It Was the Best of Habeas, It Was the Worst of Habeas: The Supreme Court gets a reality check in the Guantanamo cases.

Published: December 7, 2007, 5:43 pm

Slate Magazinesupreme court dispatchesIt Was the Best of Habeas, It Was the Worst of HabeasThe Supreme Court gets a reality check in the Guantanamo cases.By Dahlia LithwickUpdated Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2007, at 8:30 PM ET If the rule of law were a religion, habeas corpus would be the first commandment.The right to have the state justify anyone's incarceration is so fundamental dating back centuries to the Magna Carta that in this country it's protected by statute, by the Constitution, and at common law. Today's oral argument in Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States is about nothing less than whether the Bush administration's war on terror endless in its geographic reach and indefinite across time will become the instrument of the great writ's demise.The question the court must answer is whether Congress properly stripped the remaining 300-and-some detainees at Guantanamo Bay of their right to go before a neutral judge and challenge their detention. If that feels

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