Vote totals:
Yes:
50%
No:
50%
Neutral:
0%
DEBATE: WILL PRISONERS IN GUANTANAMO RECEIVE A FAIR TRIAL?
WILL PRISONERS IN GUANTANAMO RECEIVE A FAIR TRIAL?
They will have full due process and defence lawyers
The prisoners at Guantanamo will receive more fairness than they ever gave their victims. They will have lawyers and due process and their trial will be covered in the press. This will not be a behind-closed-doors event but something held up to the light as an example of how America reacts even when it has been done wrong.
Things have been hidden at Guantanamo for so long that to claim their trial will be open and transparent is highly disingenuous. Moreover, the prisoners have not had access to lawyers for months prior to their trial and have been held in situations which make their brain rot. They are not in a fit state to be able to defend themselves against the crimes they are accused of. Rather than this trial showing the world how fair America is it shows how dictatorial, vicious and opaque the country has become under Bush.
WILL PRISONERS IN GUANTANAMO RECEIVE A FAIR TRIAL?
They will have the right of appeal
Any defendant will always have the right to appeal against any judgement brought down against them. If necessary, they could take their case all the way to the Supreme Court. It is very difficult to imagine that they could go all the way through this process and not get a fair trial at least somewhere along the way.
Unfortunately, the law is an ass. The legal system does not have all the checks and balances it needs and the Supreme Court has been stuffed full of Bush, right-wing, judges. As a result, the verdict might not be what’s fair but what the legal system needs in order to be able to justify itself to the American public.
WILL PRISONERS IN GUANTANAMO RECEIVE A FAIR TRIAL?
They’ve been tortured
The judges will decide what is and is not admissible. These judges will have the highest ethical standards and will not want the law itself – or their own reputations for that matter- to come into disrepute. Therefore, they will not allow the admission of evidence gained from torture or similar methods. Instead they will let the facts and confessions speak for themselves.
The Director of the CIA, Michael Hayden, recently admitted that at least one of the alleged leaders of the plot has been waterboarded. That being so, any evidence gained from their investigation cannot be admissible – or is at the very least tainted. One of the most basic forms of law is that evidence cannot be gained under duress, and the Guantanamo six have been under enormous amounts of that. The world will see and hear this ‘evidence’ but will they be able to detect the subtle nuances between that gained through lawful methods and that which was not.
WILL PRISONERS IN GUANTANAMO RECEIVE A FAIR TRIAL?
These are show trials
America needs justice. The reason no-one has yet been held to account is because they have been supplying incredibly useful information about the leaders of al-Qaeda and their plans. They have now given up all they can and the time has come for America to right the incredible wrong it was done by punishing those responsible.
America needs to find someone to blame. It’s been seven years since the attacks in 2001 and not a single person has been held to account for their crimes. The anger in America is palpable and many are calling for blood. The simple desire for vengeance will render it impossible to treat the accused with any measure of fairness. They have been found guilty before the first piece of evidence has been submitted.
