You're absolutely right. Broadly speaking, most of continental Europe uses a legal system ultimately based on Roman law, some through the Napoleonic code of 1804, others through the German BGB of 1900.
In our own system, habeas corpus is an extremely complex area of law ill-suited to simplistic ideological sloganeering by laymen; part of it is mandated by the Constitution and part of it was created by Congress by statute; the part created by Congress can be modified or repealed by Congress. All of habeas corpus law (both constitutional and statutory) is in turn subject to interpretation by the courts and the executive branch. Habeas corpus has historically been applied only to routine crimes like murder, rape and robbery, not acts of war.
This is ultimately the fulcrum of the current ideological dispute over habeas corpus: is terrorism a criminal act or an act of war? Or, more precisely, how much authority does the executive branch have to label certain violent conspiracies and actions as acts of war? The legal and historical precedents give Presidents wide latitude in this area, regardless of whether most laymen or even lawyers are aware of them. The important case in this area is called Ex parte Quirin, aka the 1942 German saboteurs case. The Supreme Court upheld an assertion of authority by FDR and Secretary of War Stimson over unlawful combatants far more sweeping than anything ever attempted by the Bush administration (i.e., the Court upheld the death penalty imposed by a military commission on an American citizen captured on U.S. soil and held as an enemy combatant with no habeas corpus or resort to a civilian trial).
This decision is still good law, and provides a framework for understanding the full extent of the executive branch's available authority for dealing with terrorism, regardless of whether George Bush is a popular President (or even a nice man) and notwithstanding the hysterical and poorly-informed commentary in the media and on websites.
Too many absurd whoppers to count, much less refute: "habeus (sic) corpus is a fundamental component of Western law". Don't let any lawyers from France or Sweden hear you, to pick just two advanced Western nations of many where the concept doesn't exist. Watching computer geeks comment on constitutional law and criminal procedure is like listening to a group of hairdressers talk about football.
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You're absolutely right. Broadly speaking, most of continental Europe uses a legal system ultimately based on Roman law, some through the Napoleonic code of 1804, others through the German BGB of 1900. In our own system, habeas corpus is an extremely complex area of law ill-suited to simplistic ideological sloganeering by laymen; part of it is mandated by the Constitution and part of it was created by Congress by statute; the part created by Congress can be modified or repealed by Congress. All of habeas corpus law (both constitutional and statutory) is in turn subject to interpretation by the courts and the executive branch. Habeas corpus has historically been applied only to routine crimes like murder, rape and robbery, not acts of war. This is ultimately the fulcrum of the current ideological dispute over habeas corpus: is terrorism a criminal act or an act of war? Or, more precisely, how much authority does the executive branch have to label certain violent conspiracies and actions as acts of war? The legal and historical precedents give Presidents wide latitude in this area, regardless of whether most laymen or even lawyers are aware of them. The important case in this area is called Ex parte Quirin, aka the 1942 German saboteurs case. The Supreme Court upheld an assertion of authority by FDR and Secretary of War Stimson over unlawful combatants far more sweeping than anything ever attempted by the Bush administration (i.e., the Court upheld the death penalty imposed by a military commission on an American citizen captured on U.S. soil and held as an enemy combatant with no habeas corpus or resort to a civilian trial). This decision is still good law, and provides a framework for understanding the full extent of the executive branch's available authority for dealing with terrorism, regardless of whether George Bush is a popular President (or even a nice man) and notwithstanding the hysterical and poorly-informed commentary in the media and on websites.
Too many absurd whoppers to count, much less refute: "habeus (sic) corpus is a fundamental component of Western law". Don't let any lawyers from France or Sweden hear you, to pick just two advanced Western nations of many where the concept doesn't exist. Watching computer geeks comment on constitutional law and criminal procedure is like listening to a group of hairdressers talk about football.