Special Rapporteur enters the End of Mission Statement and Mandate into UN permanent records

 

This GA report supplements the End of Mission statement and puts the mandate report into the permanent record of the United Nations.

 

The link is here: https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a78520-report-special-rapporteur-promotion-and-protection-human-rights

 

It may also be useful to listen to the interventions of Member States in the interactive dialogue, a number of whom made strong statements about the necessary closure of the facility as well as reparation and remedy to those previously and currently detained there.

 

The link to the interactive dialogue is here:

 

https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1u/k1u6y61hz3

 

Some Good News UPDATED

 On April 20th of this year my last client at Guantanamo was released from the that hellhole after 21 years of detention with no charges ever filed against him. When he was released it was expected that he would be in the custody of the Algerian government for about 10 days. What was not expected, but what happened, is that the Algerian government threw him in prison. It was a fiasco that our government should have prevented - and in fact I had been assured by our state department representatives that everything was taken care of and he would be safe- but in fact the state department did not to insure Saeed's safe transfer. Now, after almost 6 months, Saeed has apparently been released. I am still trying to get confirmation on his release and also confirmation about his health- which I understand is not good.  

My thanks go out to all of the organizations that stepped in to help put pressure on my government to do the right thing- and the Algerian government to release Saeed.

And Special thanks to Fionnuala Ni Aolain the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights while Countering Terrorism and her staff  for their help in righting this wrong. 

Saeed is going to need a lot of help after the trauma of 21 years of captivity and torture. I don't expect he will get that help from my government or the Algerian government but one step at a time.

UPDATE-  true to form,  the State Department is not responding to my request for more information. However, I did learn through my own sources that yes, Saeed has been released, but unfortunately he is released pending his trial. In other words the Algerians are still planning on trying him for something or other related to his 21 year detention at Guantanamo.

From Roger Fitch and our Friends Down Under at Justinian

 

The travesty of America's judiciary

ROGER FITCH ESQ • MONDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2023

Transformation of SCOTUS ... Alito and Thomas's ethical voids ... Rorting and stacking the courts in the Red States ... Circuit mischief ... Trump judges on the loose ... Roger Fitch reports from Washington 

After Donald Trump's presidency, no US government institution, however respected, may be considered safe or immutable. 

Perhaps the most striking change has been the installation of a reactionary and theocratic majority on a rogue supreme court.

The court's new term is about to start, with grave consequences likely; with a prospect that the court may claim even more power. 

Perhaps it's time to reflect on the court's transformation under its tiresome Chief Justice John Roberts, in the years leading up to this term. In the view of the veteran court observer Linda Greenhouse, the CJ has already achieved everything he set out to do in 2005.

He had the help of justices who had all worked in Republican administrations (Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch,  Kavanaugh) or participated as loyalist Republican lawyers in Bush v Gore (Kavanaugh, Barrett).

During the CJ's early years, the sleeper cell of Sam Alito (appointed 2005) and Clarence Thomas (1991) lay low, awaiting the moment some timely death (e.g, that of Ruth Bader Ginsburg) might make them part of an originalist majority. 

The Republican Senate's refusal to confirm Obama's appointee Merrick Garland (now Biden's AG) brought forward plans, and the unexpected 2016 election of Trump fully activated the two men and their intractable rightwing agenda - witness last year's full-throated implementation by Alito of Catholic abortion policy (Dobbs), and Thomas's expansive, indeed shocking, gun decision (Bruen).

Justices Thomas and Alito both have shocking ethical standards, but the court has declined to adopt an ethics code. Alito actually claims congress has no power to legislate respecting the court, but that's clearly wrong.

Compounding his own ethics problems, Alito recently gave a controversial WSJ interview refuting a yet-unpublished Pro Publica article about him. The interviewer? A lawyer with business before the court. 

Alito: enforcing Catholic abortion policy on the court 

Thomas's ethics offences are even greater, and arguably impeachable. 

One law prof's suggestion: a declaratory judgment of violations under the federal recusal statute, to "clarify for the voters whether they should accord legitimacy to the high court". 

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READ THE REST HERE.