In the narrowest of decisions, the US Supreme Court signaled the end of empire and return of the republic by rejecting the disregard of the Bush Administration of the time-honored principle of Habeas Corpus.

Justice Kennedy wrote that the Constitution’s authors “deemed the writ to be an essential mechanism in the separation-of-powers scheme” and that the mechanism they included for suspending habeas “protects the rights of the detained by a means consistent with the essential design of the Constitution. It ensures that, except during periods of formal suspension, the Judiciary will have a time-tested device, the writ, to maintain the ‘delicate balance of governance’ that is itself the surest safeguard of liberty.”