My colleague Sarah Cleveland, an expert on international human rights and foreign affairs law, has a fine, short commentary on the meaning of Monday’s Supreme Court cases here. An excerpt:

“The Supreme Court delivered a critical blow Monday to the Bush administration’s claim that the president is above the law.

“Since 9-11, the president has asserted unprecedented powers to designate citizens as ‘enemy combatants’ and detain them indefinitely, to hold noncitizens in a Constitution-free zone at Guantánamo and to establish military tribunals….

“The framers created three branches of government and divided powers, not because it was efficient — it isn’t — but because it was the best defense they knew against the concentration of excessive power in a single person….

“Courts historically have played a mixed role in maintaining the balance of constitutional power in these contexts. While our Constitution does not exempt wartime actions from legal scrutiny, modern courts have been increasingly reluctant to police the delicate balance that instrument strikes.

“The Supreme Court restored this important balance. In the court’s proudest day in recent memory, the court rejected the claim that the president has unreviewable authority to designate enemy combatants and dismissed in a paragraph the contention that such detainees have no right to counsel.”