“You have the right to remain silent. Anything
you say will be taken in evidence, and may be used
against you in a court of law. You have the right to
an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be
appointed for you. Do you understand these rights?”
There is a reason that apprehended suspects are
informed of these rights at the point of arrest. The
first thing that they are informed of is their privilege
against self-incrimination. They have a right to
remain silent, ie. they are not obliged to say anything
that may incriminate them and be used against them
in court. Why? Because a fundamental building block
of our criminal jurisprudence is the presumption of
innocence. In a democracy, everybody is innocent
until proven guilty. They have a right to an open
trial before a jury of their peers, and their guilt must
be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. That is the
basic rubric under which our criminal justice system
functions and it is the result of the evolution of legal
doctrine over nearly 800 years.
Enter Bradley Manning – the US army private who
allegedly leaked US government documents to Julian
Assange’s Wikileaks. A pre-trial hearing recently
concluded in a military courtroom in Fort Meade,
Maryland. Divulging state secrets is of course a
crime, of which he may indeed be convicted. Many
have argued that Manning’s actions were those
of a conscientious objector, laying the truth bare
before the world so that we can all make our own
minds up. The case is reminiscent of that of Daniel
Ellsberg, the legendary whistleblower behind the
“Pentagon Papers” saga, who released a top-secret
Pentagon study of US government decision-making
in relation to the Vietnam war. Ellsberg has come to
be regarded as a man of uncommon courage, who put
his own safety at risk in order to expose government
malfeasance.
Regardless of the details of the particular case, it is
clear that the manner in which Manning has been
treated since his arrest marks a departure from the
legal doctrine that has evolved since Magna Carta.
Manning was arrested on May 26th, 2010. For much
of that time, he was kept in solitary confinement.
Much of the testimony at the pre-trial hearing
concerned the conditions in which his was held. It
was argued that the conditions were tantamount to
torture.
This lapse in democratic standards is an extension of
the flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention that
first began in Guantanamo Bay.
Guantanamo could be viewed as solely a George
W. Bush project. It is now clear that Bush lied
about weapons of mass destruction, and hence,
is responsible for the calamity in Iraq, a massive
loss of innocent life and the havoc that was
wrought thereafter. The suspension of the legal
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