Hamdan Redux? A Challenge to the Constitutionality of GOP’s Pro-Torture & Dictatorship Leg

Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog reports that Hamdan's case (which has been sent for rehearing to the District Court) would have a strong chance of becoming an early vehicle for testing a number of the key provisions of the "Military Commissions Act of 2006." Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the Guantanamo Bay detainee whose case led to what may be the most important Supreme Court decision in history on war powers, has a chance to make even more history. His case could bring the primary challenge to the new war-on-terrorism legislation that Congress may enact soon, perhaps by the end of the day Thursday. Hamdan's case, indeed, is already well advanced and could be unfolding further before a judge who has previously displayed deep skepticism about the Bush Administration's handling of detainees at the military prison camp in Cuba -- Judge James Robertson of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. It was Robertsoin who in November 2004 struck down President Bush's initial move to create war crimes tribunals ("military commissions"). A significant part of the judge's earlier ruling was sustained by the Supreme Court in voiding the existing tribunals in Hamdan's case last June 29 (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 05-184). Robertson was assured of a continuing role last week, when the D.C. Circuit Court summarily returned Hamdan's case to District Court, "for further proceedings."