Justice Ginsberg talks to Mike Wallace about presidential powers

[Rose Siding]

From the interview:

"The court decided against an administration plan to establish military tribunals to try a suspected al Qaeda member," Wallace says. "The administration asked that the court not second guess it in the middle of a war. And you did."

"The Court did not decide whether the plan was a good plan or a bad plan," Ginsburg says. "The question before us was, 'Good, bad or indifferent, did the President have the authority to do this on his own?' And the decision was that this is a shared responsibility.

"It's not that one branch of government can seize power all by itself. The lawmakers, the people's elected representatives, have to pass on such a program. The court also said that we are bound by certain international treaties. The most important one being we treat people with humanity," Ginsburg says.

She says she agrees with former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who wrote that a state of war does not give a president a blank check.

"In this country, we have no royalty. We have no king who has absolute authority," Ginsburg says.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/01/sunday/main2054138_page2.shtml

When the new law is challenged, the court will be dealing directly with habaes corpus. I can't help but remember Souter's excited "Now wait a minute- The writ is the writ!" and "jurisdiction over habeas corpus is jurisdiction over habeas corpus" when the government lawyers touched upon the subject in Hamdan.

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

1. "In this country, we have no royalty. no king who has absolute authority"

Is she still living in the same country as me?