American Criminal Justice and Terrorists - Essay Example

American Criminal Justice and Terrorists "A Democratic freedom-loving society does not accept that investigators use any means for the purpose of uncovering the truth. At times, the price of truth is so high that a democratic society is not prepared to pay it." - Israeli Supreme Court as quoted by Mr Larry D Thompson1President Bush substantiated the statement made by the Israeli Supreme Court in his interview with the New York Times2," torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to other countries that do torture".

To what extent this is true has been contended in many articles by Times itself and later by a number of magazines. The cases of Arar3 and an estimated one hundred and fifty people are testimonies to the American Secret Extraordinary Rendition program. American legal system does not allow torture but then every terrorist or suspected terrorist undergoes torture of multiple varieties to a varying degree by the American Law Enforcement. This has gathered momentum and sanctity after the declaration of the global war against terror.

The law does not allow physical power to force a terrorist to give out the secrets that he or she might be withholding. Whether it is the special purpose jails like Guantanamo Bay in Cuba or some many others elsewhere, it has been held invalid by various courts simply because no charges were filed on many of them. If the cases were to go to Military tribunals, violence could become the way of life.On 29 June 2006, the US Supreme Court4 ruled that the Guantanamo prisoners can not be tried by military tribunals.

This was a land mark judgment and a major setback to the Bush Government. This also upholds the fact that the courts are having a different idea when it comes to trying the terrorists or as the US Government calls them, 'unlawful combatants'. And the courts find it 'hurting their conscience' when confessions are taken from people unethically, using torture which is either locally manufactured or outsourced. Whenever the cases come up to the courts of law, it has been found that the courts respond positively and have protected human rights up to the appropriate degree.

Whereas there is an ongoing and continued assault on this process of moving the court for prosecuting the terrorists, so much so that the congress has passed and approved tribunals under Detainee Treatment Act in December 2005. Since the words were not explicit, the Supreme Court ruled that the wordings need to be more explicit to ensure that the tribunals process the anti terrorist proceedings. Let us not forget that though the government has to protect its citizens, it is also important that they protect people from getting prosecuted wrongly under its own wings.

This human rights issue is what needs to be looked into and protected. This cannot be done by military tribunals since they are on most occasions, unilateral. This is no Nuremberg and there is no large anti human behavior that necessitates such large steps from the government which could endanger fundamental human rights.