Fundamental rights

AS PRESIDENT Bush purports to export democracy to Iraq and other nations, he continues to deny it at home. He gained the support this week of six Supreme Court justices, who refused to hear the appeals of 45 detainees at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba. Each of the 45 has been held prisoner for more than five years without a criminal charge, and without legal protections that have been treasured by Americans as fundamental for 215 years.

There are about 385 detainees still at Guantanamo. Perhaps three dozen were Taliban foot soldiers , but many of the rest have no credible evidence against them that they did or do represent any danger to the United States. Many are in prison because they were captured by Afghans or Pakistanis and turned in for sizeable bounties. Their culpability is in no way affirmed by the fact that a handful of Al Qaeda operatives has now been transferred in from secret prisons, so that Guantanamo does now contain some genuine terrorists.

Hundreds held as "enemy combatants" have been released after unconscionable periods of imprisonment without charge. But even with the reduced population, every day that goes by means that those still jailed, cumulatively, are serving more than a year of torment. Every month means 30 years.

Here is the Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution:

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury . . . and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense."

The Guantanamo detainees have none of these protections -- least of all the right to a speedy trial. The fact that the Bush Pentagon has men rotting in cells for years at a time, with no charge placed against them, is a continuing national disgrace.

According to the Bush administration, there is no constitutional violation because, as enemy combatants, they have no constitutional rights, not even the right to challenge their designation as enemy combatants. This Catch-22 was validated this week by the Supreme Court's refusal, at least for now, to take up a challenge to the limited review provided by Congress in the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 . Two justices, John Paul Stevens and Anthony Kennedy, apparently unmoved by the speedy trial admonition, indicated they might consider the challenge once limited appeals under the act are exhausted.

The far better response is for Congress to rewrite that law promptly, granting prisoners the right to know and challenge the basis for their detention. Further delay is a blight on America's reputation, and conscience.