{"id":1344,"date":"2007-11-06T20:55:31","date_gmt":"2007-11-06T20:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/voxnova\/2007\/11\/06\/mukasey-torture-and-the-separation-of-powers\/"},"modified":"2007-11-06T20:55:31","modified_gmt":"2007-11-06T20:55:31","slug":"mukasey-torture-and-the-separation-of-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/voxnova\/2007\/11\/06\/mukasey-torture-and-the-separation-of-powers\/","title":{"rendered":"Mukasey, torture, and the separation of powers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This\u00a0Commonweal <\/em>editorial (\u201cTorture\u2019s Enablers\u201d),\u00a0link<\/a>, raises a number of important questions.\u00a0 I hope that what follows will not be misunderstood as reflecting a failure, or a refusal, to take these questions very seriously.\u00a0 That said, I believe the editorial proceeds from at least one mistaken premise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The editorial states, \u201c[i]n his testimony [Judge] Mukasey suggested that the president\u2019s duty to defend the country overrides his duty to obey the law. That is a perverse, almost monarchical interpretation of the executive branch\u2019s role.\u201d\u00a0 Such a suggestion would <\/em>be perverse \u2014 or, more precisely, it would be mistaken as a matter of constitutional law.\u00a0 But, Judge Mukasey did not, in his testimony, endorse or propose the notion that \u201cthe president\u2019s duty to defend the country overrides his duty to obey the law.\u201d\u00a0 Here is the transcript<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The precise question of constitutional law at issue, as I see it, is not whether the President must obey \u201cthe law\u201d.\u00a0 Of course (I think) he must.\u00a0 The question is whether \u201cthe law\u201d which the President must obey is always and no matter what whatever Congress says \u201cthe law\u201d is.\u00a0 It is an entirely unremarkable \u2014 and, with all due respect, not at all \u201cmonarchical\u201d \u2014 proposition of constitutional law that the Constitution vests the executive power in the President, and not in the Congress.\u00a0 The challenge, of course \u2014 one that has absorbed for a long, long time the full attention of the very best public-law scholars \u2014 is to identify the content and bounds of the power the Constitution vests in the President and also of the power \u2014 i.e., the legislative power \u2014 that the Constitution vests in the Congress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To be sure, responsible and reasonable people can and do disagree about the scope of the powers that the Constitution vests in the President and in Congress.\u00a0 Certainly, it is entirely possible that this Administration\u2019s understanding of the scope of its power \u2014 and, therefore, of the scope of Congress\u2019s power \u2014 is mistaken.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To observe that there are limits on Congress\u2019s ability to bind the Executive \u2014 as Judge Mukasey did, and as we all should \u2014 is not to \u201cenable\u201d, in a culpable way, torture.\u00a0 I certainly hope the editors at Commonweal \u2014 <\/em>whom I respect, of course \u2014 did not mean to suggest the contrary, i.e., to claim that to note, as Mukasey did, that there are limits on Congress\u2019s ability to bind the Executive, and to accept the structural features of our Constitution, one of which is that the executive power is vested in the President, is to culpably \u201cenable\u201d torture.\u00a0 That the President may abuse the power he has does not mean \u2014 it should not mean, to lawyers \u2014 that he therefore does not, in fact, have that power.\u00a0 It does mean, of course, that he should be criticized, even condemned, for misusing it.\u00a0 It seems crucial to me that we distinguish structural questions about how power is, in fact, allocated from our moral critique of the exercises, and misuses, of power.\u00a0 The fact that the structural principle of separation of powers \u201cenables\u201d Presidents to misuse power \u2014 and, to the extent the Administration has exercised power in order to authorize, facilitate, or engage in torture it has, of course, grossly abused power \u2014 no more tarnishes that principle, it seems to me, than the misuse of the Fourteenth Amendment to constitutionalize abortion-on-demand tarnishes the Amendment\u2019s due-process guarantee.<\/p>\n

Now, is any of this \u201cCatholic\u201d, or relevant to our project here at Vox Nova?\u00a0\u00a0Maybe.\u00a0 The insight that the structure of government is intimately and importantly connected to authentic human freedom and flourishing seems quite at home (see, e.g., \u201csubsidiarity\u201d) in the Catholic intellectual tradition.\u00a0 Our federal government has a structure, and respect for that structure is, for us, a dimension of respect for the rule of law.\u00a0 Now, even within this structure, Congress does <\/em>have the power to give effect to its judgment that the Administration is acting rashly, unwisely, even immorally, with respect to interrogations, detention, etc.\u00a0 Perhaps we should ask, why, exactly, is Congress failing to exercise that power?\u00a0 It could, for example, use the power of the purse to induce changes in policy, more transparency, and so on.\u00a0 But, perhaps out of fear of political backlash, the Congress is not doing this.\u00a0 If so, then perhaps it is not only the President who is misusing power.<\/p>\n

Finally, it should go without saying, but I will say it anyway, so that there will be no misunderstanding:\u00a0 I share the view<\/a> of the editors at Commonweal<\/em> that \u201cwaterboarding\u201d is immoral; as described, it certainly seems to me to fit any plausible definition of \u201ctorture.\u201d\u00a0 Like the editors, I think it is tragic and awful that \u201cthe United States, once widely hailed as a champion of human rights, is now seen as a nation that tortures.\u201d\u00a0 (The United States remains, <\/em>I think, a \u201cchampion of human rights\u201d, in many, many ways; but, the perception that the United States is not fully respecting human rights \u2014 even though it does respect them to a degree that far exceeds almost every other country \u2014 does, obviously, undermine its ability to effectively champion human rights.)\u00a0 And, I am not endorsing the more extravagant claims that some have proposed regarding the scope and bounds of executive power.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This\u00a0Commonweal editorial (\u201cTorture\u2019s Enablers\u201d),\u00a0link, raises a number of important questions.\u00a0 I hope that what follows will not be misunderstood as reflecting a failure, or a refusal, to take these questions very seriously.\u00a0 That said, I believe the editorial proceeds from at least one mistaken premise.\u00a0 The editorial states, \u201c[i]n his testimony [Judge] Mukasey suggested that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2958,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rick-garnett","category-torture"],"yoast_head":"\nMukasey, torture, and the separation of powers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This\u00a0Commonweal editorial ("Torture's Enablers"),\u00a0link, raises a number of important questions.\u00a0 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