Thursday, April 16, 2009
Jurisdiction sanity in Spain
AP reports that there will be no formal investigation by Spanish authorities as to whether six Bush administration lawyers should be indicted for war crimes related to advice they provided with regards to the treatment of prisoners at Gitmo.
Spain's Attorney General Candido Conde-Pumpido said:
"If there is a reason to file a complaint against these people, it should be done before local courts with jurisdiction, in other words in the United States."Now there's a concept -- a local court with actual jurisdiction!
The feelings expressed at Huffpo are refreshingly mixed.
The frothing desire to prosecute members of the Bush administration is notable, and even more remarkable that lawyers providing advice and counsel would be targeted first, not the actual decision makers. I am not sure, but I think the criminalization of political differences with respect to foreign policy started with the Boland Amendment (Watergate being more about domestic abuses by the POTUS), and it's been downhill since then.
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