Today's news that a Spanish court is mulling criminal charges against Bush administration lawyers for violating international treaties "by providing the legal framework to justify torture" should remind folks of British lawyer Phillipe Sands' warnings on Fresh Air, that signatories of the treaties banning torture are obligated by law to investigate and prosecute torturers in other countries. And in that interivew, Sands identified LiTW favorite kicking boy, John Yoo, as someone who's in especial danger of prosecution because his opinions supporting torture reek of a lawyer looking to justify an administration policy without regard to law. A big no-no.
John Yoo was named as a person of interest in the Spanish investigation.
It's embarassing, to say the least. Our government's failure to hold former government officials accountible for their reprehnsible and illegal actions is more than just an embarassment, it's dangerous. While the Obama administration appears to have backed off the more egregious policies enacted by the Bush administration, it does so of its own power. In other words, the government has stopped these policies because the president has decided to, not because the people and their representatives demanded that our laws be upheld and those that broke them be held accountible.
In short, the precedent for the unitary executive and its associated powers still exists.
