Prosecute the Lawyers Too, not only the high officials of the US government, but also the lawyers

Prosecute the Lawyers Too

JURIST
Contributing Editor Marjorie Cohn of Thomas Jefferson School of Law
says in this excerpt from her recent testimony [PDF] to the US House
Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and
Civil Liberties that not only the high officials of the US government,
but also the lawyers who advised them, should be investigated and
prosecuted for their roles in misusing the rule of law and legal
analysis to justify torture and other crimes...

What
does torture have in common with genocide, slavery, and wars of
aggression? They are all jus cogens. That’s Latin for "higher law" or
"compelling law." This means that no country can ever pass a law that
allows torture. There can be no immunity from criminal liability for
violation of a jus cogens prohibition.

The United States has
always prohibited torture in our Constitution, laws, executive
statements, judicial decisions, and treaties. When the U.S. ratifies a
treaty, it becomes part of American law under the Supremacy Clause of
the Constitution.

The Convention Against Torture and Other
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, says, "No
exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a
threat of war, internal political instability or any other public
emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture."

Whether someone is a POW or not, he must always be treated humanely; there are no gaps in the Geneva Conventions.

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