诉，申诉

4. awry adv. if sth goes awry, it does not happen in the way that was planned歪曲地,错误地,出岔子

5. bounty hunter: sb who catches criminals or kills people for a reward为得到赏金而抓捕罪犯（或去杀人）的人

6. calculation  n. the process of using your judgment to decide what the results would be of doing sth估计，预测，推测

7. closed  adj. limited to a particular group of people; not open to everyone只限于某些人的,不向公众开放的

8. combatant  n. one that is engaged in or ready to engage in combat战士，斗士

9. deem  v. to have a particular pinion about sth认为，相信，视为

10. dissent  v. to differ in opinion 不同意，持异议

11. enshrine  v. to preserve or cherish as sacred奉为神圣,珍藏

12. entitle  vt. to give the right to.给…权利，给…资格

13. execute  vt. to kill sb, esp. as a legal punishment (依法) 处决,处死

14. existing adj. found or used now 现存的，现行的

15. fault  v. to find a mistake or a weakness in sb or sth 发现错误，找出缺点

16. flawed  a. having a flaw; damaged or spoiled 有缺陷的,有错误的,有瑕疵的

17. habeas corpus  n. the right of a citizen to obtain a writ of habeas corpus as a protection against illegal imprisonment[U] 【法律】(又作 a writ of habeas corpus) 出庭传票; 人身保护令

18. hail  v.（…as…）to describe sb or sth as being very good or special, esp. in newspaper, etc.赞扬或称颂为……（尤其用于报纸）

19. hearing  n. an opportunity to explain your actions, ideas or opinions(行为，思想或意见的)解释机会，申辩机会

20. high court: the highest court in most states of the United States（美国）高等法院，高级法院

21. in the course of：during 在……期间

22. legitimate  a. accordant with law or with established legal forms and requirements合理的，合法的

23. loom large: to be worrying or frightening and seem hard to avoid 令人忧虑，令人惊恐（并似乎难以避免）

24. meddle  vt. to interfere without right or propriety干预，干涉

25. military commission：军事委员会

26. military forces: 军事力量，兵力

27. ongoing  adj. continuing to exist or develop 持续存在的，仍在进行的，不断发展的

28. overreach  v. to fail by trying to achieve more than is possible 贪功致败，自不量力，过头，过度延伸

29. pick up 拘捕,逮捕,捉捕

30. plaintiff  n. (law)a person who makes a formal complain against sb in a court of law［律］原告,起诉人

31. plead  v. to state in a court of law that you are guilty or not guilty of a crime（在法庭）辩护,申辩

32. presumptive  a. likely to be true, based on the facts that are available推断的,假定的

33. procedural  a. being a way of doing sth, esp. the usual or correct way程序上的

34. prompt  a. performed readily or immediately敏捷的，迅速的，即刻的

35. rebut  vt. to contradict or oppose by formal legal argument, plea, or countervailing proof［律］辩驳,反驳,反击

36. representation  n. a formal statement or account made in authority, esp. on order to make your opinions known or to protest陈述, 抗议

37. repudiation  n. the refusal to accept批判，回绝，拒绝

38. ruling  n. [U] an official or authoritative decision, decree, statement, or interpretation (as by a judge on a point of law)裁决，裁定，判决

39. separation-of-powers 三权分力

40. setback  n. a difficulty or problem that delays or prevents sth, or makes a situation worse挫折，挫败，阻碍

41. strip  v. to take away property or honors from sb, as a punishment剥夺，褫夺<of>

42. trial  n. the formal examination before a competent tribunal of the matter in issue in a civil or criminal cause in order to determine such issue审判，审讯

43. unaccountable  a. not having to explain or give reasons for your action to anyone无须解释的,不负责任的

44. unanimously  adv. in a way that sth is agreed or shared by everyone in a group一致同意地，无异议地

45. undermine  vt. to make sth, esp. sb’s confidence or authority, gradually weaker or less effective.逐渐削弱（信心，权威等）；使逐步减少效力

46. via  prep. by means of a particular person, system, etc.通过,凭借（某人，系统等）

47. writ  n. a legal document from a court of law telling sb to do or not to do sth (法庭的)命令状，书面命令

Proper Names

1. the Congress: the name of the group of people who are elected to make laws, in the US consisting of the SENATE and the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES（美国及其他一些国家的）国会，议会

2. the Constitution (of the United States): The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. The United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787, by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and later ratified by conventions in each state in the name of "the People"美利坚合众国宪法。当根据联邦条例组成的第一个国家政府证明不能将原来的十三州结合成一个统一的国家时，美国人民探用了现在的合众国宪法。合众国宪法是世界上最古老的国家宪法之一，一七八九年三月四日正式成为美国的基本大法。数年之后，增加了首十条宪法修正案，亦即所谓权利法案，在其后的一个半世纪中又增加了另外十多条修正案。

3. GOP: Grand Old Party, the Republican political party in the US. “老大党”，美国共和党。

4. Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: 关塔那摩，古巴东南岸加勒比海的海湾。海湾呈马蹄形，分内港与外港两部分，长20公里，宽8公里，入口处宽仅3公里，巨轮可自由出入，为世界著名的天然良港。东临向风海峡，扼大西洋进入加勒比海的通道，战略位置重要。从1903年起，关塔那摩湾的一部分被美国强占为海军基地：基地面积共117平方公里，其中港湾水面70平方公里，沿岸陆地47平方公里。港湾北岸及西岸的凯马内拉镇仍属古巴管辖。但出海须通过美军控制的地区。阿富汗战争后，美军在关塔那摩海军基地设立专门关押塔利班战俘和“基地”组织成员的集中营。2002年1月，首批塔利班战俘被押抵关塔那摩海军基地。目前，关塔那摩基地内已关押了来自40个国家的500多名恐怖嫌疑人。

5. Kuwait 科威特； Kuwaitis 科威特的，科威特人

6. Sen. Barack Obama 巴拉克·奥巴马参议员，08年美国民主党总统候选人。

7. Sen. John McCain 约翰·麦凯恩参议员，08年美国共和党总统候选人。

8. Supreme Court：the highest judicial authority of America. The Supreme Court is comprised of nine justices who are appointed to the bench for life, or until voluntary retirement. They are appointed by the President and must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. They obey the majority rules for the final decision.最高法院, 美国最高司法机关, 由九名大法官组成，他们都是终身任职制，除非他们自愿退休。他们由美国总统任命，并经美国参议院批准。终审判决采取多数原则。

9. 美国最高法院现任法官为：史格里亚(Antonin Scalia)、史帝文斯(John Paul Stevens)、首席大法官威廉?伦奎斯特(William H. Rehnquist)、奥康纳(Sandra Day O’connor)与安东尼?肯尼迪(Anthony M. Kennedy)。鲁思?金斯伯格(Ruth Bader Ginsburg)、苏特(David Hackett Souter)、克拉伦斯?托马斯(Clarence Thomas)与史蒂芬?布雷耶(Stephen G. Breyer)。

10. U.S. Court of Appeals 美国上诉法院

Questions

1.      What’re the grounds that the justices who favor the ruling, and what’s the dissenter?

2.      The ruling means that the Guantanamo Prison is force to shut down, is that right? Why?

3.      What’s the Bush administration’s intention at first to the Guantanamo Prison?

4.      What’re the candidates’ opinions?

5.      What’s your opinion to this ruling and present your reason.