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The Constitution Supersedes Treaties

By Jacob Freeze, Section Diaries
Posted on Tue May 26, 2009 at 03:09:23 PM EST
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Now that apologists for Obama are trying to justify his plans for indefinite "preventive detention" with a perverted application of the Geneva Conventions' allowance for detaining prisoners of war for the duration of a war, and some especially devoted Obamabots are even claiming that international treaties like the Geneva Conventions supersede the Constitution, and can accordingly over-rule the due process provisions of the Bill of Rights, it's probably worth recalling that the Supreme Court has already definitively ruled against this ludicrous interpretation of Article VI of the Constitution in Reid v. Covert.

The majority opinion in Reid v. Covert is clear enough...

The United States is entirely [354 U.S. 1, 6] a creature of the Constitution. Its power and authority have no other source. It can only act in accordance with all the limitations imposed by the Constitution.

(Quoting Article VI, Clause 2...)

 "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land . . . "

There is nothing in this language which intimates that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution.

Nor is there anything in the debates which accompanied the drafting and ratification of the Constitution which even suggests such a result.

"The United States is entirely a creature of the Constitution. It can only act in accordance with all the limitations imposed by the Constitution."

I can't imagine how this language could be any clearer.

It's also probably worth mentioning that no Declaration of War has been voted by the Congress, and therefore the United States is not at war, as defined by the Constitution.

The detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere are not "prisoners of war." They are simply the victims of a rogue executive branch of the United States government, which has illegally abrogated and continues to abrogate the due process provisions of the United States Constitution.


 

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    The Constitution Supersedes Treaties | 1 comment (1 topical)

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    The Constitution Supersedes Treaties (5.00 / 1) (#1)
    by THE PHOENIX on Wed Jun 03, 2009 at 12:27:24 AM EST
    I am on disability now but I was an everyday worker with a paralegal investigator background. So I sort of have a foot in both camps. As I read legal professionals and learned more from a foundation of 'The Rule Of Law', I couldn't understand how your fundamental  "right to sue" could be signed away in a treaty. I asked myself where are all of these people in Congress and the Executive branch at. Not to mention law schools and constitutional law professors. As I observe all this and talk to every day people, were no longer big bad ass Americans,  but stupid, dumb ass Americans and cowards and traitors at that. Were all selling out, without firing a shot. How pitiful!    /s/Fred Mauney ...The Phoenix

    The Constitution Supersedes Treaties | 1 comment (1 topical)

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